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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promised Land, by Mary Antin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Promised Land
+
+Author: Mary Antin
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2007 [EBook #20885]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROMISED LAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original     |
+    | document have been preserved.                             |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this  |
+    | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this     |
+    | document.                                                 |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+   [Illustration: MASHKE AND FETCHKE]
+
+
+
+
+                             THE
+                        PROMISED LAND
+
+                        BY MARY ANTIN
+
+
+                      WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+                       FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
+
+
+                        [Illustration]
+
+
+                     BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+                   HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+                The Riverside Press Cambridge
+                             1912
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1911 AND 1912, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
+         COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+                    _Published April 1912_
+
+
+
+
+                       To the Memory of
+                      JOSEPHINE LAZARUS
+                 Who lives in the fulfilment
+                      of her prophecies
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       INTRODUCTION                                       xi
+
+    I. WITHIN THE PALE                                     1
+
+   II. CHILDREN OF THE LAW                                29
+
+  III. BOTH THEIR HOUSES                                  42
+
+   IV. DAILY BREAD                                        60
+
+    V. I REMEMBER                                         79
+
+   VI. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE                             111
+
+  VII. THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH                            137
+
+ VIII. THE EXODUS                                        163
+
+   IX. THE PROMISED LAND                                 180
+
+    X. INITIATION                                        206
+
+   XI. "MY COUNTRY"                                      222
+
+  XII. MIRACLES                                          241
+
+ XIII. A CHILD'S PARADISE                                252
+
+  XIV. MANNA                                             264
+
+   XV. TARNISHED LAURELS                                 276
+
+  XVI. DOVER STREET                                      286
+
+ XVII. THE LANDLADY                                      301
+
+XVIII. THE BURNING BUSH                                  321
+
+  XIX. A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS                            337
+
+   XX. THE HERITAGE                                      359
+
+       ACKNOWLEDGMENTS                                   365
+
+       GLOSSARY                                          367
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+MASHKE AND FETCHKE                                 _Frontispiece_
+
+THE GRAVE-DIGGER OF POLOTZK                                    24
+
+HEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL) FOR BOYS IN POLOTZK                      34
+
+THE WOOD MARKET, POLOTZK                                       52
+
+MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT                                           70
+
+MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, WHERE I WAS BORN                       80
+
+THE MEAT MARKET, POLOTZK                                       98
+
+SABBATH LOAVES FOR SALE (BREAD MARKET, POLOTZK)               124
+
+WINTER SCENE ON THE DVINA                                     144
+
+UNION PLACE (BOSTON) WHERE MY NEW HOME WAITED FOR ME          184
+
+TWOSCORE OF MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--PUBLIC SCHOOL, CHELSEA        230
+
+WHEELER STREET, IN THE LOWER SOUTH END OF BOSTON              264
+
+HARRISON AVENUE IS THE HEART OF THE SOUTH END GHETTO          288
+
+I LIKED TO STAND AND LOOK DOWN ON THE DIM TANGLE OF
+  RAILROAD TRACKS BELOW                                       298
+
+THE NATURAL HISTORY CLUB HAD FREQUENT FIELD EXCURSIONS        328
+
+BATES HALL, WHERE I SPENT MY LONGEST HOURS IN THE
+  LIBRARY                                                     342
+
+THE FAMOUS STUDY, THAT WAS FIT TO HAVE BEEN PRESERVED AS A
+  SHRINE                                                      346
+
+THE TIDE HAD RUSHED IN, STEALING AWAY OUR SEAWEED
+  CUSHIONS                                                    362
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I was born, I have lived, and I have been made over. Is it not time to
+write my life's story? I am just as much out of the way as if I were
+dead, for I am absolutely other than the person whose story I have to
+tell. Physical continuity with my earlier self is no disadvantage. I
+could speak in the third person and not feel that I was masquerading.
+I can analyze my subject, I can reveal everything; for _she_, and not
+_I_, is my real heroine. My life I have still to live; her life ended
+when mine began.
+
+A generation is sometimes a more satisfactory unit for the study of
+humanity than a lifetime; and spiritual generations are as easy to
+demark as physical ones. Now I am the spiritual offspring of the
+marriage within my conscious experience of the Past and the Present.
+My second birth was no less a birth because there was no distinct
+incarnation. Surely it has happened before that one body served more
+than one spiritual organization. Nor am I disowning my father and
+mother of the flesh, for they were also partners in the generation of
+my second self; copartners with my entire line of ancestors. They gave
+me body, so that I have eyes like my father's and hair like my
+mother's. The spirit also they gave me, so that I reason like my
+father and endure like my mother. But did they set me down in a
+sheltered garden, where the sun should warm me, and no winter should
+hurt, while they fed me from their hands? No; they early let me run in
+the fields--perhaps because I would not be held--and eat of the wild
+fruits and drink of the dew. Did they teach me from books, and tell me
+what to believe? I soon chose my own books, and built me a world of my
+own.
+
+In these discriminations _I_ emerged, a new being, something that had
+not been before. And when I discovered my own friends, and ran home
+with them to convert my parents to a belief in their excellence, did I
+not begin to make my father and mother, as truly as they had ever made
+me? Did I not become the parent and they the children, in those
+relations of teacher and learner? And so I can say that there has been
+more than one birth of myself, and I can regard my earlier self as a
+separate being, and make it a subject of study.
+
+A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so
+much work to do that he has no time to contemplate his yesterdays; for
+to-day and to-morrow are here, with their impatient tasks. The world
+is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man's unfinished
+work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs
+masterpieces. Still there are circumstances by which a man is
+justified in pausing in the middle of his life to contemplate the
+years already passed. One who has completed early in life a distinct
+task may stop to give an account of it. One who has encountered
+unusual adventures under vanishing conditions may pause to describe
+them before passing into the stable world. And perhaps he also might
+be given an early hearing, who, without having ventured out of the
+familiar paths, without having achieved any signal triumph, has lived
+his simple life so intensely, so thoughtfully, as to have discovered
+in his own experience an interpretation of the universal life.
+
+I am not yet thirty, counting in years, and I am writing my life
+history. Under which of the above categories do I find my
+justification? I have not accomplished anything, I have not discovered
+anything, not even by accident, as Columbus discovered America. My
+life has been unusual, but by no means unique. And this is the very
+core of the matter. It is because I understand my history, in its
+larger outlines, to be typical of many, that I consider it worth
+recording. My life is a concrete illustration of a multitude of
+statistical facts. Although I have written a genuine personal memoir,
+I believe that its chief interest lies in the fact that it is
+illustrative of scores of unwritten lives. I am only one of many whose
+fate it has been to live a page of modern history. We are the strands
+of the cable that binds the Old World to the New. As the ships that
+brought us link the shores of Europe and America, so our lives span
+the bitter sea of racial differences and misunderstandings. Before we
+came, the New World knew not the Old; but since we have begun to come,
+the Young World has taken the Old by the hand, and the two are
+learning to march side by side, seeking a common destiny.
+
+Perhaps I have taken needless trouble to furnish an excuse for my
+autobiography. My age alone, my true age, would be reason enough for
+my writing. I began life in the Middle Ages, as I shall prove, and
+here am I still, your contemporary in the twentieth century, thrilling
+with your latest thought.
+
+Had I no better excuse for writing, I still might be driven to it by
+my private needs. It is in one sense a matter of my personal
+salvation. I was at a most impressionable age when I was transplanted
+to the new soil. I was in that period when even normal children,
+undisturbed in their customary environment, begin to explore their own
+hearts, and endeavor to account for themselves and their world. And my
+zest for self-exploration seems not to have been distracted by the
+necessity of exploring a new outer universe. I embarked on a double
+voyage of discovery, and an exciting life it was! I took note of
+everything. I could no more keep my mind from the shifting, changing
+landscape than an infant can keep his eyes from the shining candle
+moved across his field of vision. Thus everything impressed itself on
+my memory, and with double associations; for I was constantly
+referring my new world to the old for comparison, and the old to the
+new for elucidation. I became a student and philosopher by force of
+circumstances.
+
+Had I been brought to America a few years earlier, I might have
+written that in such and such a year my father emigrated, just as I
+would state what he did for a living, as a matter of family history.
+Happening when it did, the emigration became of the most vital
+importance to me personally. All the processes of uprooting,
+transportation, replanting, acclimatization, and development took
+place in my own soul. I felt the pang, the fear, the wonder, and the
+joy of it. I can never forget, for I bear the scars. But I want to
+forget--sometimes I long to forget. I think I have thoroughly
+assimilated my past--I have done its bidding--I want now to be of
+to-day. It is painful to be consciously of two worlds. The Wandering
+Jew in me seeks forgetfulness. I am not afraid to live on and on, if
+only I do not have to remember too much. A long past vividly
+remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you
+would run. And I have thought of a charm that should release me from
+the folds of my clinging past. I take the hint from the Ancient
+Mariner, who told his tale in order to be rid of it. I, too, will tell
+my tale, for once, and never hark back any more. I will write a bold
+"Finis" at the end, and shut the book with a bang!
+
+
+
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WITHIN THE PALE
+
+
+When I was a little girl, the world was divided into two parts;
+namely, Polotzk, the place where I lived, and a strange land called
+Russia. All the little girls I knew lived in Polotzk, with their
+fathers and mothers and friends. Russia was the place where one's
+father went on business. It was so far off, and so many bad things
+happened there, that one's mother and grandmother and grown-up aunts
+cried at the railroad station, and one was expected to be sad and
+quiet for the rest of the day, when the father departed for Russia.
+
+After a while there came to my knowledge the existence of another
+division, a region intermediate between Polotzk and Russia. It seemed
+there was a place called Vitebsk, and one called Vilna, and Riga, and
+some others. From those places came photographs of uncles and cousins
+one had never seen, and letters, and sometimes the uncles themselves.
+These uncles were just like people in Polotzk; the people in Russia,
+one understood, were very different. In answer to one's questions, the
+visiting uncles said all sorts of silly things, to make everybody
+laugh; and so one never found out why Vitebsk and Vilna, since they
+were not Polotzk, were not as sad as Russia. Mother hardly cried at
+all when the uncles went away.
+
+One time, when I was about eight years old, one of my grown-up
+cousins went to Vitebsk. Everybody went to see her off, but I didn't.
+I went with her. I was put on the train, with my best dress tied up in
+a bandana, and I stayed on the train for hours and hours, and came to
+Vitebsk. I could not tell, as we rushed along, where the end of
+Polotzk was. There were a great many places on the way, with strange
+names, but it was very plain when we got to Vitebsk.
+
+The railroad station was a big place, much bigger than the one in
+Polotzk. Several trains came in at once, instead of only one. There
+was an immense buffet, with fruits and confections, and a place where
+books were sold. My cousin never let go my hand, on account of the
+crowd. Then we rode in a cab for ever so long, and I saw the most
+beautiful streets and shops and houses, much bigger and finer than any
+in Polotzk.
+
+We remained in Vitebsk several days, and I saw many wonderful things,
+but what gave me my one great surprise was something that wasn't new
+at all. It was the river--the river Dvina. Now the Dvina is in
+Polotzk. All my life I had seen the Dvina. How, then, could the Dvina
+be in Vitebsk? My cousin and I had come on the train, but everybody
+knew that a train could go everywhere, even to Russia. It became clear
+to me that the Dvina went on and on, like a railroad track, whereas I
+had always supposed that it stopped where Polotzk stopped. I had never
+seen the end of Polotzk; I meant to, when I was bigger. But how could
+there be an end to Polotzk now? Polotzk was everything on both sides
+of the Dvina, as all my life I had known; and the Dvina, it now turned
+out, never broke off at all. It was very curious that the Dvina should
+remain the same, while Polotzk changed into Vitebsk!
+
+The mystery of this transmutation led to much fruitful thinking. The
+boundary between Polotzk and the rest of the world was not, as I had
+supposed, a physical barrier, like the fence which divided our garden
+from the street. The world went like this now: Polotzk--more
+Polotzk--more Polotzk--Vitebsk! And Vitebsk was not so different, only
+bigger and brighter and more crowded. And Vitebsk was not the end. The
+Dvina, and the railroad, went on beyond Vitebsk,--went on to Russia.
+Then was Russia more Polotzk? Was here also no dividing fence? How I
+wanted to see Russia! But very few people went there. When people went
+to Russia it was a sign of trouble; either they could not make a
+living at home, or they were drafted for the army, or they had a
+lawsuit. No, nobody went to Russia for pleasure. Why, in Russia lived
+the Czar, and a great many cruel people; and in Russia were the
+dreadful prisons from which people never came back.
+
+Polotzk and Vitebsk were now bound together by the continuity of the
+earth, but between them and Russia a formidable barrier still
+interposed. I learned, as I grew older, that much as Polotzk disliked
+to go to Russia, even more did Russia object to letting Polotzk come.
+People from Polotzk were sometimes turned back before they had
+finished their business, and often they were cruelly treated on the
+way. It seemed there were certain places in Russia--St. Petersburg,
+and Moscow, and Kiev--where my father or my uncle or my neighbor must
+never come at all, no matter what important things invited them. The
+police would seize them and send them back to Polotzk, like wicked
+criminals, although they had never done any wrong.
+
+It was strange enough that my relatives should be treated like this,
+but at least there was this excuse for sending them back to Polotzk,
+that they belonged there. For what reason were people driven out of
+St. Petersburg and Moscow who had their homes in those cities, and had
+no other place to go to? Ever so many people, men and women and even
+children, came to Polotzk, where they had no friends, with stories of
+cruel treatment in Russia; and although they were nobody's relatives,
+they were taken in, and helped, and set up in business, like
+unfortunates after a fire.
+
+It was very strange that the Czar and the police should want all
+Russia for themselves. It was a very big country; it took many days
+for a letter to reach one's father in Russia. Why might not everybody
+be there who wanted to?
+
+I do not know when I became old enough to understand. The truth was
+borne in on me a dozen times a day, from the time I began to
+distinguish words from empty noises. My grandmother told me about it,
+when she put me to bed at night. My parents told me about it, when
+they gave me presents on holidays. My playmates told me, when they
+drew me back into a corner of the gateway, to let a policeman pass.
+Vanka, the little white-haired boy, told me all about it, when he ran
+out of his mother's laundry on purpose to throw mud after me when I
+happened to pass. I heard about it during prayers, and when women
+quarrelled in the market place; and sometimes, waking in the night, I
+heard my parents whisper it in the dark. There was no time in my life
+when I did not hear and see and feel the truth--the reason why Polotzk
+was cut off from the rest of Russia. It was the first lesson a little
+girl in Polotzk had to learn. But for a long while I did not
+understand. Then there came a time when I knew that Polotzk and
+Vitebsk and Vilna and some other places were grouped together as the
+"Pale of Settlement," and within this area the Czar commanded me to
+stay, with my father and mother and friends, and all other people like
+us. We must not be found outside the Pale, because we were Jews.
+
+So there was a fence around Polotzk, after all. The world was divided
+into Jews and Gentiles. This knowledge came so gradually that it could
+not shock me. It trickled into my consciousness drop by drop. By the
+time I fully understood that I was a prisoner, the shackles had grown
+familiar to my flesh.
+
+The first time Vanka threw mud at me, I ran home and complained to my
+mother, who brushed off my dress and said, quite resignedly, "How can
+I help you, my poor child? Vanka is a Gentile. The Gentiles do as they
+like with us Jews." The next time Vanka abused me, I did not cry, but
+ran for shelter, saying to myself, "Vanka is a Gentile." The third
+time, when Vanka spat on me, I wiped my face and thought nothing at
+all. I accepted ill-usage from the Gentiles as one accepts the
+weather. The world was made in a certain way, and I had to live in it.
+
+Not quite all the Gentiles were like Vanka. Next door to us lived a
+Gentile family which was very friendly. There was a girl as big as I,
+who never called me names, and gave me flowers from her father's
+garden. And there were the Parphens, of whom my grandfather rented his
+store. They treated us as if we were not Jews at all. On our festival
+days they visited our house and brought us presents, carefully
+choosing such things as Jewish children might accept; and they liked
+to have everything explained to them, about the wine and the fruit and
+the candles, and they even tried to say the appropriate greetings and
+blessings in Hebrew. My father used to say that if all the Russians
+were like the Parphens, there would be no trouble between Gentiles and
+Jews; and Fedora Pavlovna, the landlady, would reply that the Russian
+_people_ were not to blame. It was the priests, she said, who taught
+the people to hate the Jews. Of course she knew best, as she was a
+very pious Christian. She never passed a church without crossing
+herself.
+
+The Gentiles were always crossing themselves; when they went into a
+church, and when they came out, when they met a priest, or passed an
+image in the street. The dirty beggars on the church steps never
+stopped crossing themselves; and even when they stood on the corner of
+a Jewish street, and received alms from Jewish people, they crossed
+themselves and mumbled Christian prayers. In every Gentile house there
+was what they called an "icon," which was an image or picture of the
+Christian god, hung up in a corner, with a light always burning before
+it. In front of the icon the Gentiles said their prayers, on their
+knees, crossing themselves all the time.
+
+I tried not to look in the corner where the icon was, when I came into
+a Gentile house. I was afraid of the cross. Everybody was, in
+Polotzk--all the Jews, I mean. For it was the cross that made the
+priests, and the priests made our troubles, as even some Christians
+admitted. The Gentiles said that we had killed their God, which was
+absurd, as they never had a God--nothing but images. Besides, what
+they accused us of had happened so long ago; the Gentiles themselves
+said it was long ago. Everybody had been dead for ages who could have
+had anything to do with it. Yet they put up crosses everywhere, and
+wore them on their necks, on purpose to remind themselves of these
+false things; and they considered it pious to hate and abuse us,
+insisting that we had killed their God. To worship the cross and to
+torment a Jew was the same thing to them. That is why we feared the
+cross.
+
+Another thing the Gentiles said about us was that we used the blood of
+murdered Christian children at the Passover festival. Of course that
+was a wicked lie. It made me sick to think of such a thing. I knew
+everything that was done for Passover, from the time I was a very
+little girl. The house was made clean and shining and holy, even in
+the corners where nobody ever looked. Vessels and dishes that were
+used all the year round were put away in the garret, and special
+vessels were brought out for the Passover week. I used to help unpack
+the new dishes, and find my own blue mug. When the fresh curtains were
+put up, and the white floors were uncovered, and everybody in the
+house put on new clothes, and I sat down to the feast in my new dress,
+I felt clean inside and out. And when I asked the Four Questions,
+about the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs and the other things,
+and the family, reading from their books, answered me, did I not know
+all about Passover, and what was on the table, and why? It was wicked
+of the Gentiles to tell lies about us. The youngest child in the house
+knew how Passover was kept.
+
+The Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from the land
+of Egypt, and felt so glad and thankful, as if it had only just
+happened, was the time our Gentile neighbors chose to remind us that
+Russia was another Egypt. That is what I heard people say, and it was
+true. It was not so bad in Polotzk, within the Pale; but in Russian
+cities, and even more in the country districts, where Jewish families
+lived scattered, by special permission of the police, who were always
+changing their minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the
+Passover a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that
+lie about murdering Christian children, and the stupid peasants would
+get mad about it, and fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill
+the Jews. They attacked them with knives and clubs and scythes and
+axes, killed them or tortured them, and burned their houses. This was
+called a "pogrom." Jews who escaped the pogroms came to Polotzk with
+wounds on them, and horrible, horrible stories, of little babies torn
+limb from limb before their mothers' eyes. Only to hear these things
+made one sob and sob and choke with pain. People who saw such things
+never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived; and sometimes
+their hair turned white in a day, and some people became insane on the
+spot.
+
+Often we heard that the pogrom was led by a priest carrying a cross
+before the mob. Our enemies always held up the cross as the excuse of
+their cruelty to us. I never was in an actual pogrom, but there were
+times when it threatened us, even in Polotzk; and in all my fearful
+imaginings, as I hid in dark corners, thinking of the horrible things
+the Gentiles were going to do to me, I saw the cross, the cruel cross.
+
+I remember a time when I thought a pogrom had broken out in our
+street, and I wonder that I did not die of fear. It was some Christian
+holiday, and we had been warned by the police to keep indoors. Gates
+were locked; shutters were barred. If a child cried, the nurse
+threatened to give it to the priest, who would soon be passing by.
+Fearful and yet curious, we looked through the cracks in the
+shutters. We saw a procession of peasants and townspeople, led by a
+number of priests, carrying crosses and banners and images. In the
+place of honor was carried a casket, containing a relic from the
+monastery in the outskirts of Polotzk. Once a year the Gentiles
+paraded with this relic, and on that occasion the streets were
+considered too holy for Jews to be about; and we lived in fear till
+the end of the day, knowing that the least disturbance might start a
+riot, and a riot lead to a pogrom.
+
+On the day when I saw the procession through a crack in the shutter,
+there were soldiers and police in the street. This was as usual, but I
+did not know it. I asked the nurse, who was pressing to the crack over
+my head, what the soldiers were for. Thoughtlessly she answered me,
+"In case of a pogrom." Yes, there were the crosses and the priests and
+the mob. The church bells were pealing their loudest. Everything was
+ready. The Gentiles were going to tear me in pieces, with axes and
+knives and ropes. They were going to burn me alive. The cross--the
+cross! What would they do to me first?
+
+There was one thing the Gentiles might do to me worse than burning or
+rending. It was what was done to unprotected Jewish children who fell
+into the hands of priests or nuns. They might baptize me. That would
+be worse than death by torture. Rather would I drown in the Dvina than
+a drop of the baptismal water should touch my forehead. To be forced
+to kneel before the hideous images, to kiss the cross,--sooner would I
+rush out to the mob that was passing, and let them tear my vitals out.
+To forswear the One God, to bow before idols,--rather would I be
+seized with the plague, and be eaten up by vermin. I was only a little
+girl, and not very brave; little pains made me ill, and I cried. But
+there was no pain that I would not bear--no, none--rather than submit
+to baptism.
+
+Every Jewish child had that feeling. There were stories by the dozen
+of Jewish boys who were kidnapped by the Czar's agents and brought up
+in Gentile families, till they were old enough to enter the army,
+where they served till forty years of age; and all those years the
+priests tried, by bribes and daily tortures, to force them to accept
+baptism, but in vain. This was in the time of Nicholas I, but men who
+had been through this service were no older than my grandfather, when
+I was a little girl; and they told their experiences with their own
+lips, and one knew it was true, and it broke one's heart with pain and
+pride.
+
+Some of these soldiers of Nicholas, as they were called, were taken as
+little boys of seven or eight--snatched from their mothers' laps. They
+were carried to distant villages, where their friends could never
+trace them, and turned over to some dirty, brutal peasant, who used
+them like slaves and kept them with the pigs. No two were ever left
+together; and they were given false names, so that they were entirely
+cut off from their own world. And then the lonely child was turned
+over to the priests, and he was flogged and starved and terrified--a
+little helpless boy who cried for his mother; but still he refused to
+be baptized. The priests promised him good things to eat, and fine
+clothes, and freedom from labor; but the boy turned away, and said his
+prayers secretly--the Hebrew prayers.
+
+As he grew older, severer tortures were invented for him; still he
+refused baptism. By this time he had forgotten his mother's face, and
+of his prayers perhaps only the "Shema" remained in his memory; but
+he was a Jew, and nothing would make him change. After he entered the
+army, he was bribed with promises of promotions and honors. He
+remained a private, and endured the cruellest discipline. When he was
+discharged, at the age of forty, he was a broken man, without a home,
+without a clue to his origin, and he spent the rest of his life
+wandering among Jewish settlements, searching for his family; hiding
+the scars of torture under his rags, begging his way from door to
+door. If he were one who had broken down under the cruel torments, and
+allowed himself to be baptized, for the sake of a respite, the Church
+never let him go again, no matter how loudly he protested that he was
+still a Jew. If he was caught practicing Jewish rites, he was
+subjected to the severest punishment.
+
+My father knew of one who was taken as a small boy, who never yielded
+to the priests under the most hideous tortures. As he was a very
+bright boy, the priests were particularly eager to convert him. They
+tried him with bribes that would appeal to his ambition. They promised
+to make a great man of him--a general, a noble. The boy turned away
+and said his prayers. Then they tortured him, and threw him into a
+cell; and when he lay asleep from exhaustion, the priest came and
+baptized him. When he awoke, they told him he was a Christian, and
+brought him the crucifix to kiss. He protested, threw the crucifix
+from him, but they held him to it that he was a baptized Jew, and
+belonged to the Church; and the rest of his life he spent between the
+prison and the hospital, always clinging to his faith, saying the
+Hebrew prayers in defiance of his tormentors, and paying for it with
+his flesh.
+
+There were men in Polotzk whose faces made you old in a minute. They
+had served Nicholas I, and come back unbaptized. The white church in
+the square--how did it look to them? I knew. I cursed the church in my
+heart every time I had to pass it; and I was afraid--afraid.
+
+On market days, when the peasants came to church, and the bells kept
+ringing by the hour, my heart was heavy in me, and I could find no
+rest. Even in my father's house I did not feel safe. The church bell
+boomed over the roofs of the houses, calling, calling, calling. I
+closed my eyes, and saw the people passing into the church: peasant
+women with bright embroidered aprons and glass beads; barefoot little
+girls with colored kerchiefs on their heads; boys with caps pulled too
+far down over their flaxen hair; rough men with plaited bast sandals,
+and a rope around the waist,--crowds of them, moving slowly up the
+steps, crossing themselves again and again, till they were swallowed
+by the black doorway, and only the beggars were left squatting on the
+steps. _Boom, boom!_ What are the people doing in the dark, with the
+waxen images and the horrid crucifixes? _Boom, boom, boom!_ They are
+ringing the bell for me. Is it in the church they will torture me,
+when I refuse to kiss the cross?
+
+They ought not to have told me those dreadful stories. They were long
+past; we were living under the blessed "New Régime." Alexander III was
+no friend of the Jews; still he did not order little boys to be taken
+from their mothers, to be made into soldiers and Christians. Every man
+had to serve in the army for four years, and a Jewish recruit was
+likely to be treated with severity, no matter if his behavior were
+perfect; but that was little compared to the dreadful conditions of
+the old régime.
+
+The thing that really mattered was the necessity of breaking the
+Jewish laws of daily life while in the service. A soldier often had to
+eat trefah and work on Sabbath. He had to shave his beard and do
+reverence to Christian things. He could not attend daily services at
+the synagogue; his private devotions were disturbed by the jeers and
+insults of his coarse Gentile comrades. He might resort to all sorts
+of tricks and shams, still he was obliged to violate Jewish law. When
+he returned home, at the end of his term of service, he could not rid
+himself of the stigma of those enforced sins. For four years he had
+led the life of a Gentile.
+
+Piety alone was enough to make the Jews dread military service, but
+there were other things that made it a serious burden. Most men of
+twenty-one--the age of conscription--were already married and had
+children. During their absence their families suffered, their business
+often was ruined. At the end of their term they were beggars. As
+beggars, too, they were sent home from their military post. If they
+happened to have a good uniform at the time of their dismissal, it was
+stripped from them, and replaced by a shabby one. They received a free
+ticket for the return journey, and a few kopecks a day for expenses.
+In this fashion they were hurried back into the Pale, like escaped
+prisoners. The Czar was done with them. If within a limited time they
+were found outside the Pale, they would be seized and sent home in
+chains.
+
+There were certain exceptions to the rule of compulsory service. The
+only son of a family was exempt, and certain others. In the physical
+examination preceding conscription, many were rejected on account of
+various faults. This gave the people the idea of inflicting injuries
+on themselves, so as to produce temporary deformities on account of
+which they might be rejected at the examination. Men would submit to
+operations on their eyes, ears, or limbs, which caused them horrible
+sufferings, in the hope of escaping the service. If the operation was
+successful, the patient was rejected by the examining officers, and in
+a short time he was well, and a free man. Often, however, the
+deformity intended to be temporary proved incurable, so that there
+were many men in Polotzk blind of one eye, or hard of hearing, or
+lame, as a result of these secret practices; but these things were
+easier to bear than the memory of four years in the Czar's service.
+
+Sons of rich fathers could escape service without leaving any marks on
+their persons. It was always possible to bribe conscription officers.
+This was a dangerous practice,--it was not the officers who suffered
+most in case the negotiations leaked out,--but no respectable family
+would let a son be taken as a recruit till it had made every effort to
+save him. My grandfather nearly ruined himself to buy his sons out of
+service; and my mother tells thrilling anecdotes of her younger
+brother's life, who for years lived in hiding, under assumed names and
+in various disguises, till he had passed the age of liability for
+service.
+
+If it were cowardice that made the Jews shrink from military service
+they would not inflict on themselves physical tortures greater than
+any that threatened them in the army, and which often left them maimed
+for life. If it were avarice--the fear of losing the gains from their
+business for four years--they would not empty their pockets and sell
+their houses and sink into debt, on the chance of successfully bribing
+the Czar's agents. The Jewish recruit dreaded, indeed, brutality and
+injustice at the hands of officers and comrades; he feared for his
+family, which he left, often enough, as dependents on the charity of
+relatives; but the fear of an unholy life was greater than all other
+fears. I know, for I remember my cousin who was taken as a soldier.
+Everything had been done to save him. Money had been spent freely--my
+uncle did not stop at his unmarried daughter's portion, when
+everything else was gone. My cousin had also submitted to some secret
+treatment,--some devastating drug administered for months before the
+examination,--but the effects were not pronounced enough, and he was
+passed. For the first few weeks his company was stationed in Polotzk.
+I saw my cousin drill on the square, carrying a gun, _on a Sabbath_. I
+felt unholy, as if I had sinned the sin in my own person. It was easy
+to understand why mothers of conscript sons fasted and wept and prayed
+and worried themselves to their graves.
+
+There was a man in our town called David the Substitute, because he
+had gone as a soldier in another's stead, he himself being exempt. He
+did it for a sum of money. I suppose his family was starving, and he
+saw a chance to provide for them for a few years. But it was a sinful
+thing to do, to go as a soldier and be obliged to live like a Gentile,
+of his own free will. And David knew how wicked it was, for he was a
+pious man at heart. When he returned from service, he was aged and
+broken, bowed down with the sense of his sins. And he set himself a
+penance, which was to go through the streets every Sabbath morning,
+calling the people to prayer. Now this was a hard thing to do,
+because David labored bitterly all the week, exposed to the weather,
+summer or winter; and on Sabbath morning there was nobody so tired and
+lame and sore as David. Yet he forced himself to leave his bed before
+it was yet daylight, and go from street to street, all over Polotzk,
+calling on the people to wake and go to prayer. Many a Sabbath morning
+I awoke when David called, and lay listening to his voice as it passed
+and died out; and it was so sad that it hurt, as beautiful music
+hurts. I was glad to feel my sister lying beside me, for it was lonely
+in the gray dawn, with only David and me awake, and God waiting for
+the people's prayers.
+
+The Gentiles used to wonder at us because we cared so much about
+religious things,--about food, and Sabbath, and teaching the children
+Hebrew. They were angry with us for our obstinacy, as they called it,
+and mocked us and ridiculed the most sacred things. There were wise
+Gentiles who understood. These were educated people, like Fedora
+Pavlovna, who made friends with their Jewish neighbors. They were
+always respectful, and openly admired some of our ways. But most of
+the Gentiles were ignorant and distrustful and spiteful. They would
+not believe that there was any good in our religion, and of course we
+dared not teach them, because we should be accused of trying to
+convert them, and that would be the end of us.
+
+Oh, if they could only understand! Vanka caught me on the street one
+day, and pulled my hair, and called me names; and all of a sudden I
+asked myself _why_--_why?_--a thing I had stopped asking years before.
+I was so angry that I could have punished him; for one moment I was
+not afraid to hit back. But this _why_--_why?_ broke out in my heart,
+and I forgot to revenge myself. It was so wonderful--Well, there were
+no words in my head to say it, but it meant that Vanka abused me only
+because _he did not understand_. If he could feel with my heart, if he
+could be a little Jewish boy for one day, I thought, he would know--he
+would know. If he could understand about David the Substitute, now,
+without being told, as I understood. If he could wake in my place on
+Sabbath morning, and feel his heart break in him with a strange pain,
+because a Jew had dishonored the law of Moses, and God was bending
+down to pardon him. Oh, why could I not make Vanka understand? I was
+so sorry that my heart hurt me, worse than Vanka's blows. My anger and
+my courage were gone. Vanka was throwing stones at me now from his
+mother's doorway, and I continued on my errand, but I did not hurry.
+The thing that hurt me most I could not run away from.
+
+There was one thing the Gentiles always understood, and that was
+money. They would take any kind of bribe at any time. Peace cost so
+much a year in Polotzk. If you did not keep on good terms with your
+Gentile neighbors, they had a hundred ways of molesting you. If you
+chased their pigs when they came rooting up your garden, or objected
+to their children maltreating your children, they might complain
+against you to the police, stuffing their case with false accusations
+and false witnesses. If you had not made friends with the police, the
+case might go to court; and there you lost before the trial was
+called, unless the judge had reason to befriend you. The cheapest way
+to live in Polotzk was to pay as you went along. Even a little girl
+understood that, in Polotzk.
+
+Perhaps your parents were in business,--usually they were, as almost
+everybody kept store,--and you heard a great deal about the chief of
+police, and excise officers, and other agents of the Czar. Between the
+Czar whom you had never seen, and the policeman whom you knew too
+well, you pictured to yourself a long row of officials of all sorts,
+all with their palms stretched out to receive your father's money. You
+knew your father hated them all, but you saw him smile and bend as he
+filled those greedy palms. You did the same, in your petty way, when
+you saw Vanka coming toward you on a lonely street, and you held out
+to him the core of the apple you had been chewing, and forced your
+unwilling lips into a smile. It hurt, that false smile; it made you
+feel black inside.
+
+In your father's parlor hung a large colored portrait of Alexander
+III. The Czar was a cruel tyrant,--oh, it was whispered when doors
+were locked and shutters tightly barred, at night,--he was a Titus, a
+Haman, a sworn foe of all Jews,--and yet his portrait was seen in a
+place of honor in your father's house. You knew why. It looked well
+when police or government officers came on business.
+
+You went out to play one morning, and saw a little knot of people
+gathered around a lamp-post. There was a notice on it--a new order
+from the chief of police. You pushed into the crowd, and stared at the
+placard, but you could not read. A woman with a ragged shawl looked
+down upon you, and said, with a bitter kind of smile, "Rejoice,
+rejoice, little girl! The chief of police bids you rejoice. There
+shall be a pretty flag flying from every housetop to-day, because it
+is the Czar's birthday, and we must celebrate. Come and watch the poor
+people pawn their samovars and candlesticks, to raise money for a
+pretty flag. It is a holiday, little girl. Rejoice!"
+
+You know the woman is mocking,--you are familiar with the quality of
+that smile,--but you accept the hint and go and watch the people buy
+their flags. Your cousin keeps a dry-goods store, where you have a
+fine view of the proceedings. There is a crowd around the counter, and
+your cousin and the assistant are busily measuring off lengths of
+cloth, red, and blue, and white.
+
+"How much does it take?" somebody asks. "May I know no more of sin
+than I know of flags," another replies. "How is it put together?" "Do
+you have to have all three colors?" One customer puts down a few
+kopecks on the counter, saying, "Give me a piece of flag. This is all
+the money I have. Give me the red and the blue; I'll tear up my shirt
+for the white."
+
+You know it is no joke. The flag must show from every house, or the
+owner will be dragged to the police station, to pay a fine of
+twenty-five rubles. What happened to the old woman who lives in that
+tumble-down shanty over the way? It was that other time when flags
+were ordered up, because the Grand Duke was to visit Polotzk. The old
+woman had no flag, and no money. She hoped the policeman would not
+notice her miserable hut. But he did, the vigilant one, and he went up
+and kicked the door open with his great boot, and he took the last
+pillow from the bed, and sold it, and hoisted a flag above the rotten
+roof. I knew the old woman well, with her one watery eye and her
+crumpled hands. I often took a plate of soup to her from our kitchen.
+There was nothing but rags left on her bed, when the policeman had
+taken the pillow.
+
+The Czar always got his dues, no matter if it ruined a family. There
+was a poor locksmith who owed the Czar three hundred rubles, because
+his brother had escaped from Russia before serving his term in the
+army. There was no such fine for Gentiles, only for Jews; and the
+whole family was liable. Now, the locksmith never could have so much
+money, and he had no valuables to pawn. The police came and attached
+his household goods, everything he had, including his young bride's
+trousseau; and the sale of the goods brought thirty-five rubles. After
+a year's time the police came again, looking for the balance of the
+Czar's dues. They put their seal on everything they found. The bride
+was in bed with her first baby, a boy. The circumcision was to be next
+day. The police did not leave a sheet to wrap the child in when he is
+handed up for the operation.
+
+Many bitter sayings came to your ears if you were a Jewish little girl
+in Polotzk. "It is a false world," you heard, and you knew it was so,
+looking at the Czar's portrait, and at the flags. "Never tell a police
+officer the truth," was another saying, and you knew it was good
+advice. That fine of three hundred rubles was a sentence of lifelong
+slavery for the poor locksmith, unless he freed himself by some trick.
+As fast as he could collect a few rags and sticks, the police would be
+after them. He might hide under a false name, if he could get away
+from Polotzk on a false passport; or he might bribe the proper
+officials to issue a false certificate of the missing brother's death.
+Only by false means could he secure peace for himself and his family,
+as long as the Czar was after his dues.
+
+It was bewildering to hear how many kinds of duties and taxes we owed
+the Czar. We paid taxes on our houses, and taxes on the rents from the
+houses, taxes on our business, taxes on our profits. I am not sure
+whether there were taxes on our losses. The town collected taxes, and
+the county, and the central government; and the chief of police we had
+always with us. There were taxes for public works, but rotten
+pavements went on rotting year after year; and when a bridge was to be
+built, special taxes were levied. A bridge, by the way, was not always
+a public highway. A railroad bridge across the Dvina, while open to
+the military, could be used by the people only by individual
+permission.
+
+My uncle explained to me all about the excise duties on tobacco.
+Tobacco being a source of government revenue, there was a heavy tax on
+it. Cigarettes were taxed at every step of their process. The tobacco
+was taxed separately, and the paper, and the mouthpiece, and on the
+finished product an additional tax was put. There was no tax on the
+smoke. The Czar must have overlooked it.
+
+Business really did not pay when the price of goods was so swollen by
+taxes that the people could not buy. The only way to make business pay
+was to cheat--cheat the Government of part of the duties. But playing
+tricks on the Czar was dangerous, with so many spies watching his
+interests. People who sold cigarettes without the government seal got
+more gray hairs than bank notes out of their business. The constant
+risk, the worry, the dread of a police raid in the night, and the
+ruinous fines, in case of detection, left very little margin of profit
+or comfort to the dealer in contraband goods. "But what can one do?"
+the people said, with the shrug of the shoulders that expresses the
+helplessness of the Pale. "What can one do? One must live."
+
+It was not easy to live, with such bitter competition as the
+congestion of population made inevitable. There were ten times as many
+stores as there should have been, ten times as many tailors, cobblers,
+barbers, tinsmiths. A Gentile, if he failed in Polotzk, could go
+elsewhere, where there was less competition. A Jew could make the
+circle of the Pale, only to find the same conditions as at home.
+Outside the Pale he could only go to certain designated localities, on
+payment of prohibitive fees, augmented by a constant stream of bribes;
+and even then he lived at the mercy of the local chief of police.
+
+Artisans had the right to reside outside the Pale, on fulfilment of
+certain conditions. This sounded easy to me, when I was a little girl,
+till I realized how it worked. There was a capmaker who had duly
+qualified, by passing an examination and paying for his trade papers,
+to live in a certain city. The chief of police suddenly took it into
+his head to impeach the genuineness of his papers. The capmaker was
+obliged to travel to St. Petersburg, where he had qualified in the
+first place, to repeat the examination. He spent the savings of years
+in petty bribes, trying to hasten the process, but was detained ten
+months by bureaucratic red tape. When at length he returned to his
+home town, he found a new chief of police, installed during his
+absence, who discovered a new flaw in the papers he had just obtained,
+and expelled him from the city. If he came to Polotzk, there were then
+eleven capmakers where only one could make a living.
+
+Merchants fared like the artisans. They, too, could buy the right of
+residence outside the Pale, permanent or temporary, on conditions that
+gave them no real security. I was proud to have an uncle who was a
+merchant of the First Guild, but it was very expensive for my uncle.
+He had to pay so much a year for the title, and a certain percentage
+on the profits from his business. This gave him the right to travel on
+business outside the Pale, twice a year, for not more than six months
+in all. If he were found outside the Pale after his permit expired, he
+had to pay a fine that exceeded all he had gained by his journey,
+perhaps. I used to picture my uncle on his Russian travels, hurrying,
+hurrying to finish his business in the limited time; while a policeman
+marched behind him, ticking off the days and counting up the hours.
+That was a foolish fancy, but some of the things that were done in
+Russia really were very funny.
+
+There were things in Polotzk that made you laugh with one eye and weep
+with the other, like a clown. During an epidemic of cholera, the city
+officials, suddenly becoming energetic, opened stations for the
+distribution of disinfectants to the people. A quarter of the
+population was dead when they began, and most of the dead were buried,
+while some lay decaying in deserted houses. The survivors, some of
+them crazy from horror, stole through the empty streets, avoiding one
+another, till they came to the appointed stations, where they pushed
+and crowded to get their little bottles of carbolic acid. Many died
+from fear in those horrible days, but some must have died from
+laughter. For only the Gentiles were allowed to receive the
+disinfectant. Poor Jews who had nothing but their new-made graves were
+driven away from the stations.
+
+Perhaps it was wrong of us to think of our Gentile neighbors as a
+different species of beings from ourselves, but such madness as that
+did not help to make them more human in our eyes. It was easier to be
+friends with the beasts in the barn than with some of the Gentiles.
+The cow and the goat and the cat responded to kindness, and
+remembered which of the housemaids was generous and which was cross.
+The Gentiles made no distinctions. A Jew was a Jew, to be hated and
+spat upon and used spitefully.
+
+The only Gentiles, besides the few of the intelligent kind, who did
+not habitually look upon us with hate and contempt, were the stupid
+peasants from the country, who were hardly human themselves. They
+lived in filthy huts together with their swine, and all they cared for
+was how to get something to eat. It was not their fault. The land laws
+made them so poor that they had to sell themselves to fill their
+bellies. What help was there for us in the good will of such wretched
+slaves? For a cask of vodka you could buy up a whole village of them.
+They trembled before the meanest townsman, and at a sign from a
+long-haired priest they would sharpen their axes against us.
+
+The Gentiles had their excuse for their malice. They said our
+merchants and money-lenders preyed upon them, and our shopkeepers gave
+false measure. People who want to defend the Jews ought never to deny
+this. Yes, I say, we cheated the Gentiles whenever we dared, because
+it was the only thing to do. Remember how the Czar was always sending
+us commands,--you shall not do this and you shall not do that, until
+there was little left that we might honestly do, except pay tribute
+and die. There he had us cooped up, thousands of us where only
+hundreds could live, and every means of living taxed to the utmost.
+When there are too many wolves in the prairie, they begin to prey upon
+each other. We starving captives of the Pale--we did as do the hungry
+brutes. But our humanity showed in our discrimination between our
+victims. Whenever we could, we spared our own kind, directing against
+our racial foes the cunning wiles which our bitter need invented. Is
+not that the code of war? Encamped in the midst of the enemy, we could
+practice no other. A Jew could hardly exist in business unless he
+developed a dual conscience, which allowed him to do to the Gentile
+what he would call a sin against a fellow Jew. Such spiritual
+deformities are self-explained in the step-children of the Czar. A
+glance over the statutes of the Pale leaves you wondering that the
+Russian Jews have not lost all semblance to humanity.
+
+   [Illustration: THE GRAVE DIGGER OF POLOTZK]
+
+A favorite complaint against us was that we were greedy for gold. Why
+could not the Gentiles see the whole truth where they saw half? Greedy
+for profits we were, eager for bargains, for savings, intent on
+squeezing the utmost out of every business transaction. But why? Did
+not the Gentiles know the reason? Did they not know what price we had
+to pay for the air we breathed? If a Jew and a Gentile kept store side
+by side, the Gentile could content himself with smaller profits. He
+did not have to buy permission to travel in the interests of his
+business. He did not have to pay three hundred rubles fine if his son
+evaded military service. He was saved the expense of hushing inciters
+of pogroms. Police favor was retailed at a lower price to him than to
+the Jew. His nature did not compel him to support schools and
+charities. It cost nothing to be a Christian; on the contrary, it
+brought rewards and immunities. To be a Jew was a costly luxury, the
+price of which was either money or blood. Is it any wonder that we
+hoarded our pennies? What his shield is to the soldier in battle, that
+was the ruble to the Jew in the Pale.
+
+The knowledge of such things as I am telling leaves marks upon the
+flesh and spirit. I remember little children in Polotzk with old, old
+faces and eyes glazed with secrets. I knew how to dodge and cringe and
+dissemble before I knew the names of the seasons. And I had plenty of
+time to ponder on these things, because I was so idle. If they had let
+me go to school, now--But of course they didn't.
+
+There was no free school for girls, and even if your parents were rich
+enough to send you to a private school, you could not go very far. At
+the high school, which was under government control, Jewish children
+were admitted in limited numbers,--only ten to every hundred,--and
+even if you were among the lucky ones, you had your troubles. The
+tutor who prepared you talked all the time about the examinations you
+would have to pass, till you were scared. You heard on all sides that
+the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining
+officers did not like the turn of their noses. You went up to be
+examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that
+matter of your nose. There was a special examination for the Jewish
+candidates, of course; a nine-year-old Jewish child had to answer
+questions that a thirteen-year-old Gentile was hardly expected to
+understand. But that did not matter so much. You had been prepared for
+the thirteen-year-old test; you found the questions quite easy. You
+wrote your answers triumphantly--and you received a low rating, and
+there was no appeal.
+
+I used to stand in the doorway of my father's store, munching an apple
+that did not taste good any more, and watch the pupils going home from
+school in twos and threes; the girls in neat brown dresses and black
+aprons and little stiff hats, the boys in trim uniforms with many
+buttons. They had ever so many books in the satchels on their backs.
+They would take them out at home, and read and write, and learn all
+sorts of interesting things. They looked to me like beings from
+another world than mine. But those whom I envied had their own
+troubles, as I often heard. Their school life was one struggle against
+injustice from instructors, spiteful treatment from fellow students,
+and insults from everybody. Those who, by heroic efforts and
+transcendent good luck, successfully finished the course, found
+themselves against a new wall, if they wished to go on. They were
+turned down at the universities, which admitted them in the ratio of
+three Jews to a hundred Gentiles, under the same debarring entrance
+conditions as at the high school,--especially rigorous examinations,
+dishonest marking, or arbitrary rulings without disguise. No, the Czar
+did not want us in the schools.
+
+I heard from my mother of a different state of affairs, at the time
+when her brothers were little boys. The Czar of those days had a
+bright idea. He said to his ministers: "Let us educate the people. Let
+us win over those Jews through the public schools, instead of allowing
+them to persist in their narrow Hebrew learning, which teaches them no
+love for their monarch. Force has failed with them; the unwilling
+converts return to their old ways whenever they dare. Let us try
+education."
+
+Perhaps peaceable conversion of the Jews was not the Czar's only
+motive when he opened public schools everywhere and compelled parents
+to send their boys for instruction. Perhaps he just wanted to be good,
+and really hoped to benefit the country. But to the Jews the public
+schools appeared as a trap door to the abyss of apostasy. The
+instructors were always Christians, the teaching was Christian, and
+the regulations of the schoolroom, as to hours, costume, and manners,
+were often in opposition to Jewish practices. The public school
+interrupted the boy's sacred studies in the Hebrew school. Where would
+you look for pious Jews, after a few generations of boys brought up by
+Christian teachers? Plainly the Czar was after the souls of the Jewish
+children. The church door gaped for them at the end of the school
+course. And all good Jews rose up against the schools, and by every
+means, fair or foul, kept their boys away. The official appointed to
+keep the register of boys for school purposes waxed rich on the bribes
+paid him by anxious parents who kept their sons in hiding.
+
+After a while the wise Czar changed his mind, or he died,--probably he
+did both,--and the schools were closed, and the Jewish boys perused
+their Hebrew books in peace, wearing the sacred fringes[1] in plain
+sight, and never polluting their mouths with a word of Russian.
+
+And then it was the Jews who changed their minds--some of them. They
+wanted to send their children to school, to learn histories and
+sciences, because they had discovered that there was good in such
+things as well as in the Sacred Law. These people were called
+progressive, but they had no chance to progress. All the czars that
+came along persisted in the old idea, that for the Jew no door should
+be opened,--no door out of the Pale, no door out of their mediævalism.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] A four-cornered cloth with specially prepared fringes is worn by
+pious males under the outer garments, but with, the fringes showing.
+The latter play a part in the daily ritual.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHILDREN OF THE LAW
+
+
+As I look back to-day I see, within the wall raised around my
+birthplace by the vigilance of the police, another wall, higher,
+thicker, more impenetrable. This is the wall which the Czar with all
+his minions could not shake, the priests with their instruments of
+torture could not pierce, the mob with their firebrands could not
+destroy. This wall within the wall is the religious integrity of the
+Jews, a fortress erected by the prisoners of the Pale, in defiance of
+their jailers; a stronghold built of the ruins of their pillaged
+homes, cemented with the blood of their murdered children.
+
+Harassed on every side, thwarted in every normal effort, pent up
+within narrow limits, all but dehumanized, the Russian Jew fell back
+upon the only thing that never failed him,--his hereditary faith in
+God. In the study of the Torah he found the balm for all his wounds;
+the minute observance of traditional rites became the expression of
+his spiritual cravings; and in the dream of a restoration to Palestine
+he forgot the world.
+
+What did it matter to us, on a Sabbath or festival, when our life was
+centred in the synagogue, what czar sat on the throne, what evil
+counsellors whispered in his ear? They were concerned with revenues
+and policies and ephemeral trifles of all sorts, while we were intent
+on renewing our ancient covenant with God, to the end that His promise
+to the world should be fulfilled, and His justice overwhelm the
+nations.
+
+On a Friday afternoon the stores and markets closed early. The clatter
+of business ceased, the dust of worry was laid, and the Sabbath peace
+flooded the quiet streets. No hovel so mean but what its casement sent
+out its consecrated ray, so that a wayfarer passing in the twilight
+saw the spirit of God brooding over the lowly roof.
+
+Care and fear and shrewishness dropped like a mask from every face.
+Eyes dimmed with weeping kindled with inmost joy. Wherever a head bent
+over a sacred page, there rested the halo of God's presence.
+
+Not on festivals alone, but also on the common days of the week, we
+lived by the Law that had been given us through our teacher Moses. How
+to eat, how to bathe, how to work--everything had been written down
+for us, and we strove to fulfil the Law. The study of the Torah was
+the most honored of all occupations, and they who engaged in it the
+most revered of all men.
+
+My memory does not go back to a time when I was too young to know that
+God had made the world, and had appointed teachers to tell the people
+how to live in it. First came Moses, and after him the great rabbis,
+and finally the Rav of Polotzk, who read all day in the sacred books,
+so that he could tell me and my parents and my friends what to do
+whenever we were in doubt. If my mother cut up a chicken and found
+something wrong in it,--some hurt or mark that should not be,--she
+sent the housemaid with it to the rav, and I ran along, and saw the
+rav look in his big books; and whatever he decided was right. If he
+called the chicken "trefah" I must not eat of it; no, not if I had to
+starve. And the rav knew about everything: about going on a journey,
+about business, about marrying, about purifying vessels for Passover.
+
+Another great teacher was the dayyan, who heard people's quarrels and
+settled them according to the Law, so that they should not have to go
+to the Gentile courts. The Gentiles were false, judges and witnesses
+and all. They favored the rich man against the poor, the Christian
+against the Jew. The dayyan always gave true judgments. Nohem
+Rabinovitch, the richest man in Polotzk, could not win a case against
+a servant maid, unless he were in the right.
+
+Besides the rav and the dayyan there were other men whose callings
+were holy,--the shohat, who knew how cattle and fowls should be
+killed; the hazzan and the other officers of the synagogue; the
+teachers of Hebrew, and their pupils. It did not matter how poor a man
+was, he was to be respected and set above other men, if he were
+learned in the Law.
+
+In the synagogue scores of men sat all day long over the Hebrew books,
+studying and disputing from early dawn till candles were brought in at
+night, and then as long as the candles lasted. They could not take
+time for anything else, if they meant to become great scholars. Most
+of them were strangers in Polotzk, and had no home except the
+synagogue. They slept on benches, on tables, on the floor; they picked
+up their meals wherever they could. They had come from distant cities,
+so as to be under good teachers in Polotzk; and the townspeople were
+proud to support them by giving them food and clothing and sometimes
+money to visit their homes on holidays. But the poor students came in
+such numbers that there were not enough rich families to provide for
+all, so that some of them suffered privation. You could pick out a
+poor student in a crowd, by his pale face and shrunken form.
+
+There was almost always a poor student taking meals at our house. He
+was assigned a certain day, and on that day my grandmother took care
+to have something especially good for dinner. It was a very shabby
+guest who sat down with us at table, but we children watched him with
+respectful eyes. Grandmother had told us that he was a lamden
+(scholar), and we saw something holy in the way he ate his cabbage.
+
+Not every man could hope to be a rav, but no Jewish boy was allowed to
+grow up without at least a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew. The
+scantiest income had to be divided so as to provide for the boys'
+tuition. To leave a boy without a teacher was a disgrace upon the
+whole family, to the remotest relative. For the children of the
+destitute there was a free school, supported by the charity of the
+pious. And so every boy was sent to heder (Hebrew school) almost as
+soon as he could speak; and usually he continued to study until his
+confirmation, at thirteen years of age, or as much longer as his
+talent and ambition carried him. My brother was five years old when he
+entered on his studies. He was carried to the heder, on the first day,
+covered over with a praying-shawl, so that nothing unholy should look
+on him; and he was presented with a bun, on which were traced, in
+honey, these words: "The Torah left by Moses is the heritage of the
+children of Jacob."
+
+After a boy entered heder, he was the hero of the family. He was
+served before the other children at table, and nothing was too good
+for him. If the family were very poor, all the girls might go
+barefoot, but the heder boy must have shoes; he must have a plate of
+hot soup, though the others ate dry bread. When the rebbe (teacher)
+came on Sabbath afternoon, to examine the boy in the hearing of the
+family, everybody sat around the table and nodded with satisfaction,
+if he read his portion well; and he was given a great saucerful of
+preserves, and was praised, and blessed, and made much of. No wonder
+he said, in his morning prayer, "I thank Thee, Lord, for not having
+created me a female." It was not much to be a girl, you see. Girls
+could not be scholars and rabbonim.
+
+I went to my brother's heder, sometimes, to bring him his dinner, and
+saw how the boys studied. They sat on benches around the table, with
+their hats on, of course, and the sacred fringes hanging beneath their
+jackets. The rebbe sat at an end of the table, rehearsing two or three
+of the boys who were studying the same part, pointing out the words
+with his wooden pointer, so as not to lose the place. Everybody read
+aloud, the smallest boys repeating the alphabet in a sing-song, while
+the advanced boys read their portions in a different sing-song; and
+everybody raised his voice to its loudest so as to drown the other
+voices. The good boys never took their eyes off their page, except to
+ask the rebbe a question; but the naughty boys stared around the room,
+and kicked each other under the table, till the rebbe caught them at
+it. He had a ruler for striking the bad boys on the knuckles, and in a
+corner of the room leaned a long birch wand for pupils who would not
+learn their lessons.
+
+The boys came to heder before nine in the morning, and remained until
+eight or nine in the evening. Stupid pupils, who could not remember
+the lesson, sometimes had to stay till ten. There was an hour for
+dinner and play at noon. Good little boys played quietly in their
+places, but most of the boys ran out of the house and jumped and
+yelled and quarrelled.
+
+There was nothing in what the boys did in heder that I could not have
+done--if I had not been a girl. For a girl it was enough if she could
+read her prayers in Hebrew, and follow the meaning by the Yiddish
+translation at the bottom of the page. It did not take long to learn
+this much,--a couple of terms with a rebbetzin (female teacher),--and
+after that she was done with books.
+
+A girl's real schoolroom was her mother's kitchen. There she learned
+to bake and cook and manage, to knit, sew, and embroider; also to spin
+and weave, in country places. And while her hands were busy, her
+mother instructed her in the laws regulating a pious Jewish household
+and in the conduct proper for a Jewish wife; for, of course, every
+girl hoped to be a wife. A girl was born for no other purpose.
+
+How soon it came, the pious burden of wifehood! One day the girl is
+playing forfeits with her laughing friends, the next day she is missed
+from the circle. She has been summoned to a conference with the
+shadchan (marriage broker), who has been for months past advertising
+her housewifely talents, her piety, her good looks, and her marriage
+portion, among families with marriageable sons. Her parents are
+pleased with the son-in-law proposed by the shadchan, and now, at the
+last, the girl is brought in, to be examined and appraised by the
+prospective parents-in-law. If the negotiations go off smoothly, the
+marriage contract is written, presents are exchanged between the
+engaged couple, through their respective parents, and all that is left
+the girl of her maidenhood is a period of busy preparation for the
+wedding.
+
+   [Illustration: HEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL) FOR BOYS IN POLOTZK]
+
+If the girl is well-to-do, it is a happy interval, spent in visits to
+the drapers and tailors, in collecting linens and featherbeds and
+vessels of copper and brass. The former playmates come to inspect the
+trousseau, enviously fingering the silks and velvets of the
+bride-elect. The happy heroine tries on frocks and mantles before her
+glass, blushing at references to the wedding day; and to the question,
+"How do you like the bridegroom?" she replies, "How should I know?
+There was such a crowd at the betrothal that I didn't see him."
+
+Marriage was a sacrament with us Jews in the Pale. To rear a family of
+children was to serve God. Every Jewish man and woman had a part in
+the fulfilment of the ancient promise given to Jacob that his seed
+should be abundantly scattered over the earth. Parenthood, therefore,
+was the great career. But while men, in addition to begetting, might
+busy themselves with the study of the Law, woman's only work was
+motherhood. To be left an old maid became, accordingly, the greatest
+misfortune that could threaten a girl; and to ward off that calamity
+the girl and her family, to the most distant relatives, would strain
+every nerve, whether by contributing to her dowry, or hiding her
+defects from the marriage broker, or praying and fasting that God
+might send her a husband.
+
+Not only must all the children of a family be mated, but they must
+marry in the order of their ages. A younger daughter must on no
+account marry before an elder. A houseful of daughters might be held
+up because the eldest failed to find favor in the eyes of prospective
+mothers-in-law; not one of the others could marry till the eldest was
+disposed of.
+
+A cousin of mine was guilty of the disloyalty of wishing to marry
+before her elder sister, who was unfortunate enough to be rejected by
+one mother-in-law after another. My uncle feared that the younger
+daughter, who was of a firm and masterful nature, might carry out her
+plans, thereby disgracing her unhappy sister. Accordingly he hastened
+to conclude an alliance with a family far beneath him, and the girl
+was hastily married to a boy of whom little was known beyond the fact
+that he was inclined to consumption.
+
+The consumptive tendency was no such horror, in an age when
+superstition was more in vogue than science. For one patient that went
+to a physician in Polotzk, there were ten who called in unlicensed
+practitioners and miracle workers. If my mother had an obstinate
+toothache that honored household remedies failed to relieve, she went
+to Dvoshe, the pious woman, who cured by means of a flint and steel,
+and a secret prayer pronounced as the sparks flew up. During an
+epidemic of scarlet fever, we protected ourselves by wearing a piece
+of red woolen tape around the neck. Pepper and salt tied in a corner
+of the pocket was effective in warding off the evil eye. There were
+lucky signs, lucky dreams, spirits, and hobgoblins, a grisly
+collection, gathered by our wandering ancestors from the demonologies
+of Asia and Europe.
+
+Antiquated as our popular follies was the organization of our small
+society. It was a caste system with social levels sharply marked off,
+and families united by clannish ties. The rich looked down on the
+poor, the merchants looked down on the artisans, and within the ranks
+of the artisans higher and lower grades were distinguished. A
+shoemaker's daughter could not hope to marry the son of a shopkeeper,
+unless she brought an extra large dowry; and she had to make up her
+mind to be snubbed by the sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law all her
+life.
+
+One qualification only could raise a man above his social level, and
+that was scholarship. A boy born in the gutter need not despair of
+entering the houses of the rich, if he had a good mind and a great
+appetite for sacred learning. A poor scholar would be preferred in the
+marriage market to a rich ignoramus. In the phrase of our
+grandmothers, a boy stuffed with learning was worth more than a girl
+stuffed with bank notes.
+
+Simple piety unsupported by learning had a parallel value in the eyes
+of good families. This was especially true among the Hasidim, the sect
+of enthusiasts who set religious exaltation above rabbinical lore.
+Ecstasy in prayer and fantastic merriment on days of religious
+rejoicing, raised a Hasid to a hero among his kind. My father's
+grandfather, who knew of Hebrew only enough to teach beginners, was
+famous through a good part of the Pale for his holy life. Israel
+Kimanyer he was called, from the village of Kimanye where he lived;
+and people were proud to establish even the most distant relationship
+with him. Israel was poor to the verge of beggary, but he prayed more
+than other people, never failed in the slightest observance enjoined
+on Jews, shared his last crust with every chance beggar, and sat up
+nights to commune with God. His family connections included country
+peddlers, starving artisans, and ne'er-do-wells; but Israel was a
+zaddik--a man of piety--and the fame of his good life redeemed the
+whole wretched clan. When his grandson, my father, came to marry, he
+boasted his direct descent from Israel Kimanyer, and picked his bride
+from the best families.
+
+The little house may still be standing which the pious Jews of Kimanye
+and the neighboring villages built for my great-grandfather, close on
+a century ago. He was too poor to build his own house, so the good
+people who loved him, and who were almost as poor as he, collected a
+few rubles among themselves, and bought a site, and built the house.
+Built, let it be known, with their own hands; for they were too poor
+to hire workmen. They carried the beams and boards on their shoulders,
+singing and dancing on the way, as they sang and danced at the
+presentation of a scroll to the synagogue. They hauled and sawed and
+hammered, till the last nail was driven home; and when they conducted
+the holy man to his new abode, the rejoicing was greater than at the
+crowning of a czar.
+
+That little cabin was fit to be preserved as the monument to a
+species of idealism that has rarely been known outside the Pale. What
+was the ultimate source of the pious enthusiasm that built my
+great-grandfather's house? What was the substance behind the show of
+the Judaism of the Pale? Stripped of its grotesque mask of forms,
+rites, and mediæval superstitions, the religion of these fanatics was
+simply the belief that God was, had been, and ever would be, and that
+they, the children of Jacob, were His chosen messengers to carry His
+Law to all the nations. Beneath the mountainous volumes of the
+Talmudists and commentators, the Mosaic tablets remained intact. Out
+of the mazes of the Cabala the pure doctrine of ancient Judaism found
+its way to the hearts of the faithful. Sects and schools might rise
+and fall, deafening the ears of the simple with the clamor of their
+disputes, still the Jew, retiring within his own soul, heard the
+voice of the God of Abraham. Prophets, messiahs, miracle workers
+might have their day, still the Jew was conscious that between
+himself and God no go-between was needed; that he, as well as every
+one of his million brothers, had his portion of God's work to do. And
+this close relation to God was the source of the strength that
+sustained the Jew through all the trials of his life in the Pale.
+Consciously or unconsciously, the Jew identified himself with the
+cause of righteousness on earth; and hence the heroism with which he
+met the battalions of tyrants.
+
+No empty forms could have impressed the unborn children of the Pale so
+deeply that they were prepared for willing martyrdom almost as soon as
+they were weaned from their mother's breast. The flame of the burning
+bush that had dazzled Moses still lighted the gloomy prison of the
+Pale. Behind the mummeries, ceremonials, and symbolic accessories, the
+object of the Jew's adoration was the face of God.
+
+This has been many times proved by those who escaped from the Pale,
+and, excited by sudden freedom, thought to rid themselves, by one
+impatient effort, of every strand of their ancient bonds. Eager to be
+merged in the better world in which they found themselves, the escaped
+prisoners determined on a change of mind, a change of heart, a change
+of manner. They rejoiced in their transformation, thinking that every
+mark of their former slavery was obliterated. And then, one day,
+caught in the vise of some crucial test, the Jew fixed his alarmed
+gaze on his inmost soul, and found there the image of his father's
+God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Merrily played the fiddlers at the wedding of my father, who was the
+grandson of Israel Kimanyer of sainted memory. The most pious men in
+Polotzk danced the night through, their earlocks dangling, the tails
+of their long coats flying in a pious ecstasy. Beggars swarmed among
+the bidden guests, sure of an easy harvest where so many hearts were
+melted by piety. The wedding jester excelled himself in apt allusions
+to the friends and relatives who brought up their wedding presents at
+his merry invitation. The sixteen-year-old bride, suffocated beneath
+her heavy veil, blushed unseen at the numerous healths drunk to her
+future sons and daughters. The whole town was a-flutter with joy,
+because the pious scion of a godly race had found a pious wife, and a
+young branch of the tree of Judah was about to bear fruit.
+
+When I came to lie on my mother's breast, she sang me lullabies on
+lofty themes. I heard the names of Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah as early
+as the names of father, mother, and nurse. My baby soul was enthralled
+by sad and noble cadences, as my mother sang of my ancient home in
+Palestine, or mourned over the desolation of Zion. With the first
+rattle that was placed in my hand a prayer was pronounced over me, a
+petition that a pious man might take me to wife, and a messiah be
+among my sons.
+
+I was fed on dreams, instructed by means of prophecies, trained to
+hear and see mystical things that callous senses could not perceive. I
+was taught to call myself a princess, in memory of my forefathers who
+had ruled a nation. Though I went in the disguise of an outcast, I
+felt a halo resting on my brow. Sat upon by brutal enemies, unjustly
+hated, annihilated a hundred times, I yet arose and held my head high,
+sure that I should find my kingdom in the end, although I had lost my
+way in exile; for He who had brought my ancestors safe through a
+thousand perils was guiding my feet as well. God needed me and I
+needed Him, for we two together had a work to do, according to an
+ancient covenant between Him and my forefathers.
+
+This is the dream to which I was heir, in common with every sad-eyed
+child of the Pale. This is the living seed which I found among my
+heirlooms, when I learned how to strip from them the prickly husk in
+which they were passed down to me. And what is the fruit of such seed
+as that, and whither lead such dreams? If it is mine to give the
+answer, let my words be true and brave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BOTH THEIR HOUSES
+
+
+Among the mediæval customs which were preserved in the Pale when the
+rest of the world had long forgotten them was the use of popular
+sobriquets in place of surnames proper. Family names existed only in
+official documents, such as passports. For the most part people were
+known by nicknames, prosaic or picturesque, derived from their
+occupations, their physical peculiarities, or distinctive
+achievements. Among my neighbors in Polotzk were Yankel the Wig-maker,
+Mulye the Blind, Moshe the Six-fingered; and members of their
+respective families were referred to by these nicknames: as, for
+example, "Mirele, niece of Moshe the Six-fingered."
+
+Let me spread out my family tree, raise aloft my coat-of-arms, and see
+what heroes have left a mark by which I may be distinguished. Let me
+hunt for my name in the chronicles of the Pale.
+
+In the village of Yuchovitch, about sixty versts above Polotzk, the
+oldest inhabitant still remembered my father's great-grandfather when
+my father was a boy. Lebe the Innkeeper he was called, and no reproach
+was coupled with the name. His son Hayyim succeeded to the business,
+but later he took up the glazier's trade, and developed a knack for
+all sorts of tinkering, whereby he was able to increase his too scanty
+earnings.
+
+Hayyim the Glazier is reputed to have been a man of fine countenance,
+wise in homely counsel, honest in all his dealings. Rachel Leah, his
+wife, had a reputation for practical wisdom even greater than his. She
+was the advice giver of the village in every perplexity of life. My
+father remembers his grandmother as a tall, trim, handsome old woman,
+active and independent. Satin headbands and lace-trimmed bonnets not
+having been invented in her day, Rachel Leah wore the stately knupf or
+turban on her shaven head. On Sabbaths and holidays she went to the
+synagogue with a long, straight mantle hanging from neck to ankle; and
+she wore it with an air, on one sleeve only, the other dangling empty
+from her shoulder.
+
+Hayyim begat Joseph, and Joseph begat Pinchus, my father. It behooves
+me to consider the stuff I sprang from.
+
+Joseph inherited the trade, good name, and meagre portion of his
+father, and maintained the family tradition of honesty and poverty
+unbroken to the day of his death. For that matter, Yuchovitch never
+heard of any connection of the family, not even a doubtful cousin, who
+was not steeped to the earlocks in poverty. But that was no
+distinction in Yuchovitch; the whole village was poor almost to
+beggary.
+
+Joseph was an indifferent workman, an indifferent scholar, and an
+indifferent hasid. At one thing only he was strikingly good, and that
+was at grumbling. Although not unkind, he had a temper that boiled
+over at small provocation, and even in his most placid mood he took
+very little satisfaction in the world. He reversed the proverb,
+looking for the sable lining of every silver cloud. In the conditions
+of his life he found plenty of food for his pessimism, and merry
+hearts were very rare among his neighbors. Still a certain amount of
+gloom appears to have been inherent in the man. And as he distrusted
+the whole world, so Joseph distrusted himself, which made him shy and
+awkward in company. My mother tells how, at the wedding of his only
+son, my father, Joseph sat the whole night through in a corner, never
+as much as cracking a smile, while the wedding guests danced, laughed,
+and rejoiced.
+
+It may have been through distrust of the marital state that Joseph
+remained single till the advanced age of twenty-five. Then he took
+unto himself an orphan girl as poor as he, namely, Rachel, the
+daughter of Israel Kimanyer of pious memory.
+
+My grandmother was such a gentle, cheerful soul, when I knew her, that
+I imagine she must have been a merry bride. I should think my
+grandfather would have taken great satisfaction in her society, as her
+attempts to show him the world through rose-hued spectacles would have
+given him frequent opportunity to parade his grievances and recite his
+wrongs. But from all reports it appears that he was never satisfied,
+and if he did not make his wife unhappy it was because he was away
+from home so much. He was absent the greater part of the time; for a
+glazier, even if he were a better workman than my grandfather, could
+not make a living in Yuchovitch. He became a country peddler, trading
+between Polotzk and Yuchovitch, and taking in all the desolate little
+hamlets scattered along that route. Fifteen rubles' worth of goods was
+a big bill to carry out of Polotzk. The stock consisted of cheap
+pottery, tobacco, matches, boot grease, and axle grease. These he
+bartered for country produce, including grains in small quantity,
+bristles, rags, and bones. Money was seldom handled in these
+transactions.
+
+A rough enough life my grandfather led, on the road at all seasons, in
+all weathers, knocking about at smoky little inns, glad sometimes of
+the hospitality of some peasant's hut, where the pigs slept with the
+family. He was doing well if he got home for the holidays with a
+little white flour for a cake, and money enough to take his best coat
+out of pawn. The best coat, and the candlesticks, too, would be
+repawned promptly on the first workday; for it was not for the like of
+Joseph of Yuchovitch to live with idle riches around him.
+
+For the credit of Yuchovitch it must be recorded that my grandfather
+never had to stay away from the synagogue for want of his one decent
+coat to wear. His neighbor Isaac, the village money lender, never
+refused to give up the pledged articles on a Sabbath eve, even if the
+money due was not forthcoming. Many Sabbath coats besides my
+grandfather's, and many candlesticks besides my grandmother's, passed
+most of their existence under Isaac's roof, waiting to be redeemed.
+But on the eve of Sabbath or holiday Isaac delivered them to their
+respective owners, came they empty-handed or otherwise; and at the
+expiration of the festival the grateful owners brought them promptly
+back, for another season of retirement.
+
+While my grandfather was on the road, my grandmother conducted her
+humble household in a capable, housewifely way. Of her six children,
+three died young, leaving two daughters and an only son, my father. My
+grandmother fed and dressed her children the best she could, and
+taught them to thank God for what they had not as well as for what
+they had. Piety was about the only positive doctrine she attempted to
+drill them in, leaving the rest of their education to life and the
+rebbe.
+
+Promptly when custom prescribed, Pinchus, the petted only son, was
+sent to heder. My grandfather being on the road at the time, my
+grandmother herself carried the boy in her arms, as was usual on the
+first day. My father distinctly remembers that she wept on the way to
+the heder; partly, I suppose, from joy at starting her son on a holy
+life, and partly from sadness at being too poor to set forth the wine
+and honey-cake proper to the occasion. For Grandma Rachel, schooled
+though she was to pious contentment, probably had her moments of human
+pettiness like the rest of us.
+
+My father distinguished himself for scholarship from the first. Five
+years old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a _yeshibah
+bahur_--a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use
+the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the
+dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and carried his fame
+to Polotzk.
+
+My grandmother's cup of pious joy was overfilled. Everything her boy
+did was pleasant in her sight, for Pinchus was going to be a scholar,
+a godly man, a credit to the memory of his renowned grandfather,
+Israel Kimanyer. She let nothing interfere with his schooling. When
+times were bad, and her husband came home with his goods unsold, she
+borrowed and begged, till the rebbe's fee was produced. If bad luck
+continued, she pleaded with the rebbe for time. She pawned not only
+the candlesticks, but her shawl and Sabbath cap as well, to secure the
+scant rations that gave the young scholar strength to study. More than
+once in the bitter winter, as my father remembers, she carried him to
+heder on her back, because he had no shoes; she herself walking
+almost barefoot in the cruel snow. No sacrifice was too great for her
+in the pious cause of her boy's education. And when there was no rebbe
+in Yuchovitch learned enough to guide him in the advanced studies, my
+father was sent to Polotzk, where he lived with his poor relations,
+who were not too poor to help support a future rebbe or rav. In
+Polotzk he continued to distinguish himself for scholarship, till
+people began to prophesy that he would live to be famous; and
+everybody who remembered Israel Kimanyer regarded the promising
+grandson with double respect.
+
+At the age of fifteen my father was qualified to teach beginners in
+Hebrew, and he was engaged as instructor in two families living six
+versts apart in the country. The boy tutor had to make himself useful,
+after lesson hours, by caring for the horse, hauling water from the
+frozen pond, and lending a hand at everything. When the little sister
+of one of his pupils died, in the middle of the winter, it fell to my
+father's lot to take the body to the nearest Jewish cemetery, through
+miles of desolate country, no living soul accompanying him.
+
+After one term of this, he tried to go on with his own studies,
+sometimes in Yuchovitch, sometimes in Polotzk, as opportunity
+dictated. He made the journey to Polotzk beside his father, jogging
+along in the springless wagon on the rutty roads. He took a boy's
+pleasure in the gypsy life, the green wood, and the summer storm;
+while his father sat moody beside him, seeing nothing but the spavins
+on the horse's hocks, and the mud in the road ahead.
+
+There is little else to tell of my father's boyhood, as most of his
+time was spent in the schoolroom. Outside the schoolroom he was
+conspicuous for high spirits in play, daring in mischief, and
+independence in everything. But a boy's playtime was so short in
+Yuchovitch, and his resources so limited, that even a lad of spirit
+came to the edge of his premature manhood without a regret for his
+nipped youth. So my father, at the age of sixteen and a half, lent a
+willing ear to the cooing voice of the marriage broker.
+
+Indeed, it was high time for him to marry. His parents had kept him so
+far, but they had two daughters to marry off, and not a groschen laid
+by for their dowries. The cost of my father's schooling, as he
+advanced, had mounted to seventeen rubles a term, and the poor rebbe
+was seldom paid in full. Of course my father's scholarship was his
+fortune--in time it would be his support; but in the meanwhile the
+burden of feeding and clothing him lay heavy on his parents'
+shoulders. The time had come to find him a well-to-do father-in-law,
+who should support him and his wife and children, while he continued
+to study in the seminary.
+
+After the usual conferences between parents and marriage brokers, my
+father was betrothed to an undertaker's daughter in Polotzk. The girl
+was too old,--every day of twenty years,--but three hundred rubles in
+dowry, with board after marriage, not to mention handsome presents to
+the bridegroom, easily offset the bride's age. My father's family, to
+the humblest cousin, felt themselves set up by the match he had made;
+and the boy was happy enough, displaying a watch and chain for the
+first time in his life, and a good coat on week days. As for his
+fiancée, he could have no objection to her, as he had seen her only at
+a distance, and had never spoken to her.
+
+When it was time for the wedding preparations to begin, news came to
+Yuchovitch of the death of the bride-elect, and my father's prospects
+seemed fallen to the ground. But the undertaker had another daughter,
+girl of thirteen, and he pressed my father to take her in her sister's
+place. At the same time the marriage broker proposed another match;
+and my father's poor cousins bristled with importance once more.
+
+Somehow or other my father succeeded in getting in a word at the
+family councils that ensued; he even had the temerity to express a
+strong preference. He did not want any more of the undertaker's
+daughters; he wanted to consider the rival match. There were no
+serious objections from the cousins, and my father became engaged to
+my mother.
+
+This second choice was Hannah Hayye, only daughter of Raphael, called
+the Russian. She had had a very different bringing-up from Pinchus,
+the grandson of Israel Kimanyer. She had never known a day of want;
+had never gone barefoot from necessity. The family had a solid
+position in Polotzk, her father being the owner of a comfortable home
+and a good business.
+
+Prosperity is prosaic, so I shall skip briefly over the history of my
+mother's house.
+
+My grandfather Raphael, early left an orphan, was brought up by an
+elder brother, in a village at no great distance from Polotzk. The
+brother dutifully sent him to heder, and at an early age betrothed him
+to Deborah, daughter of one Solomon, a dealer in grain and cattle.
+Deborah was not yet in her teens at the time of the betrothal, and so
+foolish was she that she was afraid of her affianced husband. One day,
+when she was coming from the store with a bottle of liquid yeast, she
+suddenly came face to face with her betrothed, which gave her such a
+fright that she dropped the bottle, spilling the yeast on her pretty
+dress; and she ran home crying all the way. At thirteen she was
+married, which had a good effect on her deportment. I hear no more of
+her running away from her husband.
+
+Among the interesting things belonging to my grandmother, besides her
+dowry, at the time of the marriage, was her family. Her father was so
+original that he kept a tutor for his daughters--sons he had none--and
+allowed them to be instructed in the rudiments of three or four
+languages and the elements of arithmetic. Even more unconventional was
+her sister Hode. She had married a fiddler, who travelled constantly,
+playing at hotels and inns, all through "far Russia." Having no
+children, she ought to have spent her days in fasting and praying and
+lamenting. Instead of this, she accompanied her husband on his
+travels, and even had a heart to enjoy the excitement and variety of
+their restless life. I should be the last to blame my great-aunt, for
+the irregularity of her conduct afforded my grandfather the opening
+for his career, the fruits of which made my childhood so pleasant. For
+several years my grandfather travelled in Hode's train, in the
+capacity of shohat providing kosher meat for the little troup in the
+unholy wilds of "far Russia"; and the grateful couple rewarded him so
+generously that he soon had a fortune of eighty rubles laid by.
+
+My grandfather thought the time had now come to settle down, but he
+did not know how to invest his wealth. To resolve his perplexity, he
+made a pilgrimage to the Rebbe of Kopistch, who advised him to open a
+store in Polotzk, and gave him a blessed groschen to keep in the money
+drawer for good luck.
+
+The blessing of the "good Jew" proved fruitful. My grandfather's
+business prospered, and my grandmother bore him children, several sons
+and one daughter. The sons were sent to heder, like all respectable
+boys; and they were taught, in addition, writing and arithmetic,
+enough for conducting a business. With this my grandfather was
+content; more than this he considered incompatible with piety. He was
+one of those who strenuously opposed the influence of the public
+school, and bribed the government officials to keep their children's
+names off the register of schoolboys, as we have already seen. When he
+sent his sons to a private tutor, where they could study Russian with
+their hats on, he felt, no doubt, that he was giving them all the
+education necessary to a successful business career, without violating
+piety too grossly.
+
+If reading and writing were enough for the sons, even less would
+suffice the daughter. A female teacher was engaged for my mother, at
+three kopecks a week, to teach her the Hebrew prayers; and my
+grandmother, herself a better scholar than the teacher, taught her
+writing in addition. My mother was quick to learn, and expressed an
+ambition to study Russian. She teased and coaxed, and her mother
+pleaded for her, till my grandfather was persuaded to send her to a
+tutor. But the fates were opposed to my mother's education. On the
+first day at school, a sudden inflammation of the eyes blinded my
+mother temporarily, and although the distemper vanished as suddenly as
+it had appeared, it was taken as an omen, and my mother was not
+allowed to return to her lessons.
+
+Still she did not give up. She saved up every groschen that was given
+her to buy sweets, and bribed her brother Solomon, who was proud of
+his scholarship, to give her lessons in secret. The two strove
+earnestly with book and quill, in their hiding-place under the
+rafters, till my mother could read and write Russian, and translate a
+simple passage of Hebrew.
+
+My grandmother, although herself a good housewife, took no pains to
+teach her only daughter the domestic arts. She only petted and coddled
+her and sent her out to play. But my mother was as ambitious about
+housework as about books. She coaxed the housemaid to let her mix the
+bread. She learned knitting from watching her playmates. She was
+healthy and active, quick at everything, and restless with unspent
+energy. Therefore she was quite willing, at the age of ten, to go into
+her father's business as his chief assistant.
+
+As the years went by she developed a decided talent for business, so
+that her father could safely leave all his affairs in her hands if he
+had to go out of town. Her devotion, ability, and tireless energy made
+her, in time, indispensable. My grandfather was obliged to admit that
+the little learning she had stolen was turned to good account, when he
+saw how well she could keep his books, and how smoothly she got along
+with Russian and Polish customers. Perhaps that was the argument that
+induced him, after obstinate years, to remove his veto from my
+mother's petitions and let her take up lessons again. For while piety
+was my grandfather's chief concern on the godly side, on the worldly
+side he set success in business above everything.
+
+My mother was fifteen years old when she entered on a career of higher
+education. For two hours daily she was released from the store, and in
+that interval she strove with might and main to conquer the world
+of knowledge. Katrina Petrovna, her teacher, praised and encouraged
+her; and there was no reason why the promising pupil should not have
+developed into a young lady of culture, with Madame teaching Russian,
+German, crocheting, and singing--yes, out of a book, to the
+accompaniment of a clavier--all for a fee of seventy-five kopecks a
+week.
+
+    [Illustration: THE WOOD MARKET, POLOTZK]
+
+Did I say there was no reason? And what about the marriage broker?
+Hannah Hayye, the only daughter of Raphael the Russian, going on
+sixteen, buxom, bright, capable, and well educated, could not escape
+the eye of the shadchan. A fine thing it would be to let such a likely
+girl grow old over a book! To the canopy with her, while she could
+fetch the highest price in the marriage market!
+
+My mother was very unwilling to think of marriage at this time. She
+had nothing to gain by marriage, for already she had everything that
+she desired, especially since she was permitted to study. While her
+father was rather stern, her mother spoiled and petted her; and she
+was the idol of her aunt Hode, the fiddler's wife.
+
+Hode had bought a fine estate in Polotzk, after my grandfather settled
+there, and made it her home whenever she became tired of travelling.
+She lived in state, with many servants and dependents, wearing silk
+dresses on week days, and setting silver plate before the meanest
+guest. The women of Polotzk were breathless over her wardrobe,
+counting up how many pairs of embroidered boots she had, at fifteen
+rubles a pair. And Hode's manners were as much a subject of gossip as
+her clothes, for she had picked up strange ways in her travels
+Although she was so pious that she was never tempted to eat trefah, no
+matter if she had to go hungry, her conduct in other respects was not
+strictly orthodox. For one thing, she was in the habit of shaking
+hands with men, looking them straight in the face. She spoke Russian
+like a Gentile, she kept a poodle, and she had no children.
+
+Nobody meant to blame the rich woman for being childless, because it
+was well known in Polotzk that Hode the Russian, as she was called,
+would have given all her wealth for one scrawny baby. But she was to
+blame for voluntarily exiling herself from Jewish society for years at
+a time, to live among pork-eaters, and copy the bold ways of Gentile
+women. And so while they pitied her childlessness, the women of
+Polotzk regarded her misfortune as perhaps no more than a due
+punishment.
+
+Hode, poor woman, felt a hungry heart beneath her satin robes. She
+wanted to adopt one of my grandmother's children, but my grandmother
+would not hear of it. Hode was particularly taken with my mother, and
+my grandmother, in compassion, loaned her the child for days at a
+time; and those were happy days for both aunt and niece. Hode would
+treat my mother to every delicacy in her sumptuous pantry, tell her
+wonderful tales of life in distant parts, show her all her beautiful
+dresses and jewels, and load her with presents.
+
+As my mother developed into girlhood, her aunt grew more and more
+covetous of her. Following a secret plan, she adopted a boy from the
+poorhouse, and brought him up with every advantage that money could
+buy. My mother, on her visits, was thrown a great deal into this boy's
+society, but she liked him less than the poodle. This grieved her
+aunt, who cherished in her heart the hope that my mother would marry
+her adopted son, and so become her daughter after all. And in order
+to accustom her to think well of the match, Hode dinned the boy's name
+in my mother's ears day and night, praising him and showing him off.
+She would open her jewel boxes and take out the flashing diamonds,
+heavy chains, and tinkling bracelets, dress my mother in them in front
+of the mirror, telling her that they would all be hers--all her
+own--when she became the bride of Mulke.
+
+My mother still describes the necklace of pearls and diamonds which
+her aunt used to clasp around her plump throat, with a light in her
+eyes that is reminiscent of girlish pleasure. But to all her aunt's
+teasing references to the future, my mother answered with a giggle and
+a shake of her black curls, and went on enjoying herself, thinking
+that the day of judgment was very, very far away. But it swooped down
+on her sooner than she expected--the momentous hour when she must
+choose between the pearl necklace with Mulke and a penniless stranger
+from Yuchovitch who was reputed to be a fine scholar.
+
+Mulke she would not have even if all the pearls in the ocean came with
+him. The boy was stupid and unteachable, and of unspeakable origin.
+Picked up from the dirty floor of the poorhouse, his father was
+identified as the lazy porter who sometimes chopped a cord of wood for
+my grandmother; and his sisters were slovenly housemaids scattered
+through Polotzk. No, Mulke was not to be considered. But why consider
+anybody? Why think of a _hossen_ at all, when she was so content? My
+mother ran away every time the shadchan came, and she begged to be
+left as she was, and cried, and invoked her mother's support. But her
+mother, for the first time in her history, refused to take the
+daughter's part. She joined the enemy--the family and the
+shadchan--and my mother saw that she was doomed.
+
+Of course she submitted. What else could a dutiful daughter do, in
+Polotzk? She submitted to being weighed, measured, and appraised
+before her face, and resigned herself to what was to come.
+
+When that which was to come did come, she did not recognize it. She
+was all alone in the store one day, when a beardless young man, in top
+boots that wanted grease, and a coat too thin for the weather, came in
+for a package of cigarettes. My mother climbed up on the counter, with
+one foot on a shelf, to reach down the cigarettes. The customer gave
+her the right change, and went out. And my mother never suspected that
+that was the proposed hossen, who came to look her over and see if she
+was likely to last. For my father considered himself a man of
+experience now, this being his second match, and he was determined to
+have a hand in this affair himself.
+
+No sooner was the hossen out of the store than his mother, also
+unknown to the innocent storekeeper, came in for a pound of tallow
+candles. She offered a torn bill in payment, and my mother accepted it
+and gave change; showing that she was wise enough in money matters to
+know that a torn bill was good currency.
+
+After the woman there shuffled in a poor man evidently from the
+country, who, in a shy and yet challenging manner, asked for a package
+of cheap tobacco. My mother produced the goods with her usual
+dispatch, gave the correct change, and stood at attention for more
+trade.
+
+Parents and son held a council around the corner, the object of their
+espionage never dreaming that she had been put to a triple test and
+not found wanting. But in the evening of the same day she was
+enlightened. She was summoned to her elder brother's house, for a
+conference on the subject of the proposed match, and there she found
+the young man who had bought the cigarettes. For my mother's family,
+if they forced her to marry, were willing to make her path easier by
+letting her meet the hossen, convinced that she must be won over by
+his good looks and learned conversation.
+
+It does not really matter how my mother felt, as she sat, with a
+protecting niece in her lap, at one end of a long table, with the
+hossen fidgeting at the other end. The marriage contract would be
+written anyway, no matter what she thought of the hossen. And the
+contract was duly written, in the presence of the assembled families
+of both parties, after plenty of open discussion, in which everybody
+except the prospective bride and groom had a voice.
+
+One voice in particular broke repeatedly into the consultations of the
+parents and the shadchan, and that was the voice of Henne Rösel, one
+of my father's numerous poor cousins. Henne Rösel was not unknown to
+my mother. She often came to the store, to beg, under pretence of
+borrowing, a little flour or sugar or a stick of cinnamon. On the
+occasion of the betrothal she had arrived late, dressed in
+indescribable odds and ends, with an artificial red flower stuck into
+her frowzy wig. She pushed and elbowed her way to the middle of the
+table, where the shadchan sat ready with paper and ink to take down
+the articles of the contract. On every point she had some comment to
+make, till a dispute arose over a note which my grandfather offered as
+part of the dowry, the hossen's people insisting on cash. No one
+insisted so loudly as the cousin with the red flower in her wig; and
+when the other cousins seemed about to weaken and accept the note,
+Red-Flower stood up and exhorted them to be firm, lest their flesh and
+blood be cheated under their noses. The meddlesome cousin was silenced
+at last, the contract was signed, the happiness of the engaged couple
+was pledged in wine, the guests dispersed. And all this while my
+mother had not opened her mouth, and my father had scarcely been
+heard.
+
+That is the way my fate was sealed. It gives me a shudder of wonder to
+think what a narrow escape I had; I came so near not being born at
+all. If the beggarly cousin with the frowzy wig had prevailed upon her
+family and broken off the match, then my mother would not have married
+my father, and I should at this moment be an unborn possibility in a
+philosopher's brain. It is right that I should pick my words most
+carefully, and meditate over every comma, because I am describing
+miracles too great for careless utterance. If I had died after my
+first breath, my history would still be worth recording. For before I
+could lie on my mother's breast, the earth had to be prepared, and the
+stars had to take their places; a million races had to die, testing
+the laws of life; and a boy and girl had to be bound for life to watch
+together for my coming. I was millions of years on the way, and I came
+through the seas of chance, over the fiery mountain of law, by the
+zigzag path of human possibility. Multitudes were pushed back into the
+abyss of non-existence, that I should have way to creep into being.
+And at the last, when I stood at the gate of life, a weazen-faced
+fishwife, who had not wit enough to support herself, came near
+shutting me out.
+
+Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand deaths before
+we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own world, if we
+choose. Since I have stood on my own feet, I have never met my master.
+For every time I choose a friend I determine my fate anew. I can think
+of no cataclysm that could have the force to move me from my path.
+Fire or flood or the envy of men may tear the roof off my house, but
+my soul would still be at home under the lofty mountain pines that dip
+their heads in star dust. Even life, that was so difficult to attain,
+may serve me merely as a wayside inn, if I choose to go on eternally.
+However I came here, it is mine to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DAILY BREAD
+
+
+My mother ought to have been happy in her engagement. Everybody
+congratulated her on securing such a scholar, her parents loaded her
+with presents, and her friends envied her. It is true that the
+hossen's family consisted entirely of poor relations; there was not
+one solid householder among them. From the worldly point of view my
+mother made a mésalliance. But as one of my aunts put it, when my
+mother objected to the association with the undesirable cousins, she
+could take out the cow and set fire to the barn; meaning that she
+could rejoice in the hossen and disregard his family.
+
+The hossen, on his part, had reason to rejoice, without any
+reservations. He was going into a highly respectable family, with a
+name supported by property and business standing. The promised dowry
+was considerable, the presents were generous, the trousseau would be
+liberal, and the bride was fair and capable. The bridegroom would have
+years before him in which he need do nothing but eat free board, wear
+his new clothes, and study Torah; and his poor relations could hold up
+their heads at the market stalls, and in the rear pews in the
+synagogue.
+
+My mother's trousseau was all that a mother-in-law could wish. The
+best tailor in Polotzk was engaged to make the cloaks and gowns, and
+his shop was filled to bursting with ample lengths of velvet and satin
+and silk. The wedding gown alone cost every kopeck of fifty rubles,
+as the tailor's wife reported all over Polotzk. The lingerie was of
+the best, and the seamstress was engaged on it for many weeks.
+Featherbeds, linen, household goods of every sort--everything was
+provided in abundance. My mother crocheted many yards of lace to trim
+the best sheets, and fine silk coverlets adorned the plump beds. Many
+a marriageable maiden who came to view the trousseau went home to
+prink and blush and watch for the shadchan.
+
+The wedding was memorable for gayety and splendor. The guests included
+some of the finest people in Polotzk; for while my grandfather was not
+quite at the top of the social scale, he had business connections with
+those that were, and they all turned out for the wedding of his only
+daughter, the men in silk frock coats, the women in all their jewelry.
+
+The bridegroom's aunts and cousins came in full force. Wedding
+messengers had been sent to every person who could possibly claim
+relationship with the hossen. My mother's parents were too generous to
+slight the lowliest. Instead of burning the barn, they did all they
+could to garnish it. One or two of the more important of the poor
+relations came to the wedding in gowns paid for by my rich
+grandfather. The rest came decked out in borrowed finery, or in
+undisguised shabbiness. But nobody thought of staying away--except the
+obstructive cousin who had nearly prevented the match.
+
+When it was time to conduct the bride to the wedding canopy, the
+bridegroom's mother missed Henne Rösel. The house was searched for
+her, but in vain. Nobody had seen her. But my grandmother could not
+bear to have the marriage solemnized in the absence of a first
+cousin. Such a wedding as this was not likely to be repeated in her
+family; it would be a great pity if any of the relatives missed it. So
+she petitioned the principals to delay the ceremony, while she herself
+went in search of the missing cousin.
+
+Clear over to the farthest end of the town she walked, lifting her
+gala dress well above her ankles. She found Henne Rösel in her untidy
+kitchen, sound in every limb but sulky in spirit. My grandmother
+exclaimed at her conduct, and bade her hurry with her toilet, and
+accompany her; the wedding guests were waiting; the bride was faint
+from prolonging her fast. But Henne Rösel flatly refused to go; the
+bride might remain an old maid, for all she, Henne Rösel, cared about
+the wedding. My troubled grandmother expostulated, questioned her,
+till she drew out the root of the cousin's sulkiness. Henne Rösel
+complained that she had not been properly invited. The wedding
+messenger had come,--oh, yes!--but she had not addressed her as
+flatteringly, as respectfully as she had been heard to address the
+wife of Yohem, the money-lender. And Henne Rösel wasn't going to any
+weddings where she was not wanted. My grandmother had a struggle of
+it, but she succeeded in soothing the sensitive cousin, who consented
+at length to don her best dress and go to the wedding.
+
+While my grandmother labored with Henne Rösel, the bride sat in state
+in her father's house under the hill, the maidens danced, and the
+matrons fanned themselves, while the fiddlers and _zimblers_ scraped
+and tinkled. But as the hours went by, the matrons became restless and
+the dancers wearied. The poor relations grew impatient for the feast,
+and the babies in their laps began to fidget and cry; while the bride
+grew faint, and the bridegroom's party began to send frequent
+messengers from the house next door, demanding to know the cause of
+the delay. Some of the guests at last lost all patience, and begged
+leave to go home. But before they went they deposited the wedding
+presents in the bride's satin lap, till she resembled a heathen image
+hung about with offerings.
+
+My mother, after thirty years of bustling life, retains a lively
+memory of the embarrassment she suffered while waiting for the arrival
+of the troublesome cousin. When that important dame at last appeared,
+with her chin in the air, the artificial flower still stuck
+belligerently into her dusty wig, and my grandmother beaming behind
+her, the bride's heart fairly jumped with anger, and the red blood of
+indignation set her cheeks afire. No wonder that she speaks the name
+of the Red-Flower with an unloving accent to this day, although she
+has forgiven the enemies who did her greater wrong. The bride is a
+princess on her wedding day. To put upon her an indignity is an
+unpardonable offense.
+
+After the feasting and dancing, which lasted a whole week, the wedding
+presents were locked up, the bride, with her hair discreetly covered,
+returned to her father's store, and the groom, with his new
+praying-shawl, repaired to the synagogue. This was all according to
+the marriage bargain, which implied that my father was to study and
+pray and fill the house with the spirit of piety, in return for board
+and lodging and the devotion of his wife and her entire family.
+
+All the parties concerned had entered into this bargain in good faith,
+so far as they knew their own minds. But the eighteen-year-old
+bridegroom, before many months had passed, began to realize that he
+felt no such hunger for the word of the Law as he was supposed to
+feel. He felt, rather, a hunger for life that all his studying did not
+satisfy. He was not trained enough to analyze his own thoughts to any
+purpose; he was not experienced enough to understand where his
+thoughts were leading him. He only knew that he felt no call to pray
+and fast that the Torah did not inspire him, and his days were blank.
+The life he was expected to lead grew distasteful to him, and yet he
+knew no other way to live. He became lax in his attendance at the
+synagogue, incurring the reproach of the family. It began to be
+rumored among the studious that the son-in-law of Raphael the Russian
+was not devoting himself to the sacred books with any degree of
+enthusiasm. It was well known that he had a good mind, but evidently
+the spirit was lacking. My grandparents went from surprise to
+indignation, from exhortation they passed to recrimination. Before my
+parents had been married half a year, my grandfather's house was
+divided against itself and my mother was torn between the two
+factions. For while she sympathized with her parents, and felt
+personally cheated by my father's lack of piety, she thought it was
+her duty to take her husband's part, even against her parents, in
+their own house. My mother was one of those women who always obey the
+highest law they know, even though it leads them to their doom.
+
+How did it happen that my father, who from his early boyhood had been
+pointed out as a scholar in embryo, failed to live up to the
+expectations of his world? It happened as it happened that his hair
+curled over his high forehead: he was made that way. If people were
+disappointed, it was because they had based their expectations on a
+misconception of his character, for my father had never had any
+aspirations for extreme piety. Piety was imputed to him by his mother,
+by his rebbe, by his neighbors, when they saw that he rendered the
+sacred word more intelligently than his fellow students. It was not
+his fault that his people confused scholarship with religious ardor.
+Having a good mind, he was glad to exercise it; and being given only
+one subject to study he was bound to make rapid progress in that. If
+he had ever been offered a choice between a religious and a secular
+education, his friends would have found out early that he was not born
+to be a rav. But as he had no mental opening except through the
+hedder, he went on from year to year winning new distinction in Hebrew
+scholarship; with the result that witnesses with preconceived ideas
+began to see the halo of piety playing around his head, and a
+well-to-do family was misled into making a match with him for the sake
+of the glory that he was to attain.
+
+When it became evident that the son-in-law was not going to develop
+into a rav, my grandfather notified him that he would have to assume
+the support of his own family without delay. My father therefore
+entered on a series of experiments with paying occupations, for none
+of which he was qualified, and in none of which he succeeded
+permanently.
+
+My mother was with my father, as equal partner and laborer, in
+everything he attempted in Polotzk. They tried keeping a wayside inn,
+but had to give it up because the life was too rough for my mother,
+who was expecting her first baby. Returning to Polotzk they went to
+storekeeping on their own account, but failed in this also, because my
+father was inexperienced, and my mother, now with the baby to nurse,
+was not able to give her best attention to business. Over two years
+passed in this experiment, and in the interval the second child was
+born, increasing my parents' need of a home and a reliable income.
+
+It was then decided that my father should seek his fortune elsewhere.
+He travelled as far east as Tchistopol, on the Volga, and south as far
+as Odessa, on the Black Sea, trying his luck at various occupations
+within the usual Jewish restrictions. Finally he reached the position
+of assistant superintendent in a distillery, with a salary of thirty
+rubles a month. That was a fair income for those days, and he was
+planning to have his family join him when my Grandfather Raphael died,
+leaving my mother heir to a good business. My father thereupon
+returned to Polotzk, after nearly three years' absence from home.
+
+As my mother had been trained to her business from childhood, while my
+father had had only a little irregular experience, she naturally
+remained the leader. She was as successful as her father before her.
+The people continued to call her Raphael's Hannah Hayye, and under
+that name she was greatly respected in the business world. Her eldest
+brother was now a merchant of importance, and my mother's
+establishment was gradually enlarged; so that, altogether, our family
+had a solid position in Polotzk, and there were plenty to envy us.
+
+We were almost rich, as Polotzk counted riches in those days;
+certainly we were considered well-to-do. We moved into a larger house,
+where there was room for out-of-town customers to stay overnight, with
+stabling for their horses. We lived as well as any people of our
+class, and perhaps better, because my father had brought home with
+him from his travels a taste for a more genial life than Polotzk
+usually asked for. My mother kept a cook and a nursemaid, and a
+dvornik, or outdoor man, to take care of the horses, the cow, and the
+woodpile. All the year round we kept open house, as I remember.
+Cousins and aunts were always about, and on holidays friends of all
+degrees gathered in numbers. And coming and going in the wing set
+apart for business guests were merchants, traders, country peddlers,
+peasants, soldiers, and minor government officials. It was a full
+house at all times, and especially so during fairs, and at the season
+of the military draft.
+
+In the family wing there was also enough going on. There were four of
+us children, besides father and mother and grandmother, and the
+parasitic cousins. Fetchke was the eldest; I was the second; the third
+was my only brother, named Joseph, for my father's father; and the
+fourth was Deborah, named for my mother's mother.
+
+I suppose I ought to explain my own name also, especially because I am
+going to emerge as the heroine by and by. Be it therefore known that I
+was named Maryashe, for a bygone aunt. I was never called by my full
+name, however. "Maryashe" was too dignified for me. I was always
+"Mashinke," or else "Mashke," by way of diminutive. A variety of
+nicknames, mostly suggested by my physical peculiarities, were
+bestowed on me from time to time by my fond or foolish relatives. My
+uncle Berl, for example, gave me the name of "Zukrochene Flum," which
+I am not going to translate, because it is uncomplimentary.
+
+My sister Fetchke was always the good little girl, and when our
+troubles began she was an important member of the family. What sort of
+little girl I was will be written by and by. Joseph was the best
+Jewish boy that ever was born, but he hated to go to heder, so he had
+to be whipped, of course. Deborah was just a baby, and her principal
+characteristic was single-mindedness. If she had teething to attend
+to, she thought of nothing else day or night, and communicated with
+the family on no other subject. If it was whooping-cough, she whooped
+most heartily; if it was measles, she had them thick.
+
+It was the normal thing in Polotzk, where the mothers worked as well
+as the fathers, for the children to be left in the hands of
+grandmothers and nursemaids. I suffer reminiscent terrors when I
+recall Deborah's nurse, who never opened her lips except to frighten
+us children--or else to lie. That girl never told the truth if she
+could help it. I know it is so because I heard her tell eleven or
+twelve unnecessary lies every day. In the beginning of her residence
+with us, I exposed her indignantly every time I caught her lying; but
+the tenor of her private conversations with me was conducive to a
+cessation of my activity along the line of volunteer testimony. In
+shorter words, the nurse terrified me with horrid threats until I did
+not dare to contradict her even if she lied her head off. The things
+she promised me in this life and in the life to come could not be
+executed by a person without imagination. The nurse gave almost her
+entire attention to us older children, disposing easily of the baby's
+claims. Deborah, unless she was teething or whoop-coughing, was a
+quiet baby, and would lie for hours on the nurse's lap, sucking at a
+"pacifier" made of bread and sugar tied up in a muslin rag, and
+previously chewed to a pulp by the nurse. And while the baby sucked
+the nurse told us things--things that we must remember when we went to
+bed at night.
+
+A favorite subject of her discourse was the Evil One, who lived, so
+she told us, in our attic, with his wife and brood. A pet amusement of
+our invisible tenant was the translating of human babies into his
+lair, leaving one of his own brats in the cradle; the moral of which
+was that if nurse wanted to loaf in the yard and watch who went out
+and who came in, we children must mind the baby. The girl was so sly
+that she carried on all this tyranny without being detected, and we
+lived in terror till she was discharged for stealing.
+
+In our grandmothers we were very fortunate: They spoiled us to our
+hearts' content. Grandma Deborah's methods I know only from hearsay,
+for I was very little when she died. Grandma Rachel I remember
+distinctly, spare and trim and always busy. I recall her coming in
+midwinter from the frozen village where she lived. I remember, as if
+it were but last winter, the immense shawls and wraps which we unwound
+from about her person, her voluminous brown sack coat in which there
+was room for three of us at a time, and at last the tight clasp of her
+long arms, and her fresh, cold cheeks on ours. And when the hugging
+and kissing were over, Grandma had a treat for us. It was _talakno_,
+or oat flour, which we mixed with cold water and ate raw, using wooden
+spoons, just like the peasants, and smacking our lips over it in
+imaginary enjoyment.
+
+But Grandma Rachel did not come to play. She applied herself
+energetically to the housekeeping. She kept her bright eye on
+everything, as if she were in her own trifling establishment in
+Yuchovitch. Watchful was she as any cat--and harmless as a tame
+rabbit. If she caught the maids at fault, she found an excuse for
+them at the same time. If she was quite exasperated with the stupidity
+of Yakub, the dvornik, she pretended to curse him in a phrase of her
+own invention, a mixture of Hebrew and Russian, which, translated,
+said, "Mayst thou have gold and silver in thy bosom"; but to the
+choreman, who was not a linguist, the mongrel phrase conveyed a sense
+of his delinquency.
+
+Grandma Rachel meant to be very strict with us children, and
+accordingly was prompt to discipline us; but we discovered early in
+our acquaintance with her that the child who got a spanking was sure
+to get a hot cookie or the jam pot to lick, so we did not stand in
+great awe of her punishments. Even if it came to a spanking it was
+only a farce. Grandma generally interposed a pillow between the palm
+of her hand and the area of moral stimulation.
+
+The real disciplinarian in our family was my father. Present or
+absent, it was fear of his displeasure that kept us in the straight
+and narrow path. In the minds of us children he was as much
+represented, when away from home, by the strap hanging on the wall as
+by his portrait which stood on a parlor table, in a gorgeous frame
+adorned with little shells. Almost everybody's father had a strap, but
+our father's strap was more formidable than the ordinary. For one
+thing, it was more painful to encounter personally, because it was not
+a simple strap, but a bunch of fine long strips, clinging as rubber.
+My father called it noodles; and while his facetiousness was lost on
+us children, the superior sting of his instrument was entirely
+effective.
+
+In his leisure, my father found means of instructing us other than by
+the strap. He took us walking and driving, answered our questions, and
+taught us many little things that our playmates were not taught.
+From distant parts of the country he had imported little tricks of
+speech and conduct, which we learned readily enough; for we were
+always a teachable lot. Our pretty manners were very much admired, so
+that we became used to being held up as models to children less
+polite. Guests at our table praised our deportment, when, at the end
+of a meal, we kissed the hands of father and mother and thanked them
+for food. Envious mothers of rowdy children used to sneer, "Those
+grandchildren of Raphael the Russian are quite the aristocrats."
+
+    [Illustration: MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT]
+
+And yet, off the stage, we had our little quarrels and tempests,
+especially I. I really and truly cannot remember a time when Fetchke
+was naughty, but I was oftener in trouble than out of it. I need not
+go into details. I only need to recall how often, on going to bed, I
+used to lie silently rehearsing the day's misdeeds, my sister
+refraining from talk out of sympathy. As I always came to the
+conclusion that I wanted to reform, I emerged from my reflections with
+this solemn formula: "Fetchke, let us be good." And my generosity in
+including my sister in my plans for salvation was equalled by her
+magnanimity in assuming part of my degradation. She always replied, in
+aspiration as eager as mine, "Yes, Mashke, let us be good."
+
+My mother had less to do than any one with our early training, because
+she was confined to the store. When she came home at night, with her
+pockets full of goodies for us, she was too hungry for our love to
+listen to tales against us, too tired from work to discipline us. It
+was only on Sabbaths and holidays that she had a chance to get
+acquainted with us, and we all looked forward to these days of
+enjoined rest.
+
+On Friday afternoons my parents came home early, to wash and dress and
+remove from their persons every sign of labor. The great keys of the
+store were put away out of sight; the money bag was hidden in the
+featherbeds. My father put on his best coat and silk skull-cap; my
+mother replaced the cotton kerchief by the well-brushed wig. We
+children bustled around our parents, asking favors in the name of the
+Sabbath--"Mama, let Fetchke and me wear our new shoes, in honor of
+Sabbath"; or "Papa, will you take us to-morrow across the bridge? You
+said you would, on Sabbath." And while we adorned ourselves in our
+best, my grandmother superintended the sealing of the oven, the maids
+washed the sweat from their faces, and the dvornik scraped his feet at
+the door.
+
+My father and brother went to the synagogue, while we women and girls
+assembled in the living-room for candle prayer. The table gleamed with
+spotless linen and china. At my father's place lay the Sabbath loaf,
+covered over with a crocheted doily; and beside it stood the wine
+flask and _kiddush_ cup of gold or silver. At the opposite end of the
+table was a long row of brass candlesticks, polished to perfection,
+with the heavy silver candlesticks in a shorter row in front; for my
+mother and grandmother were very pious, and each used a number of
+candles; while Fetchke and I and the maids had one apiece.
+
+After the candle prayer the women generally read in some book of
+devotion, while we children amused ourselves in the quietest manner,
+till the men returned from synagogue. "Good Sabbath!" my father
+called, as he entered; and "Good Sabbath! Good Sabbath!" we wished him
+in return. If he brought with him a Sabbath guest from the synagogue,
+some poor man without a home, the stranger was welcomed and invited
+in, and placed in the seat of honor, next to my father.
+
+We all stood around the table while _kiddush_, or the blessing over
+the wine, was said, and if a child whispered or nudged another my
+father reproved him with a stern look, and began again from the
+beginning. But as soon as he had cut the consecrated loaf, and
+distributed the slices, we were at liberty to talk and ask questions,
+unless a guest was present, when we maintained a polite silence.
+
+Of one Sabbath guest we were always sure, even if no destitute Jew
+accompanied my father from the synagogue. Yakub the choreman partook
+of the festival with us. He slept on a bunk built over the entrance
+door, and reached by means of a rude flight of steps. There he liked
+to roll on his straw and rags, whenever he was not busy, or felt
+especially lazy. On Friday evenings he climbed to his roost very
+early, before the family assembled for supper, and waited for his cue,
+which was the breaking-out of table talk after the blessing of the
+bread. Then Yakub began to clear his throat and kept on working at it
+until my father called to him to come down and have a glass of vodka.
+Sometimes my father pretended not to hear him, and we smiled at one
+another around the table, while Yakub's throat grew worse and worse,
+and he began to cough and mutter and rustle in his straw. Then my
+father let him come down, and he shuffled in, and stood clutching his
+cap with both hands, while my father poured him a brimming glass of
+whiskey. This Yakub dedicated to all our healths, and tossed off to
+his own comfort. If he got a slice of boiled fish after his glassful,
+he gulped it down as a chicken gulps worms, smacked his lips
+explosively, and wiped his fingers on his unkempt locks. Then,
+thanking his master and mistress, and scraping and bowing, he backed
+out of the room and ascended to his roost once more; and in less time
+than it takes to write his name, the simple fellow was asleep, and
+snoring the snore of the just.
+
+On Sabbath morning almost everybody went to synagogue, and those who
+did not, read their prayers and devotions at home. Dinner, at midday,
+was a pleasant and leisurely meal in our house. Between courses my
+father led us in singing our favorite songs, sometimes Hebrew,
+sometimes Yiddish, sometimes Russian, or some of the songs without
+words for which the Hasidim were famous. In the afternoon we went
+visiting, or else we took long walks out of town, where the fields
+sprouted and the orchards waited to bloom. If we stayed at home, we
+were not without company. Neighbors dropped in for a glass of tea.
+Uncles and cousins came, and perhaps my brother's rebbe, to examine
+his pupil in the hearing of the family. And wherever we spent the day,
+the talk was pleasant, the faces were cheerful, and the joy of Sabbath
+pervaded everything.
+
+The festivals were observed with all due pomp and circumstance in our
+house. Passover was beautiful with shining new things all through the
+house; _Purim_ was gay with feasting and presents and the jolly
+mummers; _Succoth_ was a poem lived in a green arbor; New-Year
+thrilled our hearts with its symbols and promises; and the Day of
+Atonement moved even the laughing children to a longing for
+consecration. The year, in our pious house, was an endless song in
+many cantos of joy, lamentation, aspiration, and rhapsody.
+
+We children, while we regretted the passing of a festival, found
+plenty to content us in the common days of the week. We had
+everything we needed, and almost everything we wanted. We were
+welcomed everywhere, petted and praised, abroad as well as at home. I
+suppose no little girls with whom we played had a more comfortable
+sense of being well-off than Fetchke and I. "Raphael the Russian's
+grandchildren" people called us, as if referring to the quarterings in
+our shield. It was very pleasant to wear fine clothes, to have kopecks
+to spend at the fruit stalls, and to be pointed at admiringly. Some of
+the little girls we went with were richer than we, but after all one's
+mother can wear only one pair of earrings at a time, and our mother
+had beautiful gold ones that hung down on her neck.
+
+As we grew older, my parents gave us more than physical comfort and
+social standing to rejoice in. They gave us, or set out to give us,
+education, which was less common than gold earrings in Polotzk. For
+the ideal of a modern education was the priceless ware that my father
+brought back with him from his travels in distant parts. His travels,
+indeed, had been the making of my father. He had gone away from
+Polotzk, in the first place, as a man unfit for the life he led, out
+of harmony with his surroundings, at odds with his neighbors. Never
+heartily devoted to the religious ideals of the Hebrew scholar, he was
+more and more a dissenter as he matured, but he hardly knew what he
+wanted to embrace in place of the ideals he rejected. The rigid scheme
+of orthodox Jewish life in the Pale offered no opening to any other
+mode of life. But in the large cities in the east and south he
+discovered a new world, and found himself at home in it. The Jews
+among whom he lived in those parts were faithful to the essence of the
+religion, but they allowed themselves more latitude in practice and
+observance than the people in Polotzk. Instead of bribing government
+officials to relax the law of compulsory education for boys, these
+people pushed in numbers at every open door of culture and
+enlightenment. Even the girls were given books in Odessa and Kherson,
+as the rock to build their lives on, and not as an ornament for
+idleness. My father's mind was ready for the reception of such ideas,
+and he was inspired by the new view of the world which they afforded
+him.
+
+When he returned to Polotzk he knew what had been wrong with his life
+before, and he proceeded to remedy it. He resolved to live, as far as
+the conditions of existence in Polotzk permitted, the life of a modern
+man. And he saw no better place to begin than with the education of
+the children. Outwardly he must conform to the ways of his neighbors,
+just as he must pay tribute to the policeman on the beat; for standing
+room is necessary to all operations, and social ostracism could ruin
+him as easily as police persecution. His children, if he started them
+right, would not have to bow to the yoke as low as he; his children's
+children might even be free men. And education was the one means to
+redemption.
+
+Fetchke and I were started with a rebbe, in the orthodox way, but we
+were taught to translate as well as read Hebrew, and we had a secular
+teacher besides. My sister and I were very diligent pupils, and my
+father took great satisfaction in our progress and built great plans
+for our higher education.
+
+My brother, who was five years old when he entered heder, hated to be
+shut up all day over a printed page that meant nothing to him. He
+cried and protested, but my father was determined that he should not
+grow up ignorant, so he used the strap freely to hasten the truant's
+steps to school. The heder was the only beginning allowable for a boy
+in Polotzk, and to heder Joseph must go. So the poor boy's life was
+made a nightmare, and the horror was not lifted until he was ten years
+old, when he went to a modern school where intelligible things were
+taught, and it proved that it was not the book he hated, but the
+blindness of the heder.
+
+For a number of peaceful years after my father's return from "far
+Russia," we led a wholesome life of comfort, contentment, and faith in
+to-morrow. Everything prospered, and we children grew in the sun. My
+mother was one with my father in all his plans for us. Although she
+had spent her young years in the pursuit of the ruble, it was more to
+her that our teacher praised us than that she had made a good bargain
+with a tea merchant. Fetchke and Joseph and I, and Deborah, when she
+grew up, had some prospects even in Polotzk, with our parents' hearts
+set on the highest things; but we were destined to seek our fortunes
+in a world which even my father did not dream of when he settled down
+to business in Polotzk.
+
+Just when he felt himself safe and strong, a long series of troubles
+set in to harass us, and in a few years' time we were reduced to a
+state of helpless poverty, in which there was no room to think of
+anything but bread. My father became seriously ill, and spent large
+sums on cures that did not cure him. While he was still an invalid, my
+mother also became ill and kept her bed for the better part of two
+years. When she got up, it was only to lapse again. Some of us
+children also fell ill, so that at one period the house was a
+hospital. And while my parents were incapacitated, the business was
+ruined through bad management, until a day came when there was not
+enough money in the cash drawer to pay the doctor's bills.
+
+For some years after they got upon their feet again, my parents
+struggled to regain their place in the business world, but failed to
+do so. My father had another period of experimenting with this or that
+business, like his earlier experience. But everything went wrong, till
+at last he made a great resolve to begin life all over again. And the
+way to do that was to start on a new soil. My father determined to
+emigrate to America.
+
+I have now told who I am, what my people were, how I began life, and
+why I was brought to a new home. Up to this point I have borrowed the
+recollections of my parents, to piece out my own fragmentary
+reminiscences. But from now on I propose to be my own pilot across the
+seas of memory; and if I lose myself in the mists of uncertainty, or
+run aground on the reefs of speculation, I still hope to make port at
+last, and I shall look for welcoming faces on the shore. For the ship
+I sail in is history, and facts will kindle my beacon fires.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+I REMEMBER
+
+
+My father and mother could tell me much more that I have forgotten, or
+that I never was aware of; but I want to reconstruct my childhood from
+those broken recollections only which, recurring to me in after years,
+filled me with the pain and wonder of remembrance. I want to string
+together those glimpses of my earliest days that dangle in my mind,
+like little lanterns in the crooked alleys of the past, and show me an
+elusive little figure that is myself, and yet so much a stranger to
+me, that I often ask, Can this be I?
+
+I have not much faith in the reality of my first recollection, but as
+I can never go back over the past without bringing up at last at this
+sombre little scene, as at a door beyond which I cannot pass, I must
+put it down for what it is worth in the scheme of my memories. I see,
+then, an empty, darkened room. In the middle, on the floor, lies a
+long Shape, covered with some black stuff. There are candles at the
+head of the Shape. Dim figures are seated low, against the walls,
+swaying to and fro. No sound is in the room, except a moan or a sigh
+from the shadowy figures; but a child is walking softly around and
+around the Shape on the floor, in quiet curiosity.
+
+The Shape is the body of my grandfather laid out for burial. The child
+is myself--myself asking questions of Death.
+
+I was four years old when my mother's father died. Do I really
+remember the little scene? Perhaps I heard it described by some fond
+relative, as I heard other anecdotes of my infancy, and unconsciously
+incorporated it with my genuine recollections. It is so suitable a
+scene for a beginning: the darkness, the mystery, the impenetrability.
+My share in it, too, is characteristic enough, if I really studied
+that Shape by the lighted candles, as I have always pretended to
+myself. So often afterwards I find myself forgetting the conventional
+meanings of things, in some search for a meaning of my own. It is more
+likely, however, that I took no intellectual interest in my
+grandfather's remains at the time, but later on, when I sought for a
+First Recollection, perhaps, elaborated the scene, and my part in it,
+to something that satisfied my sense of dramatic fitness. If I really
+committed such a fraud, I am now well punished, by being obliged, at
+the very start, to discredit the authenticity of my memoirs.
+
+The abode of our childhood, if not revisited in later years, is apt to
+loom in our imagination as a vast edifice with immense chambers in
+which our little self seems lost. Somehow I have failed of this
+illusion. My grandfather's house, where I was born, stands, in my
+memory, a small, one-story wooden building, whose chimneys touch the
+sky at the same level as its neighbors' chimneys. Such as it was, the
+house stood even with the sidewalk, but the yard was screened from the
+street by a board fence, outside which I am sure there was a bench.
+The gate into the yard swung so high from the ground that four-footed
+visitors did not have to wait till it was opened. Pigs found their way
+in, and were shown the way out, under the gate; grunting on their
+arrival, but squealing on their departure.
+
+   [Illustration: MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, WHERE I WAS BORN]
+
+Of the interior of the house I remember only one room, and not so much
+the room as the window, which had a blue sash curtain, and beyond the
+curtain a view of a narrow, walled garden, where deep-red dahlias
+grew. The garden belonged to the house adjoining my grandfather's,
+where lived the Gentile girl who was kind to me.
+
+Concerning my dahlias I have been told that they were not dahlias at
+all, but poppies. As a conscientious historian I am bound to record
+every rumor, but I retain the right to cling to my own impression.
+Indeed, I must insist on my dahlias, if I am to preserve the garden at
+all. I have so long believed in them, that if I try to see _poppies_
+in those red masses over the wall, the whole garden crumbles away, and
+leaves me a gray blank. I have nothing against poppies. It is only
+that my illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often
+build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling
+to pieces, if any one but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.
+
+Ours was a quiet neighborhood. Across the narrow street was the
+orderly front of the Korpus, or military academy, with straight rows
+of unshuttered windows. It was an imposing edifice in the eyes of us
+all, because it was built of brick, and was several stories high. At
+one of the windows I pretend I remember seeing a tailor mending the
+uniforms of the cadets. I knew the uniforms, and I knew, in later
+years, the man who had been the tailor; but I am not sure that he did
+not emigrate to America, there to seek his fortune in a candy shop,
+and his happiness in a family of triplets, twins, and even odds, long
+before I was old enough to toddle as far as the gate.
+
+Behind my grandfather's house was a low hill, which I do _not_
+remember as a mountain. Perhaps it was only a hump in the ground. This
+eminence, of whatever stature, was a part of the Vall, a longer and
+higher ridge on the top of which was a promenade, and which was said
+to be the burying-ground of Napoleonic soldiers. This historic rumor
+meant very little to me, for I never knew what Napoleon was.
+
+It was not my way to accept unchallenged every superstition that came
+to my ears. Among the wild flowers that grew on the grassy slopes of
+the Vall, there was a small daisy, popularly called "blind flower,"
+because it was supposed to cause blindness in rash children who picked
+it. I was rash, if I was awake; and I picked "blind flowers" behind
+the house, handfuls of them, and enjoyed my eyesight unimpaired. If my
+faith in nursery lore was shaken by this experience, I kept my
+discovery to myself, and did not undertake to enlighten my playmates.
+I find other instances, later on, of the curious fact that I was
+content with _finding out_ for myself. It is curious to me because I
+am not so reticent now. When I discover anything, if only a new tint
+in the red sunset, I must publish the fact to all my friends. Is it
+possible that in my childish reflections I recognized the fact that
+ours was a secretive atmosphere, where knowledge was for the few, and
+wisdom was sometimes a capital offence?
+
+In the summer-time I lived outdoors considerably. I found many
+occasions to visit my mother in the store, which gave me a long walk.
+If my errand was not pressing--or perhaps even if it was--I made a
+long stop on the Platz, especially if I had a companion with me. The
+Platz was a rectangular space in the centre of a roomy square, with a
+shady promenade around its level lawn. The Korpus faced on the Platz,
+which was its drill ground. Around the square were grouped the fine
+residences of the officers of the Korpus, with a great white church
+occupying one side. These buildings had a fearful interest for me,
+especially the church, as the dwellings and sanctuary of the enemy;
+but on the Platz I was not afraid to play and seek adventures. I loved
+to watch the cadets drill and play ball, or pass them close as they
+promenaded, two and two, looking so perfect in white trousers and
+jackets and visored caps. I loved to run with my playmates and lay out
+all sorts of geometric figures on the four straight sides of the
+promenade; patterns of infinite variety, traceable only by a pair of
+tireless feet. If one got so wild with play as to forget all fear, one
+could swing, until chased away by the guard, on the heavy chain
+festoons that encircled the monument at one side of the square. This
+was the only monument in Polotzk, dedicated I never knew to whom or
+what. It was the monument, as the sky was the sky, and the earth,
+earth: the only phenomenon of its kind, mysterious, unquestionable.
+
+It was not far from the limits of Polotzk to the fields and woods. My
+father was fond of taking us children for a long walk on a Sabbath
+afternoon. I have little pictures in my mind of places where we went,
+though I doubt if they could be found from my descriptions. I try in
+vain to conjure up a panoramic view of the neighborhood. Even when I
+stood on the apex of the Vall, and saw the level country spread in all
+directions, my inexperienced eyes failed to give me the picture of the
+whole. I saw the houses in the streets below, all going to market. The
+highroads wandered out into the country, and disappeared in the sunny
+distance, where the edge of the earth and the edge of the sky fitted
+together, like a jewel box with the lid ajar. In these things I saw
+what a child always sees: the unrelated fragments of a vast,
+mysterious world. But although my geography may be vague, and the
+scenes I remember as the pieces of a paper puzzle, still my breath
+catches as I replace this bit or that, and coax the edges to fit
+together. I am obstinately positive of some points, and for the rest,
+you may amend the puzzle if you can. You may make a survey of Polotzk
+ever so accurate, and show me where I was wrong; still I am the better
+guide. You may show that my adventureful road led nowhere, but I can
+prove, by the quickening of my pulse and the throbbing of my rapid
+recollections, that _things happened to me_ there or here; and I shall
+be believed, not you. And so over the vague canvas of scenes half
+remembered, half imagined, I draw the brush of recollection, and pick
+out here a landmark, there a figure, and set my own feet back in the
+old ways, and live over the old events. It is real enough, as by my
+beating heart you might know.
+
+Sometimes my father took us out by the Long Road. There is no road in
+the neighborhood of Polotzk by that name, but I know very well that
+the way was long to my little feet; and long are the backward thoughts
+that creep along it, like a sunbeam travelling with the day.
+
+The first landmark on the sunny, dusty road is the house of a peasant
+acquaintance where we stopped for rest and a drink. I remember a cool
+gray interior, a woman with her bosom uncovered pattering barefoot to
+hand us the hospitable dipper, and a baby smothered in a deep cradle
+which hung by ropes from the ceiling. Farther on, the empty road gave
+us shadows of trees and rustlings of long grass. This, at least, is
+what I imagine over the spaces where no certain object is. Then, I
+know, we ran and played, and it was father himself who hid in the
+corn, and we made havoc following after. Laughing, we ramble on, till
+we hear the long, far whistle of a locomotive. The railroad track is
+just visible over the field on the _left_ of the road; the cornfield,
+I say, is on the _right_. We stand on tiptoe and wave our hands and
+shout as the long train rushes by at a terrific speed, leaving its
+pennon of smoke behind.
+
+The passing of the train thrilled me wonderfully. Where did it come
+from, and whither did it fly, and how did it feel to be one of the
+faces at the windows? If ever I dreamed of a world beyond Polotzk, it
+must have been at those times, though I do not honestly remember.
+
+Somewhere out on that same Long Road is the place where we once
+attended a wedding. I do not know who were married, or whether they
+lived happily ever after; but I remember that when the dancers were
+wearied, and we were all sated with goodies, day was dawning, and
+several of the young people went out for a stroll in a grove near by.
+They took me with them--who were they?--and they lost me. At any rate,
+when they saw me again, I was a stranger. For I had sojourned, for an
+immeasurable moment, in a world apart from theirs. I had witnessed my
+first sunrise; I had watched the rosy morning tiptoe in among the
+silver birches. And that grove stands on the _left_ side of the road.
+
+We had another stopping-place out in that direction. It was the place
+where my mother sent her hundred and more house plants to be cared for
+one season, because for some reason they could not fare well at home.
+We children went to visit them once; and the memory of that is red and
+white and purple.
+
+The Long Road went ever on and on; I remember no turns. But we turned
+at last, when the sun was set and the breeze of evening blew; and
+sometimes the first star came in and the Sabbath went out before we
+reached home and supper.
+
+Another way out of town was by the bridge across the Polota. I recall
+more than one excursion in that direction. Sometimes we made a large
+party, annexing a few cousins and aunts for the day. At this moment I
+feel a movement of affection for these relations who shared our
+country adventures. I had forgotten what virtue there was in our
+family; I do like people who can walk. In those days, it is likely
+enough, I did not always walk on my own legs, for I was very little,
+and not strong. I do not remember being carried, but if any of my big
+uncles gave me a lift, I am sure I like them all the more for it.
+
+The Dvina River swallowed the Polota many times a day, yet the lesser
+stream flooded the universe on one occasion. On the hither bank of
+that stream, as you go from Polotzk, I should plant a flowering bush,
+a lilac or a rose, in memory of the life that bloomed in me one day
+that I was there.
+
+Leisurely we had strolled out of the peaceful town. It was early
+spring, and the sky and the earth were two warm palms in which all
+live things nestled. Little green leaves trembled on the trees, and
+the green, green grass sparkled. We sat us down to rest a little above
+the bridge; and life flowed in and out of us fully, freely, as the
+river flowed and parted about the bridge piles.
+
+A market garden lay on the opposite slope, yellow-green with first
+growth. In the long black furrows yet unsown a peasant pushed his
+plow. I watched him go up and down, leaving a new black line on the
+bank for every turn. Suddenly he began to sing, a rude plowman's song.
+Only the melody reached me, but the meaning sprang up in my heart to
+fit it--a song of the earth and the hopes of the earth. I sat a long
+time listening, looking, tense with attention. I felt myself
+discovering things. Something in me gasped for life, and lay still. I
+was but a little body, and Life Universal had suddenly burst upon me.
+For a moment I had my little hand on the Great Pulse, but my fingers
+slipped, empty. For the space of a wild heartbeat I _knew_, and then I
+was again a simple child, looking to my earthly senses for life. But
+the sky had stretched for me, the earth had expanded; a greater life
+had dawned in me.
+
+We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first and the
+spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are
+attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful.
+Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we
+ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth. Our souls
+are scarred with the struggles of successive births, and the process
+is recorded also by the wrinkles in our brains, by the lines in our
+faces. Look at me and you will see that I have been born many times.
+And my first self-birth happened, as I have told, that spring day of
+my early springs. Therefore would I plant a rose on the green bank of
+the Polota, there to bloom in token of eternal life.
+
+Eternal, divine life. This is a tale of immortal life. Should I be
+sitting here, chattering of my infantile adventures, if I did not know
+that I was speaking for thousands? Should you be sitting there,
+attending to my chatter, while the world's work waits, if you did not
+know that I spoke also for you? I might say "you" or "he" instead of
+"I." Or I might be silent, while you spoke for me and the rest, but
+for the accident that I was born with a pen in my hand, and you
+without. We love to read the lives of the great, yet what a broken
+history of mankind they give, unless supplemented by the lives of the
+humble. But while the great can speak for themselves, or by the
+tongues of their admirers, the humble are apt to live inarticulate and
+die unheard. It is well that now and then one is born among the simple
+with a taste for self-revelation. The man or woman thus endowed must
+speak, will speak, though there are only the grasses in the field to
+hear, and none but the wind to carry the tale.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is fun to run over the bridge, with a clatter of stout little shoes
+on resounding timbers. We pass a walled orchard on the right, and
+remind each other of the fruit we enjoyed here last summer. Our next
+stopping-place is farther on, beyond the wayside inn where lives the
+idiot boy who gave me such a scare last time. It is a poor enough
+place, where we stop, but there is an ice house, the only one I know.
+We are allowed to go in and see the greenish masses of ice gleaming in
+the half-light, and bring out jars of sweet, black "lager beer," which
+we drink in the sunny doorway. I shall always remember the flavor of
+the stuff, and the smell, and the wonder and chill of the ice house.
+
+I vaguely remember something about a convent out in that direction,
+but I was tired and sleepy after my long walk, and glad to be
+returning home. I hope they carried me a bit of the way, for I was
+very tired. There were stars out before we reached home, and the men
+stopped in the middle of the street to bless the new moon.
+
+It is pleasant to recall how we went bathing in the Polota. On Friday
+afternoons in summer, when the week's work was done, and the houses of
+the good housewives stood shining with cleanliness, ready for the
+Sabbath, parties of women and girls went chattering and laughing down
+to the river bank. There was a particular spot which belonged to the
+women. I do not know where the men bathed, but our part of the river
+was just above Bonderoff's gristmill. I can see the green bank sloping
+to the water, and the still water sliding down to the sudden swirl and
+spray of the mill race.
+
+The woods on the bank screened the bathers. Bathing costumes were
+simply absent, which caused the mermaids no embarrassment, for they
+were accustomed to see each other naked in the public hot baths. They
+had little fear of intrusion, for the spot was sacred to them. They
+splashed about and laughed and played tricks, with streaming hair and
+free gestures. I do not know when I saw the girls play as they did in
+the water. It was a pretty picture, but the bathers would have been
+shocked beyond your understanding if you had suggested that naked
+women might be put into a picture. If it ever happened, as it happened
+at least once for me to remember, that their privacy was outraged, the
+bathers were thrown into a panic as if their very lives were
+threatened. Screaming, they huddled together, low in the water, some
+hiding their eyes in their hands, with the instinct of the ostrich.
+Some ran for their clothes on the bank, and stood shrinking behind
+some inadequate rag. The more spirited of the naiads threw pebbles at
+the cowardly intruders, who, safe behind the leafy cover that was
+meant to shield modesty, threw jeers and mockery in return. But the
+Gentile boys ran away soon, or ran away punished. A chemise and a
+petticoat turn a frightened woman into an Amazon in such
+circumstances; and woe to the impudent wretch who lingered after the
+avengers plunged into the thicket. Slaps and cuffs at close range were
+his portion, and curses pursued him in retreat.
+
+Among the liveliest of my memories are those of eating and drinking;
+and I would sooner give up some of my delightful remembered walks,
+green trees, cool skies, and all, than to lose my images of suppers
+eaten on Sabbath evenings at the end of those walks. I make no apology
+to the spiritually minded, to whom this statement must be a revelation
+of grossness. I am content to tell the truth as well as I am able. I
+do not even need to console myself with the reflection that what is
+dross to the dreamy ascetic may be gold to the psychologist. The fact
+is that I ate, even as a delicate child, with considerable relish; and
+I remember eating with a relish still keener. Why, I can dream away a
+half-hour on the immortal flavor of those thick cheese cakes we used
+to have on Saturday night. I am no cook, so I cannot tell you how to
+make such cake. I might borrow the recipe from my mother, but I would
+rather you should take my word for the excellence of Polotzk cheese
+cakes. If you should attempt that pastry, I am certain, be you ever so
+clever a cook, you would be disappointed by the result; and hence you
+might be led to mistrust my reflections and conclusions. You have
+nothing in your kitchen cupboard to give the pastry its notable
+flavor. It takes history to make such a cake. First, you must eat it
+as a ravenous child, in memorable twilights, before the lighting of
+the week-day lamp. Then you must have yourself removed from the house
+of your simple feast, across the oceans, to a land where your
+cherished pastry is unknown even by name; and where daylight and
+twilight, work day and fête day, for years rush by you in the unbroken
+tide of a strange, new, overfull life. You must abstain from the
+inimitable morsel for a period of years,--I think fifteen is the magic
+number,--and then suddenly, one day, rub the Aladdin's lamp of memory,
+and have the renowned tidbit whisked upon your platter, garnished with
+a hundred sweet herbs of past association.
+
+Do you think all your imported spices, all your scientific blending
+and manipulating, could produce so fragrant a morsel as that which I
+have on my tongue as I write? Glad am I that my mother, in her
+assiduous imitation of everything American, has forgotten the secrets
+of Polotzk cookery. At any rate, she does not practise it, and I am
+the richer in memories for her omissions. Polotzk cheese cake, as I
+now know it, has in it the flavor of daisies and clover picked on the
+Vall; the sweetness of Dvina water; the richness of newly turned earth
+which I moulded with bare feet and hands; the ripeness of red cherries
+bought by the dipperful in the market place; the fragrance of all my
+childhood's summers.
+
+Abstinence, as I have mentioned, is one of the essential ingredients
+in the phantom dish. I discovered this through a recent experience. It
+was cherry time in the country, and the sight of the scarlet fruit
+suddenly reminded me of a cherry season in Polotzk, I could not say
+how many years ago. On that earlier occasion my Cousin Shimke, who,
+like everybody else, was a storekeeper, had set a boy to watch her
+store, and me to watch the boy, while she went home to make cherry
+preserves. She gave us a basket of cherries for our trouble, and the
+boy offered to eat them with the stones if I would give him my share.
+But I was equal to that feat myself, so we sat down to a cherry-stone
+contest. Who ate the most stones I could not remember as I stood under
+the laden trees not long ago, but the transcendent flavor of the
+historical cherries came back to me, and I needs must enjoy it once
+more.
+
+I climbed into the lowest boughs and hung there, eating cherries with
+the stones, my whole mind concentrated on the sense of taste. Alas!
+the fruit had no such flavor to yield as I sought. Excellent American
+cherries were these, but not so fragrantly sweet as my cousin's
+cherries. And if I should return to Polotzk, and buy me a measure of
+cherries at a market stall, and pay for it with a Russian groschen,
+would the market woman be generous enough to throw in that haunting
+flavor? I fear I should find that the old species of cherry is extinct
+in Polotzk.
+
+Sometimes, when I am not trying to remember at all, I am more
+fortunate in extracting the flavors of past feasts from my plain
+American viands. I was eating strawberries the other day, ripe, red
+American strawberries. Suddenly I experienced the very flavor and
+aroma of some strawberries I ate perhaps twenty years ago. I started
+as from a shock, and then sat still for I do not know how long,
+breathless with amazement. In the brief interval of a gustatory
+perception I became a child again, and I positively ached with the
+pain of being so suddenly compressed to that small being. I wandered
+about Polotzk once more, with large, questioning eyes; I rode the
+Atlantic in an emigrant ship; I took possession of the New World, my
+ears growing accustomed to a new language; I sat at the feet of
+renowned professors, till my eyes contracted in dreaming over what
+they taught; and there I was again, an American among Americans,
+suddenly made aware of all that I had been, all that I had
+become--suddenly illuminated, inspired by a complete vision of myself,
+a daughter of Israel and a child of the universe, that taught me more
+of the history of my race than ever my learned teachers could
+understand.
+
+All this came to me in that instant of tasting, all from the flavor of
+ripe strawberries on my tongue. Why, then, should I not treasure my
+memories of childhood feasts? This experience gives me a great respect
+for my bread and meat. I want to taste of as many viands as possible;
+for when I sit down to a dish of porridge I am certain of rising again
+a better animal, and I may rise a wiser man. I want to eat and drink
+and be instructed. Some day I expect to extract from my pudding the
+flavor of manna which I ate in the desert, and then I shall write you
+a contemporaneous commentary on the Exodus. Nor do I despair of
+remembering yet, over a dish of corn, the time when I fed on worms;
+and then I may be able to recall how it felt to be made at last into a
+man. Give me to eat and drink, for I crave wisdom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My winters, while I was a very little girl, were passed in comparative
+confinement. On account of my delicate health, my grandmother and
+aunts deemed it wise to keep me indoors; or if I went out, I was so
+heavily coated and mittened and shawled that the frost scarcely got a
+chance at the tip of my nose. I never skated or coasted or built snow
+houses. If I had any experience of snowballs, it was with those
+thrown at me by the Gentile boys. The way I dodge a snowball to this
+day makes me certain that I learned the act in my fearful childhood
+days, when I learned so many cowardly tricks of bending to a blow. I
+know that I was proud of myself when, not many years ago, I found I
+was not afraid to stand up and catch a flying baseball; but the fear
+of the snowball I have not conquered. When I turn a corner in snowball
+days, the boys with bulging pockets see a head held high and a step
+unquickened, but I know that I cringe inwardly; and this private
+mortification I set down against old Polotzk, in my long score of
+grievances and shames. Fear is a devil hard to cast out.
+
+Let me make the most of the winter adventures that I recall. First,
+there was sleighing. We never kept horses of our own, but the horses
+of our customer-guests were always at our disposal, and many a jolly
+ride they gave us, with the dvornik at the reins, while their owners
+haggled with my mother in the store about the price of soap. We had no
+luxurious sleigh, with cushions and fur robes, no silver bells on our
+harness. Ours was a bare sledge used for hauling wood, with a padding
+of straw and burlap, and the reins, as likely as not, were a knotted
+rope. But the horses did fly, over the river and up the opposite bank
+if we chose; and whether we had bells or not, the merry, foolish heart
+of Yakub would sing, and the whip would crack, and we children would
+laugh; and the sport was as good as when, occasionally, we did ride in
+a more splendid sleigh, loaned us by one of our prouder guests. We
+were wholesome as apples to look at when we returned for bread and tea
+in the dusk; at least I remember my sister, with cheeks as red as a
+painted doll's under her close-clipped curls; and my little brother,
+rosy, too, and aristocratic-looking enough, in his little greatcoat
+tied with a red sash, and little fur cap with earlaps. For myself, I
+suppose my nose was purple and my cheeks pinched, just as they are now
+in the cold weather; but I had a good time.
+
+At certain--I mean uncertain--intervals we were bundled up and marched
+to the public baths. This was so great an undertaking, consuming half
+a day or so, and involving, in winter, such risk of catching cold,
+that it is no wonder the ceremony was not practised oftener.
+
+The public baths were situated on the river bank. I always stopped
+awhile outside, to visit the poor patient horse in the treadmill, by
+means of which the water was pumped into the baths. I was not
+sentimental about animals then. I had not read of "Black Beauty" or
+any other personified monsters; I had not heard of any societies for
+the prevention of cruelty to anything. But my pity stirred of its own
+accord at the sight of that miserable brute in the treadmill. I was
+used to seeing horses hard-worked and abused. This horse had no load
+to make him sweat, and I never saw him whipped. Yet I pitied this
+creature. Round and round his little circle he trod, with head hanging
+and eyes void of expectation; round and round all day, unthrilled by
+any touch of rein or bridle, interpreters of a living will; round and
+round, all solitary, never driven, never checked, never addressed;
+round and round and round, a walking machine, with eyes that did not
+flash, with teeth that did not threaten, with hoofs that did not
+strike; round and round the dull day long. I knew what a horse's life
+should be, entangled with the life of a master: adventurous, troubled,
+thrilled; petted and opposed, loved and abused; to-day the ringing
+city pavement underfoot, and the buzz of beasts and men in the market
+place; to-morrow the yielding turf under tickled flanks, and the lone
+whinny of scattered mates. How empty the existence of the treadmill
+horse beside this! As empty and endless and dull as the life of almost
+any woman in Polotzk, had I had eyes to see the likeness.
+
+But to my ablutions!
+
+We undress in a room leading directly from the entry, and furnished
+only with benches around the walls. There is no screen or other
+protection against the drafts rushing in every time the door is
+opened. When we enter the bathing-room we are confused by a babel of
+sounds--shrill voices of women, hoarse voices of attendants, wailing
+and yelping of children, and rushing of water. At the same time we are
+smitten by the heat of the room and nearly suffocated by clouds of
+steam. We find at last an empty bench, and surround ourselves with a
+semicircle of wooden pails, collected from all around the room.
+Sometimes two women in search of pails lay hold of the same pail at
+the same moment, and a wrangle ensues, in the course of which each
+disputant reminds the other of all her failings, nicknames, and
+undesirable connections, living, dead, and unborn; until an attendant
+interferes, with more muscle than argument, punctuating the sentence
+of justice with newly coined expletives suggested by the occasion. The
+centre of the room, where the bathers fill their pails at the faucets,
+is a field of endless battle, especially on a crowded day. The
+peaceful women seated within earshot stop their violent scrubbing, to
+the relief of unwilling children, while they attend to the liveliest
+of the quarrels.
+
+I like to watch the _poll_, that place of torture and heroic
+endurance. It is a series of steps rising to the ceiling, affording a
+gradually mounting temperature. The bather who wants to enjoy a
+violent sweating rests full length for a few minutes on each step,
+while an attendant administers several hearty strokes of a stinging
+besom. Sometimes a woman climbs too far, and is brought down in a
+faint. On the poll, also, the cupping is done. The back of the
+patient, with the cups in even rows, looks to me like a muffin pan. Of
+course I never go on the poll: I am not robust enough. My spankings I
+take at home.
+
+Another centre of interest is the _mikweh_, the name of which it is
+indelicate to mention in the hearing of men. It is a large pool of
+standing water, its depth graded by means of a flight of steps. Every
+married woman must perform here certain ceremonious ablutions at
+regular intervals. Cleanliness is as strictly enjoined as godliness,
+and the manner of attaining it is carefully prescribed. The women are
+prepared by the attendants for entering the pool, the curious children
+looking on. In the pool they are ducked over their heads the correct
+number of times. The water in the pool has been standing for days; it
+does not look nor smell fresh. But we had no germs in Polotzk, so no
+harm came of it, any more than of the pails used promiscuously by
+feminine Polotzk. If any were so dainty as to have second thoughts
+about the use of the common bath, they could enjoy, for a fee of
+twenty-five kopecks, a private bathtub in another part of the
+building. For the rich there were luxuries even in Polotzk.
+
+Cleansed, red-skinned, and steaming, we return at last to the
+dressing-room, to shiver, as we dress, in the cold drafts from the
+entry door; and then, muffled up to the eyes, we plunge into the
+refreshing outer air, and hurry home, looking like so many big bundles
+running away with smaller bundles. If we meet acquaintances on the way
+we are greeted with "_zu refueh_" ("to your good health"). If the
+first man we meet is a Gentile, the women who have been to the mikweh
+have to return and repeat the ceremony of purification. To prevent
+such a calamity, the kerchief is worn hooded over the eyes, so as to
+exclude unholy sights. At home we are indulged with extra pieces of
+cake for tea, and otherwise treated like heroes returned from victory.
+We narrate anecdotes of our expedition, and my mother complains that
+my little brother is getting too old to be taken to the women's bath.
+He will go hereafter with the men.
+
+    [Illustration: THE MEAT MARKET, POLOTZK]
+
+My winter confinement was not shared by my older sister, who otherwise
+was my constant companion. She went out more than I, not being so
+afraid of the cold. She used to fret so when my mother was away in the
+store that it became a custom for her to accompany my mother from the
+time she was a mere baby. Muffled and rosy and frost-bitten, the tears
+of cold rolling unnoticed down her plump cheeks, she ran after my busy
+mother all day long, or tumbled about behind the counter, or nestled
+for a nap among the bulging sacks of oats and barley. She warmed her
+little hands over my mother's pot of glowing charcoal--there was no
+stove in the store--and even learned to stand astride of it, for
+further comfort, without setting her clothes on fire.
+
+Fetchke was like a young colt inseparable from the mare. I make this
+comparison not in disrespectful jest, but in deepest pity. Fetchke
+kept close to my mother at first for love and protection, but the
+petting she got became a blind for discipline. She learned early, from
+my mother's example, that hands and feet and brains were made for
+labor. She learned to bow to the yoke, to lift burdens, to do more for
+others than she could ever hope to have done for her in turn. She
+learned to see sugar plums lie around without asking for her share.
+When she was only fit to nurse her dolls, she learned how to comfort a
+weary heart.
+
+And all this while I sat warm and watched over at home, untouched by
+any discipline save such as I directly incurred by my own sins. I
+differed from Fetchke a little in age, considerably in health, and
+enormously in luck. It was my good luck, in the first place, to be
+born after her, instead of before; in the second place, to inherit,
+from the family stock, that particular assortment of gifts which was
+sure to mark me for special attentions, exemptions, and privileges;
+and as fortune always smiles on good fortune, it has ever been my
+luck, in the third place, to find something good in my idle
+hand--whether a sunbeam, or a loving heart, or a congenial
+task--whenever, on turning a corner, I put out my hand to see what my
+new world was like; while my sister, dear, devoted creature, had her
+hands so full of work that the sunbeam slipped, and the loving comrade
+passed out of hearing before she could straighten from her task, and
+all she had of the better world was a scented zephyr fanned in her
+face by the irresistible closing of a door.
+
+Perhaps Esau has been too severely blamed for selling his birthright
+for a mess of pottage. The lot of the firstborn is not necessarily to
+be envied. The firstborn of a well-to-do patriarch, like Isaac, or of
+a Rothschild of to-day, inherits, with his father's flocks and slaves
+and coffers, a troop of cares and responsibilities; unless he be a
+man without a sense of duty, in which case we are not supposed to envy
+him. The firstborn of an indigent father inherits a double measure of
+the disadvantages of poverty,--a joyless childhood, a guideless youth,
+and perhaps a mateless manhood, his own life being drained to feed the
+young of his father's begetting. If we cannot do away with poverty
+entirely, we ought at least to abolish the institution of
+primogeniture. Nature invented the individual, and promised him, as a
+reward for lusty being, comfort and immortality. Comes man with his
+patented brains and copyrighted notions, and levies a tax on the
+individual, in the form of enforced coöperation, for the maintenance
+of his pet institution, the family. Our comfort, in the grip of this
+tyranny, must lie in the hope that man, who is no bastard child of
+Mother Nature, may be approaching a more perfect resemblance to her
+majestic features; that his fitful development will culminate in a
+spiritual constitution capable of absolute justice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I think I was telling how I stayed at home in the winter, while my
+sister helped or hindered my mother in her store-keeping. The days
+drew themselves out too long sometimes, so that I sat at the window
+thinking what should happen next. No dolls, no books, no games, and at
+times no companions. My grandmother taught me knitting, but I never
+got to the heel of my stocking, because if I discovered a dropped
+stitch I insisted on unravelling all my work till I picked it up; and
+grandmother, instead of encouraging me in my love for perfection, lost
+patience and took away my knitting needles. I still maintain that she
+was in the wrong, but I have forgiven her, since I have worn many
+pairs of stockings with dropped stitches, and been grateful for them.
+And speaking of such everyday things reminds me of my friends, among
+whom also I find an impressive number with a stitch dropped somewhere
+in the pattern of their souls. I love these friends so dearly that I
+begin to think I am at last shedding my intolerance; for I remember
+the day when I could not love less than perfection. I and my imperfect
+friends together aspire to cast our blemishes, and I am happier so.
+
+There was not much to see from my window, yet adventures beckoned to
+me from the empty street. Sometimes the adventure was real, and I went
+out to act in it, instead of dreaming on my stool. Once, I remember,
+it was early spring, and the winter's ice, just chopped up by the
+street cleaners, lay muddy and ragged and high in the streets from
+curb to curb. So it must lie till there was time to cart it to the
+Dvina, which had all it could do at this season to carry tons, and
+heavy tons, of ice and snow and every sort of city rubbish,
+accumulated during the long closed months. Polotzk had no underground
+communication with the sea, save such as water naturally makes for
+itself. The poor old Dvina was hard-worked, serving both as
+drinking-fountain and sewer, as a bridge in winter, a highway in
+summer, and a playground at all times. So it served us right if we had
+to wait weeks and weeks in thawing time for our streets to be cleared;
+and we deserved all the sprains and bruises we suffered from
+clambering over the broken ice in the streets while going about our
+business.
+
+Leah the Short, little and straight and neat, with a basket on one arm
+and a bundle under the other, stood hesitating on the edge of the curb
+opposite my window. Her poor old face, framed in its calico kerchief,
+had a wrinkle of anxiety in it. The tumbled ice heap in the street
+looked to her like an impassable barrier. Tiny as she was, and loaded,
+she had reason to hesitate. Perhaps she had eggs in her basket,--I
+thought of that as I looked at her across the street; and I thought of
+my old ambition to measure myself, shoulder to shoulder, with Leah,
+reputedly short. I was small myself, and was constantly reminded of it
+by a variety of nicknames, lovingly or vengefully invented by my
+friends and enemies. I was called Mouse and Crumb and Poppy Seed.
+Should I live to be called, in my old age, Mashke the Short? I longed
+to measure my stature by Leah's, and here was my chance.
+
+I ran out into the street, my grandmother scolding me for going
+without a shawl, and I calling back to her to be sure and watch me. I
+skipped over the ice blocks like a goat, and offered my assistance to
+Leah the Short. With admirable skill and solicitude I guided her timid
+steps across the street, at the same time winking to my grandmother at
+the window, and pointing to my shoulder close to Leah's. Once on the
+safe sidewalk, the tiny woman thanked me and blessed me and praised me
+for a thoughtful child; and I watched her toddle away without the
+least stir of shame at my hypocrisy. She had convinced me that I was a
+good little girl, and I had convinced myself that I was not so very
+short. My chin was almost on a level with Leah's shoulder, and I had
+years ahead in which to elevate it. Grandma at the window was witness,
+and I was entirely happy. If I caught cold from going bareheaded, so
+much the better; mother would give me rock candy for my cough.
+
+For the long winter evenings there was plenty of quiet occupation. I
+liked to sit with the women at the long bare table picking feathers
+for new featherbeds. It was pleasant to poke my hand into the
+soft-heaped mass and set it all in motion. I pretended that I could
+pick out the feathers of particular hens, formerly my pets. I
+reflected that they had fed me with eggs and broth, and now were going
+to make my bed so soft; while I had done nothing for them but throw
+them a handful of oats now and then, or chase them about, or spoil
+their nests. I was not ashamed of my part; I knew that if I were a hen
+I should do as a hen does. I just liked to think about things in my
+idle way.
+
+Itke, the housemaid, was always the one to break in upon my
+reflections. She was sure to have a fit of sneezing just when the heap
+on the table was highest, sending clouds of feathers into the air,
+like a homemade snowstorm. After that the evening was finished by our
+picking the feathers from each other's hair.
+
+Sometimes we played cards or checkers, munching frost-bitten apples
+between moves. Sometimes the women sewed, and we children wound yarn
+or worsted for grandmother's knitting. If somebody had a story to tell
+while the rest worked, the evening passed with a pleasant sense of
+semi-idleness for all.
+
+On a Saturday night, the Sabbath being just departed, ghost stories
+were particularly in favor. After two or three of the creepy legends
+we began to move closer together under the lamp. At the end of an hour
+or so we started and screamed if a spool fell, or a window rattled. At
+bedtime nobody was willing to make the round of doors and windows, and
+we were afraid to bring a candle into a dark room.
+
+I was just as much afraid as anybody. I am afraid now to be alone in
+the house at night. I certainly was afraid that Saturday night when
+somebody, in bravado, suggested fresh-baked buns, as a charm to dispel
+the ghosts. The baker who lived next door always baked on Saturday
+night. Who would go and fetch the buns? Nobody dared to venture
+outdoors. It had snowed all evening; the frosted windows prevented a
+preliminary survey of the silent night. _Brr-rr!_ Nobody would take
+the dare.
+
+Nobody but me. Oh, how the creeps ran up and down my back! and oh! how
+I loved to distinguish myself! I let them bundle me up till I was
+nearly smothered. I paused with my mittened hand on the latch. I
+shivered, though I could have sat the night out with a Polar bear
+without another shawl. I opened the door, and then turned back, to
+make a speech.
+
+"I am not afraid," I said, in the noble accents of courage. "I am not
+afraid to go. God goes with me."
+
+Pride goeth before a fall. On the step outside I slid down into a
+drift, just on the eve of triumph. They picked me up; they brought me
+in. They found all of me inside my wrappings. They gave me a piece of
+sugar and sent me to bed. And I was very glad. I did hate to go all
+the way next door and all the way back, through the white snow, under
+the white stars, invisible company keeping step with me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And I remember my playmates.
+
+There was always a crowd of us girls. We were a mixed set,--rich
+little girls, well-to-do little girls, and poor little girls,--but not
+because we were so democratic. Rather it came about, if my sister and
+I are considered the centre of the ring, because we had suffered the
+several grades of fortune. In our best days no little girls had to
+stoop to us; in our humbler days we were not so proud that we had to
+condescend to our chance neighbors. The granddaughters of Raphael the
+Russian, in retaining their breeding and manners, retained a few of
+their more exalted friends, and became a link between them and those
+whom they later adopted through force of propinquity.
+
+We were human little girls, so our amusements mimicked the life about
+us. We played house, we played soldiers, we played Gentiles, we
+celebrated weddings and funerals. We copied the life about us
+literally. We had not been to a Froebel kindergarten, and learned to
+impersonate butterflies and stones. Our elders would have laughed at
+us for such nonsense. I remember once standing on the river bank with
+a little boy, when a quantity of lumber was floating down on its way
+to the distant sawmill. A log and a board crowded each other near
+where we stood. The board slipped by first, but presently it swerved
+and swung partly around. Then it righted itself with the stream and
+kept straight on, the lazy log following behind. Said Zalmen to me,
+interpreting: "The board looks back and says, 'Log, log, you will not
+go with me? Then I will go on by myself.'" That boy was called simple,
+on account of such speeches as this. I wonder in what language he is
+writing poetry now.
+
+We had very few toys. Neither Fetchke nor I cared much for dolls. A
+rag baby apiece contented us, and if we had a set of jackstones we
+were perfectly happy. Our jackstones, by the way, were not stones but
+bones. We used the knuckle bones of sheep, dried and scraped; every
+little girl cherished a set in her pocket.
+
+I did not care much for playing house. I liked soldiers better, but it
+was not much fun without boys. Boys and girls always played apart.
+
+I was very fond of playing Gentiles. I am afraid I liked everything
+that was a little risky. I particularly enjoyed being the corpse in a
+Gentile funeral. I was laid across two chairs, and my playmates, in
+borrowed shawls and long calicoes, with their hair loose and with
+candlesticks in their hands, marched around me, singing unearthly
+songs, and groaning till they scared themselves. As I lay there,
+covered over with a black cloth, I felt as dead as dead could be; and
+my playmates were the unholy priests in gorgeous robes of velvet and
+silk and gold. Their candlesticks were the crosiers that were carried
+in Christian funeral processions, and their chantings were hideous
+incantations to the arch enemy, the Christian God of horrible images.
+As I imagined the bareheaded crowds making way for my funeral to pass,
+my flesh crept, not because I was about to be buried, but because the
+people _crossed themselves_. But our procession stopped outside the
+church, because we did not dare to carry even our make-believe across
+that accursed threshold. Besides, none of us had ever been
+inside,--God forbid!--so we did not know what did happen next.
+
+When I arose from my funeral I was indeed a ghost. I felt unreal and
+lost and hateful. I don't think we girls liked each other much after
+playing funeral. Anyway, we never played any more on the same day; or
+if we did, we soon quarrelled. Such was the hold which our hereditary
+terrors and hatreds had upon our childish minds that if we only mocked
+a Christian procession in our play, we suffered a mutual revulsion of
+feeling, as if we had led each other into sin.
+
+We gathered oftener at our house than anywhere else. On Sabbath days
+we refrained, of course, from soldiering and the like, but we had just
+as good a time, going off to promenade, two and two, in our very best
+dresses; whispering secrets and telling stories. We had a few stories
+in the circle--I do not know how they came to us--and these were told
+over and over. Gutke knew the best story of all. She told the story of
+Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and she told it well. It was her
+story, and nobody else ever attempted it, though I, for one, soon had
+it by heart. Gutke's version of the famous tale was unlike any I have
+since read, but it was essentially the story of Aladdin, so that I was
+able to identify it later when I found it in a book. Names, incidents,
+and "local color" were slightly Hebraized, but the supernatural
+wonders of treasure caves, jewelled gardens, genii, princesses, and
+all, were not in the least marred or diminished. Gutke would spin the
+story out for a long afternoon, and we all listened entranced, even at
+the hundredth rehearsal. We had a few other fairy stories,--I later
+identified them with stories of Grimm's or of Andersen's,--but for the
+most part the tales we told were sombre and unimaginative; tales our
+nurses used to tell to frighten us into good behavior.
+
+Sometimes we spent a whole afternoon in dancing. We made our own
+music, singing as we danced, or somebody blew on a comb with a bit of
+paper over its teeth; and comb music is not to be despised when there
+is no other sort. We knew the polka and the waltz, the mazurka, the
+quadrille, and the lancers, and several fancy dances. We did not
+hesitate to invent new steps or figures, and we never stopped till we
+were out of breath. I was one of the most enthusiastic dancers. I
+danced till I felt as if I could fly.
+
+Sometimes we sat in a ring and sang all the songs we knew. None of us
+were trained,--we had never seen a sheet of music--but some of us
+could sing any tune that was ever heard in Polotzk, and the others
+followed half a bar behind. I enjoyed these singing-bees. We had
+Hebrew songs and Jewish and Russian; solemn songs, and jolly songs,
+and songs unfit for children, but harmless enough on our innocent
+lips. I enjoyed the play of moods in these songs--I liked to be
+harrowed one minute and tickled the next. I threw all my heart into
+the singing, which was only fair, as I had very little voice to throw
+in.
+
+Although I always joined the crowd when any fun was on foot, I think I
+had the best times by myself. My sister was fond of housework, but
+I--I was fond of idleness. While Fetchke pottered in the kitchen
+beside the maid or trotted all about the house after my grandmother, I
+wasted time in some window corner, or studied the habits of the cow
+and the chickens in the yard. I always found something to do that was
+of no use to anybody. I had no particular fondness for animals; I
+liked to see what they did, merely because they were curious. The red
+cow would go to meet my grandmother as she came out of the kitchen
+with a bucket of bran for her. She drank it up in no time, the greedy
+creature, in great loud gulps; and then she stood with dripping
+nostrils over the empty bucket, staring at me on the other side. I
+teased grandmother to give the cow more, because I enjoyed her
+enjoyment of it. I wondered, if I ate from a bucket instead of a
+plate, should I take so much more pleasure in my dinner? That red cow
+liked everything. She liked going to pasture, and she liked coming
+back, and she stood still to be milked, as if she liked that too.
+
+The chickens were not all alike. Some of them would not let me catch
+them, while others stood still till I took them up. There were two
+that were particularly tame, a white hen and a speckled one. In
+winter, when they were kept in the house, my sister and I had these
+two for our pets. They let us handle them by the hour, and stayed just
+where we put them. The white hen laid her eggs in a linen chest made
+of bark. We would take the warm egg to grandmother, who rolled it on
+our eyes, repeating this charm: "As this egg is fresh, so may your
+eyes be fresh. As this egg is sound, so may your eyes be sound." I
+still like to touch my eyelids with a fresh-laid egg, whenever I am so
+happy as to possess one.
+
+On the horses in the barn I bestowed the same calm attention as on the
+cow, speculative rather than affectionate. I was not a very
+tender-hearted infant. If I have been a true witness of my own growth,
+I was slower to love than I was to think. I do not know when the
+change was wrought, but to-day, if you ask my friends, they will tell
+you that I know how to love them better than to solve their problems.
+And if you will call one more witness, and ask me, I shall say that if
+you set me down before a noble landscape, I feel it long before I
+begin to see it.
+
+Idle child though I was, the day was not long enough sometimes for my
+idleness. More than once in the pleasant summer I stole out of bed
+when even the cow was still drowsing, and went barefoot through the
+dripping grass and stood at the gate, awaiting the morning. I found a
+sense of adventure in being conscious when all other people were
+asleep. There was not much of a prospect from the gateway, but in
+that early hour everything looked new and large to me, even the little
+houses that yesterday had been so familiar. The houses, when creatures
+went in and out of them, were merely conventional objects; in the soft
+gray morning they were themselves creatures. Some stood up straight,
+and some leaned, and some looked as if they saw me. And then over the
+dewy gardens rose the sun, and the light spread and grew over
+everything, till it shone on my bare feet. And in my heart grew a
+great wonder, and I was ready to cry, my world was so strange and
+sweet about me. In those moments, I think, I could have loved somebody
+as well as I loved later--somebody who cared to get up secretly, and
+stand and see the sun come up.
+
+Was there not somebody who got up before the sun? Was there not Mishka
+the shepherd? Aye, that was an early riser; but I knew he was no
+sun-worshipper. Before the chickens stirred, before the lazy maid let
+the cow out of the barn, I heard his rousing horn, its distant notes
+harmonious with the morning. Barn doors creaked in response to
+Mishka's call, and soft-eyed cattle went willingly out to meet him,
+and stood in groups in the empty square, licking and nosing each
+other; till Mishka's little drove was all assembled, and he tramped
+out of town behind them, in a cloud of dust.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+History shows that in all countries where Jews have equal rights with
+the rest of the people, they lose their fear of secular science, and
+learn how to take their ancient religion with them from century to
+awakening century, dropping nothing by the way but what their growing
+spirit has outgrown. In countries where progress is to be bought only
+at the price of apostasy, they shut themselves up in their synagogues,
+and raise the wall of extreme separateness between themselves and
+their Gentile neighbors. There is never a Jewish community without its
+scholars, but where Jews may not be both intellectuals and Jews, they
+prefer to remain Jews.
+
+The survival in Russia of mediæval injustice to Jews was responsible
+for the narrowness of educational standards in the Polotzk of my time.
+Jewish scholarship, as we have seen, was confined to a knowledge of
+the Hebrew language and literature, and even these limited stores of
+learning were not equally divided between men and women. In the
+mediæval position of the women of Polotzk education really had no
+place. A girl was "finished" when she could read her prayers in
+Hebrew, following the meaning by the aid of the Yiddish translation
+especially prepared for women. If she could sign her name in Russian,
+do a little figuring, and write a letter in Yiddish to the parents of
+her betrothed, she was called _wohl gelehrent_--well educated.
+
+Fortunately for me, my parents' ideals soared beyond all this. My
+mother, although she had not stirred out of Polotzk, readily adopted
+the notion of a liberal education imported by my father from cities
+beyond the Pale. She heartily supported him in all his plans for us
+girls. Fetchke and I were to learn to translate as well as pronounce
+Hebrew, the same as our brother. We were to study Russian and German
+and arithmetic. We were to go to the best _pension_ and receive a
+thorough secular education. My father's ambition, after several years'
+sojourn in enlightened circles, reached even beyond the _pension_; but
+that was flying farther than Polotzk could follow him with the naked
+eye.
+
+I do not remember our first teacher. When our second teacher came we
+were already able to read continuous passages. Reb' Lebe was no great
+scholar. Great scholars would not waste their learning on mere girls.
+Reb' Lebe knew enough to teach girls Hebrew. Tall and lean was the
+rebbe, with a lean, pointed face and a thin, pointed beard. The beard
+became pointed from much stroking and pulling downwards. The hands of
+Reb' Lebe were large, and his beard was not half a handful. The
+fingers of the rebbe were long, and the nails, I am afraid, were not
+very clean. The coat of Reb' Lebe was rusty, and so was his skull-cap.
+Remember, Reb' Lebe was only a girls' teacher, and nobody would pay
+much for teaching girls. But lean and rusty as he was, the rebbe's
+pupils regarded him with entire respect, and followed his pointer with
+earnest eyes across the limp page of the alphabet, or the thumbed page
+of the prayer-book.
+
+For a short time my sister and I went for our lessons to Reb' Lebe's
+heder, in the bare room off the women's gallery, up one flight of
+stairs, in a synagogue. The place was as noisy as a reckless
+expenditure of lung power could make it. The pupils on the bench
+shouted their way from _aleph_ to _tav_, cheered and prompted by the
+growl of the rebbe; while the children in the corridor waiting their
+turn played "puss in the corner" and other noisy games.
+
+Fetchke and I, however, soon began to have our lessons in private, at
+our own home. We sat one on each side of the rebbe, reading the Hebrew
+sentences turn and turn about.
+
+When we left off reading by rote and Reb' Lebe began to reveal the
+mysteries to us, I was so eager to know all that was in my book that
+the lesson was always too short. I continued reading by the hour,
+after the rebbe was gone, though I understood about one word in ten.
+My favorite Hebrew reading was the Psalms. Verse after verse I chanted
+to the monotonous tune taught by Reb' Lebe, rocking to the rhythm of
+the chant, just like the rebbe. And so ran the song of David, and so
+ran the hours by, while I sat by the low window, the world erased from
+my consciousness.
+
+What I thought I do not remember; I only know that I loved the sound
+of the words, the full, dense, solid sound of them, to the meditative
+chant of Reb' Lebe. I pronounced Hebrew very well, and I caught some
+mechanical trick of accent and emphasis, which was sufficiently like
+Reb' Lebe's to make my reading sound intelligent. I had a clue to the
+general mood of the subject from the few Psalms I had actually
+translated, and drawing on my imagination for details, I was able to
+read with so much spirit that ignorant listeners were carried away by
+my performance. My mother tells me, indeed, that people used to stop
+outside my window to hear me read. Of this I have not the slightest
+recollection, so I suppose I was an unconscious impostor. Certain I am
+that I thought no ignoble thoughts as I chanted the sacred words; and
+who can say that my visions were not as inspiring as David's? He was a
+shepherd before he became a king. I was an ignorant child in the
+Ghetto, but I was admitted at last to the society of the best; I was
+given the freedom of all America. Perhaps the "stuff that dreams are
+made of" is the same for all dreamers.
+
+When we came to read Genesis I had the great advantage of a complete
+translation in Yiddish. I faithfully studied the portion assigned in
+Hebrew, but I need no longer wait for the next lesson to know how the
+story ends. I could read while daylight lasted, if I chose, in the
+Yiddish. Well I remember that Pentateuch, a middling thick octavo
+volume, in a crumbly sort of leather cover; and how the book opened of
+itself at certain places, where there were pictures. My father tells
+me that when I was just learning to translate single words, he found
+me one evening poring over the _humesh_ and made fun of me for
+pretending to read; whereupon I gave him an eager account, he says, of
+the stories of Jacob, Benjamin, Moses, and others, which I had puzzled
+out from the pictures, by the help of a word here and there that I was
+able to translate.
+
+It was inevitable, as we came to Genesis, that I should ask questions.
+
+Rebbe, translating: "In the beginning God created the earth."
+
+Pupil, repeating: "In the beginning--Rebbe, when was the beginning?"
+
+Rebbe, losing the place in amazement: "'S _gehert a kasse_? (Ever
+hear such a question?) The beginning was--the beginning--the beginning
+was in the beginning, of course! _Nu! nu!_ Go on."
+
+Pupil, resuming: "In the beginning God made the earth.--Rebbe, what
+did He make it out of?"
+
+Rebbe, dropping his pointer in astonishment: "What did--? What sort of
+a girl is this, that asks questions? Go on, go on!"
+
+The lesson continues to the end. The book is closed, the pointer put
+away. The rebbe exchanges his skull-cap for his street cap, is about
+to go.
+
+Pupil, timidly, but determinedly, detaining him: "Reb' Lebe, _who made
+God_?"
+
+The rebbe regards the pupil in amazement mixed with anxiety. His
+emotion is beyond speech. He turns and leaves the room. In his
+perturbation he even forgets to kiss the _mezuzah_[2] on the doorpost.
+The pupil feels reproved and yet somehow in the right. Who _did_ make
+God? But if the rebbe will not tell--will not tell? Or, perhaps, he
+does not know? The rebbe--?
+
+It was some time after this conflict between my curiosity and his
+obtuseness that I saw my teacher act a ridiculous part in a trifling
+comedy, and then I remember no more of him.
+
+Reb' Lebe lingered one day after the lesson. A guest who was about to
+depart, wishing to fortify himself for his journey, took a roll of
+hard sausage from his satchel and laid it, with his clasp knife, on
+the table. He cut himself a slice and ate it standing; and then,
+noticing the thin, lean rebbe, he invited him, by a gesture, to help
+himself to the sausage. The rebbe put his hands behind his coat tails,
+declining the traveller's hospitality. The traveller forgot the other,
+and walked up and down, ready in his fur coat and cap, till his
+carriage should arrive. The sausage remained on the table, thick and
+spicy and brown. No such sausage was known in Polotzk. Reb' Lebe
+looked at it. Reb' Lebe continued to look. The stranger stopped to cut
+another slice, and repeated his gesture of invitation. Reb' Lebe moved
+a step towards the table, but his hands stuck behind his coat tails.
+The traveller resumed his walk. Reb' Lebe moved another step. The
+stranger was not looking. The rebbe's courage rose, he advanced
+towards the table; he stretched out his hand for the knife. At that
+instant the door opened, the carriage was announced. The eager
+traveller, without noticing Reb' Lebe, swept up sausage and knife,
+just at the moment when the timid rebbe was about to cut himself a
+delicious slice. I saw his discomfiture from my corner, and I am
+obliged to confess that I enjoyed it. His face always looked foolish
+to me after that; but, fortunately for us both, we did not study
+together much longer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two little girls dressed in their best, shining from their curls to
+their shoes. One little girl has rosy cheeks, the other has staring
+eyes. Rosy-Cheeks carries a carpet bag; Big-Eyes carries a new slate.
+Hand in hand they go into the summer morning, so happy and pretty a
+pair that it is no wonder people look after them, from window and
+door; and that other little girls, not dressed in their best and
+carrying no carpet bags, stand in the street gaping after them.
+
+Let the folks stare; no harm can come to the little sisters. Did not
+grandmother tie pepper and salt into the corners of their pockets, to
+ward off the evil eye? The little maids see nothing but the road
+ahead, so eager are they upon their errand. Carpet bag and slate
+proclaim that errand: Rosy-Cheeks and Big-Eyes are going to school.
+
+I have no words to describe the pride with which my sister and I
+crossed the threshold of Isaiah the Scribe. Hitherto we had been to
+heder, to a rebbe; now we were to study with a _lehrer_, a secular
+teacher. There was all the difference in the world between the two.
+The one taught you Hebrew only, which every girl learned; the other
+could teach Yiddish and Russian and, some said, even German; and how
+to write a letter, and how to do sums without a counting-frame, just
+on a piece of paper; accomplishments which were extremely rare among
+girls in Polotzk. But nothing was too high for the grandchildren of
+Raphael the Russian; they had "good heads," everybody knew. So we were
+sent to Reb' Isaiah.
+
+My first school, where I was so proud to be received, was a hovel on
+the edge of a swamp. The schoolroom was gray within and without. The
+door was so low that Reb' Isaiah had to stoop in passing. The little
+windows were murky. The walls were bare, but the low ceiling was
+decorated with bundles of goose quills stuck in under the rafters. A
+rough table stood in the middle of the room, with a long bench on
+either side. That was the schoolroom complete. In my eyes, on that
+first morning, it shone with a wonderful light, a strange glory that
+penetrated every corner, and made the stained logs fair as tinted
+marble; and the windows were not too small to afford me a view of a
+large new world.
+
+Room was made for the new pupils on the bench, beside the teacher. We
+found our inkwells, which were simply hollows scooped out in the thick
+table top. Reb' Isaiah made us very serviceable pens by tying the pen
+points securely to little twigs; though some of the pupils used
+quills. The teacher also ruled our paper for us, into little squares,
+like a surveyor's notebook. Then he set us a copy, and we copied, one
+letter in each square, all the way down the page. All the little girls
+and the middle-sized girls and the pretty big girls copied letters in
+little squares, just so. There were so few of us that Reb' Isaiah
+could see everybody's page by just leaning over. And if some of our
+cramped fingers were clumsy, and did not form the loops and curves
+accurately, all he had to do was to stretch out his hand and rap with
+his ruler on our respective knuckles. It was all very cosey, with the
+inkwells that could not be upset, and the pens that grew in the woods
+or strutted in the dooryard, and the teacher in the closest touch with
+his pupils, as I have just told. And as he labored with us, and the
+hours drew themselves out, he was comforted by the smell of his dinner
+cooking in some little hole adjoining the schoolroom, and by the sound
+of his good Leah or Rachel or Deborah (I don't remember her name)
+keeping order among his little ones. She kept very good order, too, so
+that most of the time you could hear the scratching of the laborious
+pens accompanied by the croaking of the frogs in the swamp.
+
+Although my sister and I began our studies at the same time, and
+progressed together, my parents did not want me to take up new
+subjects as fast as Fetchke did. They thought my health too delicate
+for much study. So when Fetchke had her Russian lesson I was told to
+go and play. I am sorry to say that I was disobedient on these
+occasions, as on many others. I did not go and play; I looked on, I
+listened, when Fetchke rehearsed her lesson at home. And one evening I
+stole the Russian primer and repaired to a secret place I knew of. It
+was a storeroom for broken chairs and rusty utensils and dried apples.
+Nobody would look for me in that dusty hole. Nobody did look there,
+but they looked everywhere else, in the house, and in the yard, and in
+the barn, and down the street, and at our neighbors'; and while
+everybody was searching and calling for me, and telling each other
+when I was last seen, and what I was then doing, I, Mashke, was
+bending over the stolen book, rehearsing A, B, C, by the names my
+sister had given them; and before anybody hit upon my retreat, I could
+spell B-O-G, _Bog_ (God) and K-A-Z-A, _Kaza_ (goat). I did not mind in
+the least being caught, for I had my new accomplishment to show off.
+
+I remember the littered place, and the high chest that served as my
+table, and the blue glass lamp that lighted my secret efforts. I
+remember being brought from there into the firelit room where the
+family was assembled, and confusing them all by my recital of the
+simple words, B-O-G, _Bog_, and K-A-Z-A, _Kaza_. I was not reproached
+for going into hiding at bedtime, and the next day I was allowed to
+take part in the Russian lesson.
+
+Alas! there were not many lessons more. Long before we had exhausted
+Reb' Isaiah's learning, my sister and I had to give up our teacher,
+because the family fortunes began to decline, and luxuries, such as
+schooling, had to be cut off. Isaiah the Scribe taught us, in all,
+perhaps two terms, in which time we learned Yiddish and Russian, and a
+little arithmetic. But little good we had from our ability to read,
+for there were no books in our house except prayer-books and other
+religious writings, mostly in Hebrew. For our skill in writing we had
+as little use, as letter-writing was not an everyday exercise, and
+idle writing was not thought of. Our good teacher, however, who had
+taken pride in our progress, would not let us lose all that we had
+learned from him. Books he could not lend us, because he had none
+himself; but he could, and he did, write us out a beautiful "copy"
+apiece, which we could repeat over and over, from time to time, and so
+keep our hands in.
+
+I wonder that I have forgotten the graceful sentences of my "copy";
+for I wrote them out just about countless times. It was in the form of
+a letter, written on lovely pink paper (my sister's was blue), the
+lines taking the shape of semicircles across the page; and that
+without any guide lines showing. The script, of course, was
+perfect--in the best manner of Isaiah the Scribe--and the sentiments
+therein expressed were entirely noble. I was supposed to be a
+high-school pupil away on my vacation; and I was writing to my
+"Respected Parents," to assure them of my welfare, and to tell them
+how, in the midst of my pleasures, I still longed for my friends, and
+looked forward with eagerness to the renewal of my studies. All this,
+in phrases half Yiddish, half German, and altogether foreign to the
+ears of Polotzk. At least, I never heard such talk in the market, when
+I went to buy a kopeck's worth of sunflower seeds.
+
+This was all the schooling I had in Russia. My father's plans fell to
+the ground, on account of the protracted illness of both my parents.
+All his hopes of leading his children beyond the intellectual limits
+of Polotzk were trampled down by the monster poverty who showed his
+evil visage just as my sister and I were fairly started on a broader
+path.
+
+One chance we had, and that was quickly snatched away, of continuing
+our education in spite of family difficulties. Lozhe the Rav, hearing
+from various sources that Pinchus, son-in-law of Raphael the Russian,
+had two bright little girls, whose talents were going to waste for
+want of training, became much interested, and sent for the children,
+to see for himself what the gossip was worth. By a strange trick of
+memory I recall nothing of this important interview, nor indeed of the
+whole matter, although a thousand trifles of that period recur to me
+on the instant; so I report this anecdote on the authority of my
+parents.
+
+They tell me how the rav lifted me up on a table in front of him, and
+asked me many questions, and encouraged me to ask questions in my
+turn. Reb' Lozhe came to the conclusion, as a result of this
+interview, that I ought by all means to be put to school. There was no
+public school for girls, as we know, but a few pupils were maintained
+in a certain private school by irregular contributions from city
+funds. Reb' Lozhe enlisted in my cause the influence of his son, who,
+by virtue of some municipal office which he held, had a vote in fixing
+this appropriation. But although he pleaded eloquently for my
+admission as a city pupil, the rav's son failed to win the consent of
+his colleagues, and my one little crack of opportunity was tightly
+stopped.
+
+My father does not remember on what technicality my application was
+dismissed. My mother is under the impression that it was plainly
+refused on account of my religion, the authorities being unwilling to
+appropriate money for the tuition of a Jewish child. But little it
+matters now what the reason was; the result is what affected me. I was
+left without teacher or book just when my mind was most active. I was
+left without food just when the hunger of growth was creeping up. I
+was left to think and think, without direction; without the means of
+grappling with the contents of my own thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a community which was isolated from the mass of the people on
+account of its religion; which was governed by special civil laws in
+recognition of that fact; in whose calendar there were twoscore days
+of religious observance; whose going and coming, giving and taking,
+living and dying, to the minutest details of social conduct, to the
+most intimate particulars of private life, were regulated by sacred
+laws, there could be no question of personal convictions in religion.
+One was a Jew, leading a righteous life; or one was a Gentile,
+existing to harass the Jews, while making a living off Jewish
+enterprise. In the vocabulary of the more intelligent part of Polotzk,
+it is true, there were such words as freethinker and apostate; but
+these were the names of men who had forsaken the Law in distant times
+or in distant parts, and whose evil fame had reached Polotzk by the
+circuitous route of tradition. Nobody looked for such monsters in his
+neighborhood. Polotzk was safely divided into Jews and Gentiles.
+
+If any one in Polotzk had been idle and curious enough to inquire into
+the state of mind of a little child, I wonder if his findings would
+not have disturbed this simple classification.
+
+There used to be a little girl in Polotzk who recited the long Hebrew
+prayers, morning and evening, before and after meals, and never
+skipped a word; who kissed the _mezuzah_ when going or coming; who
+abstained from food and drink on fast days when she was no bigger than
+a sacrificial hen; who spent Sabbath mornings over the lengthy ritual
+for the day, and read the Psalms till daylight failed.
+
+This pious child could give as good an account of the Creation as any
+boy of her age. She knew how God made the world. Undeterred by the
+fate of Eve, she wanted to know more. She asked her wise rebbe how God
+came to be in His place, and where He found the stuff to make the
+world of, and what was doing in the universe before God undertook His
+task. Finding from his unsatisfying replies that the rebbe was but a
+barren branch on the tree of knowledge, the good little girl never
+betrayed to the world, by look or word, her discovery of his
+limitations, but continued to accord him, outwardly, all the courtesy
+due to his calling.
+
+Her teacher having failed her, the young student, with admirable
+persistence, carried her questions from one to another of her
+acquaintances, putting their answers to the test whenever it was
+possible. She established by this means two facts: first, that she
+knew as much as any of those who undertook to instruct her; second,
+that her oracles sometimes gave false answers. Did the little
+inquisitor charge her betrayers with the lie? Magnanimous creature,
+she kept their falseness a secret, and ceased to probe their shallow
+depths.
+
+What you would know, find out for yourself: this became our student's
+motto; and she passed from the question to the experiment. Her
+grandmother told her that if she handled "blind flowers" she would be
+stricken blind. She found by test that the pretty flowers were
+harmless. She tested everything that could be tested, till she hit at
+last on an impious plan to put God Himself to the proof.
+
+The pious little girl arose one Sabbath afternoon from her religious
+meditations, when all the house was taking its after-dinner nap, and
+went out in the yard, and stopped at the gate. She took out her pocket
+handkerchief. She looked at it. Yes, that would do for the experiment.
+She put it back into her pocket. She did not have to rehearse mentally
+the sacred admonition not to carry anything beyond the house-limits on
+the Sabbath day. She knew it as she knew that she was alive. And with
+her handkerchief in her pocket the audacious child stepped into the
+street!
+
+She stood a moment, her heart beating so that it pained. Nothing
+happened! She walked quite across the street. The Sabbath peace still
+lay on everything. She felt again of the burden in her pocket. Yes,
+she certainly was committing a sin. With an access of impious
+boldness, the sinner walked--she ran as far as the corner, and stood
+still, fearfully expectant. What form would the punishment take? She
+stood breathing painfully for an eternity. How still everything
+was--how close and still the air! Would it be a storm? Would a sudden
+bolt strike her? She stood and waited. She could not bring her hand to
+her pocket again, but she felt that it bulged monstrously. She stood
+with no thought of moving again. Where were the thunders of Jehovah?
+No sacred word of all her long prayers came to her tongue--not even
+"Hear, O Israel." She felt that she was in direct communication with
+God--awful thought!--and He would read her mind and would send His
+answer.
+
+   [Illustration: SABBATH LOAVES FOR SALE (BREAD MARKET, POLOTZK)]
+
+An age passed in blank expectancy. Nothing happened! Where was the
+wrath of God? _Where was God?_
+
+When she turned to go home, the little philosopher had her
+handkerchief tied around her wrist in the proper way. The experiment
+was over, though the result was not clear. God had not punished her,
+but nothing was proved by His indifference. Either the act was no sin,
+and her preceptors were all deceivers; or it was indeed a sin in the
+eyes of God, but He refrained from stern justice for high reasons of
+His own. It was not a searching experiment she had made. She was
+bitterly disappointed, and perhaps that was meant as her punishment:
+God refused to give her a reply. She intended no sin for the sake of
+sin; so, being still in doubt, she tied her handkerchief around her
+wrist. Her eyes stared more than ever,--this was the child with the
+staring eyes,--but that was the only sign she gave of a consciousness
+suddenly expanded, of a self-consciousness intensified.
+
+When she went back into the house, she gazed with a new curiosity at
+her mother, at her grandmother, dozing in their chairs. They looked
+_different_. When they awoke and stretched themselves and adjusted wig
+and cap, they looked _very_ strange. As she went to get her
+grandmother her Bible, and dropped it accidentally, she kissed it by
+way of atonement just as a proper child should.
+
+How, I wonder, would this Psalm-singing child have be enlabelled by
+the investigator of her mind? Would he have called her a Jew? She was
+too young to be called an apostate. Perhaps she would have been
+dismissed as a little fraud; and I should be content with that
+classification, if slightly modified. I should say the child was a
+piteously puzzled little fraud.
+
+To return to the honest first person, I _was_ something of a fraud.
+The days when I believed everything I was told did not run much beyond
+my teething time. I soon began to question if fire was really hot, if
+the cat would really scratch. Presently, as we have seen, I questioned
+God. And in those days my religion depended on my mood. I could
+believe anything I wanted to believe. I did believe, in all my moods,
+that there was a God who had made the world, in some fashion
+unexplained, and who knew about me and my doings; for there was the
+world all about me, and somebody must have made it. And it was
+conceivable that a being powerful enough to do such work could be
+aware of my actions at all times, and yet continue to me invisible.
+The question remained, what did He think of my conduct? Was He really
+angry when I broke the Sabbath, or pleased when I fasted on the Day of
+Atonement? My belief as to these matters wavered. When I swung the
+sacrifice around my head on Atonement Eve, repeating, "Be thou my
+sacrifice," etc., I certainly believed that I was bargaining with the
+Almighty for pardon, and that He was interested in the matter. But
+next day, when the fast was over, and I enjoyed all of my chicken that
+I could eat, I believed as certainly that God could not be party to
+such a foolish transaction, in which He got nothing but words, while I
+got both the feast and the pardon. The sacrifice of money, to be spent
+for the poor, seemed to me a more reliable insurance against
+damnation. The well-to-do pious offered up both living sacrifice and
+money for the poor-box, but it was a sign of poverty to offer only
+money. Even a lean rooster, to be killed, roasted, and garnished for
+the devotee's own table at the breaking of the fast, seemed to be
+considered a more respectable sacrifice than a groschen to increase
+the charity fund. All this was so illogical that it unsettled my faith
+in minor points of doctrine, and on these points I was quite happy to
+believe to-day one thing, to-morrow another.
+
+As unwaveringly as I believed that we Jews had a God who was powerful
+and wise, I believed that the God of my Christian neighbors was
+impotent, cruel, and foolish. I understood that the god of the
+Gentiles was no better than a toy, to be dressed up in gaudy stuffs
+and carried in processions. I saw it often enough, and turned away in
+contempt. While the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--my God--enjoined
+on me honesty and kindness, the god of Vanka bade him beat me and spit
+on me whenever he caught me alone. And what a foolish god was that who
+taught the stupid Gentiles that we drank the blood of a murdered child
+at our Passover feast! Why, I, who was only a child, knew better. And
+so I hated and feared and avoided the great white church in the Platz,
+and hated every sign and symbol of that monstrous god who was kept
+there and hated my own person, when, in our play of a Christian
+funeral, I imagined my body to be the corpse, over which was carried
+the hideous cross.
+
+Perhaps I have established that I was more Jew than Gentile, though I
+can still prove that I was none the less a fraud. For instance, I
+remember how once, on the eve of the Ninth of Ab--the anniversary of
+the fall of the Temple--I was looking on at the lamentations of the
+women. A large circle had gathered around my mother, who was the only
+good reader among them, to listen to the story of the cruel
+destruction. Sitting on humble stools, in stocking feet, shabby
+clothes, and dishevelled hair, weeping in chorus, and wringing their
+hands, as if it was but yesterday that the sacred edifice fell and
+they were in the very dust and ashes of the ruin, the women looked to
+me enviously wretched and pious. I joined the circle in the
+candlelight. I wrung my hands, I moaned; but I was always slow of
+tears--I could not weep. But I wanted to look like the others. So I
+streaked my cheeks with the only moisture at hand.
+
+Alas for my pious ambition! alas for the noble lament of the women!
+Somebody looked up and caught me in the act of manufacturing tears. I
+grinned, and she giggled. Another woman looked up. I grinned, and they
+giggled. Demoralization swept around the circle. Honest laughter
+snuffed out artificial grief. My mother at last looked up, with red
+and astonished eyes, and I was banished from the feast of tears.
+
+I returned promptly to my playmates in the street, who were amusing
+themselves, according to the custom on that sad anniversary, by
+pelting each other with burrs. Here I was distinguished, more than I
+had been among my elders. My hair being curly, it caught a generous
+number of burrs, so that I fairly bristled with these emblems of
+mortification and woe.
+
+Not long after that sinful experiment with the handkerchief I
+discovered by accident that I was not the only doubter in Polotzk. One
+Friday night I lay wakeful in my little bed, staring from the dark
+into the lighted room adjoining mine. I saw the Sabbath candles
+sputter and go out, one by one,--it was late,--but the lamp hanging
+from the ceiling still burned high. Everybody had gone to bed. The
+lamp would go out before morning if there was little oil; or else it
+would burn till Natasha, the Gentile chorewoman, came in the morning
+to put it out, and remove the candlesticks from the table, and unseal
+the oven, and do the dozen little tasks which no Jew could perform on
+the Sabbath. The simple prohibition to labor on the Sabbath day had
+been construed by zealous commentators to mean much more. One must not
+even touch any instrument of labor or commerce, as an axe or a coin.
+It was forbidden to light a fire, or to touch anything that contained
+a fire, or had contained fire, were it only a cold candlestick or a
+burned match. Therefore the lamp at which I was staring must burn till
+the Gentile woman came to put it out.
+
+The light did not annoy me in the least; I was not thinking about it.
+But apparently it troubled somebody else. I saw my father come from
+his room, which also adjoined the living-room. What was he going to
+do? What was this he was doing? Could I believe my eyes? My father
+touched the lighted lamp!--yes, he shook it, as if to see how much oil
+there was left.
+
+I was petrified in my place. I could neither move nor make a sound. It
+seemed to me he must feel my eyes bulging at him out of the dark. But
+he did not know that I was looking; he thought everybody was asleep.
+He turned down the light a very little, and waited. I did not take my
+eyes from him. He lowered the flame a little more, and waited again. I
+watched. By the slightest degrees he turned the light down. I
+understood. In case any one were awake, it would appear as if the lamp
+was going out of itself. I was the only one who lay so as to be able
+to see him, and I had gone to bed so early that he could not suppose I
+was awake. The light annoyed him, he wanted to put it out, but he
+would not risk having it known.
+
+I heard my father find his bed in the dark before I dared to draw a
+full breath. The thing he had done was a monstrous sin. If his mother
+had seen him do it, it would have broken her heart--his mother who
+fasted half the days of the year, when he was a boy, to save his
+teacher's fee; his mother who walked almost barefoot in the cruel snow
+to carry him on her shoulders to school when she had no shoes for him;
+his mother who made it her pious pride to raise up a learned son, that
+most precious offering in the eyes of the great God, from the hand of
+a poor struggling woman. If my mother had seen it, it would have
+grieved her no less--my mother who was given to him, with her youth
+and good name and her dowry, in exchange for his learning and piety;
+my mother who was taken from her play to bear him children and feed
+them and keep them, while he sat on the benches of the scholars and
+repaid her labors with the fame of his learning. I did not put it to
+myself just so, but I understood that learning and piety were the
+things most valued in our family, that my father was a scholar, and
+that piety, of course, was the fruit of sacred learning. And yet my
+father had deliberately violated the Sabbath.
+
+His act was not to be compared with my carrying the handkerchief. The
+two sins were of the same kind, but the sinners and their motives were
+different. I was a child, a girl at that, not yet of the age of moral
+responsibility. He was a man full grown, passing for one of God's
+elect, and accepting the reverence of the world as due tribute to his
+scholarly merits. I had by no means satisfied myself, by my secret
+experiment, that it was not sinful to carry a burden on the Sabbath
+day. If God did not punish me on the spot, perhaps it was because of
+my youth or perhaps it was because of my motive.
+
+According to my elders, my father, by turning out the lamp, committed
+the sin of Sabbath-breaking. What did my father intend? I could not
+suppose that his purpose was similar to mine. Surely he, who had lived
+so long and studied so deeply, had by this time resolved all his
+doubts. Surely God had instructed _him_. I could not believe that he
+did wrong knowingly, so I came to the conclusion that he did not hold
+it a sin to touch a lighted lamp on Sabbath. Then why was he so secret
+in his action? That, too, became clear to me. I myself had
+instinctively adopted secret methods in all my little investigations,
+and had kept the results to myself. The way in which my questions were
+received had taught me much. I had a dim, inarticulate understanding
+of the horror and indignation which my father would excite if he,
+supposedly a man of piety, should publish the heretical opinion that
+it was not wrong to handle fire on the Sabbath. To see what remorse my
+mother suffered, or my father's mother, if by some accident she failed
+in any point of religious observance, was to know that she could never
+be brought to doubt the sacred importance of the thousand minutiæ of
+ancient Jewish practice. That which had been taught them as the truth
+by their fathers and mothers was the whole truth to my good friends
+and neighbors--that and nothing else. If there were any people in
+Polotzk who had strange private opinions, such as I concluded my
+father must hold, it was possible that he had a secret acquaintance
+with them. But it would never do, it was plain to me, to make public
+confession of his convictions. Such an act would not only break the
+hearts of his family, but it would also take the bread from the mouths
+of his children, and ruin them forever. My sister and my brother and
+I would come to be called the children of Israel the Apostate, just as
+Gutke, my playmate, was called the granddaughter of Yankel the
+Informer. The most innocent of us would be cursed and shunned for the
+sin of our father.
+
+All this I came to understand, not all at once, but by degrees, as I
+put this and that together, and brought my childish thoughts to order.
+I was by no means absorbed in this problem. I played and danced with
+the other children as heartily as ever, but I brooded in my window
+corner when there was nothing else to do. I had not the slightest
+impulse to go to my father, charge him with his unorthodox conduct,
+and demand an explanation of him. I was quite satisfied that I
+understood him, and I had not the habit of confidences. I was still in
+the days when I was content to _find out_ things, and did not long to
+communicate my discoveries. Moreover, I was used to living in two
+worlds, a real world and a make-believe one, without ever knowing
+which was which. In one world I had much company--father and mother
+and sister and friends--and did as others did, and took everything for
+granted. In the other world I was all alone, and I had to discover
+ways for myself; and I was so uncertain that I did not attempt to
+bring a companion along. And did I find my own father treading in the
+unknown ways? Then perhaps some day he would come across me, and take
+me farther than I had yet been; but I would not be the first to
+whisper that I was there. It seems strange enough to me now that I
+should have been so uncommunicative; but I remind myself that I have
+been thoroughly made over, at least once, since those early days.
+
+I recall with sorrow that I was sometimes as weak in morals as I was
+in religion. I remember stealing a piece of sugar. It was long
+ago--almost as long ago as anything that I remember. We were still
+living in my grandfather's house when this dreadful thing happened and
+I was only four or five years old when we moved from there. Before my
+mother figured this out for me I scarcely had the courage to confess
+my sin.
+
+And it was thus: In a corner of a front room, by a window, stood a
+high chest of drawers. On top of the chest stood a tin box, decorated
+with figures of queer people with queer flat parasols; a Chinese
+tea-box, in a word. The box had a lid. The lid was shut tight. But I
+knew what was in that gorgeous box and I coveted it. I was very
+little--I never could reach anything. There stood a chair suggestively
+near the chest. I pushed the chair a little and mounted it. By
+standing on tiptoe I could now reach the box. I opened it and took out
+an irregular lump of sparkling sugar. I stood on the chair admiring
+it. I stood too long. My grandmother came in--or was it Itke, the
+housemaid?--and found me with the stolen morsel.
+
+I saw that I was fairly caught. How could I hope to escape my captor,
+when I was obliged to turn on my stomach in order to descend safely,
+thus presenting my jailer with the most tempting opportunity for
+immediate chastisement? I took in the situation before my grandmother
+had found her voice for horror. Did I rub my eyes with my knuckles and
+whimper? I wish I could report that I was thus instantly struck with a
+sense of my guilt. I was impressed only with the absolute certainty of
+my impending doom, and I promptly seized on a measure of compensation.
+While my captor--I really think it was a grandmother--rehearsed her
+entire vocabulary of reproach, from a distance sufficient to enable
+her to hurl her voice at me with the best effect, I stuffed the lump
+of sugar into my mouth and munched it as fast as I could. And I had
+eaten it all, and had licked my sticky lips, before the avenging rod
+came down.
+
+I remember no similar lapses from righteousness, but I sinned in
+lesser ways more times than there are years in my life. I sinned, and
+more than once I escaped punishment by some trick or sly speech. I do
+not mean that I lied outright, though that also I did, sometimes; but
+I would twist my naughty speech, if forced to repeat it, in such an
+artful manner, or give such ludicrous explanation of my naughty act,
+that justice was overcome by laughter and threw me, as often as not, a
+handful of raisins instead of a knotted strap. If by such successes I
+was encouraged to cultivate my natural slyness and duplicity, I throw
+the blame on my unwise preceptors, and am glad to be rid of the burden
+for once.
+
+I have said that I used to lie. I recall no particular occasion when a
+lie was the cause of my disgrace; but I know that it was always my
+habit, when I had some trifling adventure to report, to garnish it up
+with so much detail and circumstance that nobody who had witnessed my
+small affair could have recognized it as the same, had I not insisted
+on my version with such fervid conviction. The truth is that
+everything that happened to me really loomed great and shone splendid
+in my eyes, and I could not, except by conscious effort, reduce my
+visions to their actual shapes and colors. If I saw a pair of geese
+leading about a lazy goose girl, they went through all sorts of antics
+before my eyes that fat geese are not known to indulge in. If I met
+poor Blind Munye with a frown on his face, I thought that a cloud of
+wrath overspread his countenance; and I ran home to relate, panting,
+how narrowly I had escaped his fury. I will not pretend that I was
+absolutely unconscious of my exaggerations; but if you insist, I will
+say that things as I reported them might have been so, and would have
+been much more interesting had they been so.
+
+The noble reader who never told a lie, or never confessed one, will be
+shocked at these revelations of my childish depravity. What proof has
+he, he will cry, that I am not lying on every page of this chronicle,
+if, by my own confession, my childhood was spent in a maze of lies and
+dreams? I shall say to the saint, when I am challenged, that the proof
+of my conversion to veracity is engraven in his own soul. Do you not
+remember, you spotless one, how you used to steal and lie and cheat
+and rob? Oh, not with your own hand, of course! It was your remote
+ancestor who lived by plunder, and was honored for the blood upon his
+hairy hands. By and by he discovered that cunning was more effective
+than violence, and less troublesome. Still later he became convinced
+that the greatest cunning was virtue, and made him a moral code, and
+subdued the world. Then, when you came along, stumbling through the
+wilderness of cast-off errors, your wise ancestor gave you a thrust
+that landed you in the clearing of modernity, at the same time
+bellowing in your ear, "Now be good! It pays!"
+
+This is the whole history of your saintliness. But all people do not
+take up life at the same point of human development. Some are backward
+at birth, and have to make up, in the brief space of their individual
+history, the stages they missed on their way out of the black past.
+With me, for example, it actually comes to this: that I have to
+recapitulate in my own experience all the slow steps of the progress
+of the race. I seem to learn nothing except by the prick of life on my
+own skin. I am saved from living in ignorance and dying in darkness
+only by the sensitiveness of my skin. Some men learn through borrowed
+experience. Shut them up in a glass tower, with an unobstructed view
+of the world, and they will go through every adventure of life by
+proxy, and be able to furnish you with a complete philosophy of life;
+and you may safely bring up your children by it. But I am not of that
+godlike organization. I am a thinking animal. Things are as important
+to me as ideas. I imbibe wisdom through every pore of my body. There
+are times, indeed, when the doctor in his study is less intelligible
+to me than a cricket far off in the field. The earth was my mother,
+the earth is my teacher. I am a dutiful pupil: I listen ever with my
+ear close to her lips. It seems to me I do not know a single thing
+that I did not learn, more or less directly, through the corporal
+senses. As long as I have my body, I need not despair of salvation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] A piece of parchment inscribed with a passage of Scripture, rolled
+in a case and tacked to the doorpost. The pious touch or kiss this
+when leaving or entering a house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH
+
+
+The long chapter of troubles which led to my father's emigration to
+America began with his own illness. The doctors sent him to Courland
+to consult expensive specialists, who prescribed tedious courses of
+treatment. He was far from cured when my mother also fell ill, and my
+father had to return to Polotzk to look after the business.
+
+Trouble begets trouble. After my mother took to her bed everything
+continued to go wrong. The business gradually declined, as too much
+money was withdrawn to pay the doctors' and apothecaries' bills; and
+my father, himself in poor health, and worried about my mother, was
+not successful in coping with the growing difficulties. At home, the
+servants were dismissed, for the sake of economy, and all the
+housework and the nursing fell on my grandmother and my sister.
+Fetchke, as a result, was overworked, and fell ill of a fever. The
+baby, suffering from unavoidable neglect, developed the fractious
+temper of semi-illness. And by way of a climax, the old cow took it
+into her head to kick my grandmother, who was laid up for a week with
+a bruised leg.
+
+Neighbors and cousins pulled us through till grandma got up, and after
+her, Fetchke. But my mother remained on her bed. Weeks, months, a year
+she lay there, and half of another year. All the doctors in Polotzk
+attended her in turn, and one doctor came all the way from Vitebsk.
+Every country practitioner for miles around was consulted, every
+quack, every old wife who knew a charm. The apothecaries ransacked
+their shops for drugs the names of which they had forgotten, and kind
+neighbors brought in their favorite remedies. There were midnight
+prayers in the synagogue for my mother, and petitions at the graves of
+her parents; and one awful night when she was near death, three pious
+mothers who had never lost a child came to my mother's bedside and
+bought her, for a few kopecks, for their own, so that she might gain
+the protection of their luck, and so be saved.
+
+Still my poor mother lay on her bed, suffering and wasting. The house
+assumed a look of desolation. Everybody went on tiptoe; we talked in
+whispers; for weeks at a time there was no laughter in our home. The
+ominous night lamp was never extinguished. We slept in our clothes
+night after night, so as to wake the more easily in case of sudden
+need. We watched, we waited, but we scarcely hoped.
+
+Once in a while I was allowed to take a short turn in the sick-room.
+It was awful to sit beside my mother's bed in the still night and see
+her helplessness. She had been so strong, so active. She used to lift
+sacks and barrels that were heavy for a man, and now she could not
+raise a spoon to her mouth. Sometimes she did not know me when I gave
+her the medicine, and when she knew me, she did not care. Would she
+ever care any more? She looked strange and small in the shadows of the
+bed. Her hair had been cut off after the first few months; her short
+curls were almost covered by the ice bag. Her cheeks were red, red,
+but her hands were so white as they had never been before. In the
+still night I wondered if she cared to live.
+
+The night lamp burned on. My father grew old. He was always figuring
+on a piece of paper. We children knew the till was empty when the
+silver candlesticks were taken away to be pawned. Next, superfluous
+featherbeds were sold for what they would bring, and then there came a
+day when grandma, with eyes blinded by tears, groped in the big
+wardrobe for my mother's satin dress and velvet mantle; and after that
+it did not matter any more what was taken out of the house.
+
+Then everything took a sudden turn. My mother began to improve, and at
+the same time my father was offered a good position as superintendent
+of a gristmill.
+
+As soon as my mother could be moved, he took us all out to the mill,
+about three versts out of town, on the Polota. We had a pleasant
+cottage there, with the miller's red-headed, freckled family for our
+only neighbors. If our rooms were barer than they used to be, the sun
+shone in at all the windows; and as the leaves on the trees grew
+denser and darker, my mother grew stronger on her feet, and laughter
+returned to our house as the song bird to the grove.
+
+We children had a very happy summer. We had never lived in the country
+before, and we liked the change. It was endless fun to explore the
+mill; to squeeze into forbidden places, and be pulled out by the angry
+miller; to tyrannize over the mill hands, and be worshipped by them in
+return; to go boating on the river, and discover unvisited nooks, and
+search the woods and fields for kitchen herbs, and get lost, and be
+found, a hundred times a week. And what an adventure it was to walk
+the three versts into town, leaving a trail of perfume from the
+wild-flower posies we carried to our city friends!
+
+But these things did not last. The mill changed hands, and the new
+owner put a protégé of his own in my father's place. So, after a short
+breathing spell, we were driven back into the swamp of growing poverty
+and trouble.
+
+The next year or so my father spent in a restless and fruitless search
+for a permanent position. My mother had another serious illness, and
+his own health remained precarious. What he earned did not more than
+half pay the bills in the end, though we were living very humbly now.
+Polotzk seemed to reject him, and no other place invited him.
+
+Just at this time occurred one of the periodic anti-Semitic movements
+whereby government officials were wont to clear the forbidden cities
+of Jews, whom, in the intervals of slack administration of the law,
+they allowed to maintain an illegal residence in places outside the
+Pale, on payment of enormous bribes and at the cost of nameless risks
+and indignities.
+
+It was a little before Passover that the cry of the hunted thrilled
+the Jewish world with the familiar fear. The wholesale expulsion of
+Jews from Moscow and its surrounding district at cruelly short notice
+was the name of this latest disaster. Where would the doom strike
+next? The Jews who lived illegally without the Pale turned their
+possessions into cash and slept in their clothes, ready for immediate
+flight. Those who lived in the comparative security of the Pale
+trembled for their brothers and sisters without, and opened wide their
+doors to afford the fugitives refuge. And hundreds of fugitives,
+preceded by a wail of distress, flocked into the open district,
+bringing their trouble where trouble was never absent, mingling their
+tears with the tears that never dried.
+
+The open cities becoming thus suddenly crowded, every man's chance of
+making a living was diminished in proportion to the number of
+additional competitors. Hardship, acute distress, ruin for many: thus
+spread the disaster, ring beyond ring, from the stone thrown by a
+despotic official into the ever-full river of Jewish persecution.
+
+Passover was celebrated in tears that year. In the story of the Exodus
+we would have read a chapter of current history, only for us there was
+no deliverer and no promised land.
+
+But what said some of us at the end of the long service? Not "May we
+be next year in Jerusalem," but "Next year--in America!" So there was
+our promised land, and many faces were turned towards the West. And if
+the waters of the Atlantic did not part for them, the wanderers rode
+its bitter flood by a miracle as great as any the rod of Moses ever
+wrought.
+
+My father was carried away by the westward movement, glad of his own
+deliverance, but sore at heart for us whom he left behind. It was the
+last chance for all of us. We were so far reduced in circumstances
+that he had to travel with borrowed money to a German port, whence he
+was forwarded to Boston, with a host of others, at the expense of an
+emigrant aid society.
+
+I was about ten years old when my father emigrated. I was used to his
+going away from home, and "America" did not mean much more to me than
+"Kherson," or "Odessa," or any other names of distant places. I
+understood vaguely, from the gravity with which his plans were
+discussed, and from references to ships, societies, and other
+unfamiliar things, that this enterprise was different from previous
+ones; but my excitement and emotion on the morning of my father's
+departure were mainly vicarious.
+
+I know the day when "America" as a world entirely unlike Polotzk
+lodged in my brain, to become the centre of all my dreams and
+speculations. Well I know the day. I was in bed, sharing the measles
+with some of the other children. Mother brought us a thick letter from
+father, written just before boarding the ship. The letter was full of
+excitement. There was something in it besides the description of
+travel, something besides the pictures of crowds of people, of foreign
+cities, of a ship ready to put out to sea. My father was travelling at
+the expense of a charitable organization, without means of his own,
+without plans, to a strange world where he had no friends; and yet he
+wrote with the confidence of a well-equipped soldier going into
+battle. The rhetoric is mine. Father simply wrote that the emigration
+committee was taking good care of everybody, that the weather was
+fine, and the ship comfortable. But I heard something, as we read the
+letter together in the darkened room, that was more than the words
+seemed to say. There was an elation, a hint of triumph, such as had
+never been in my father's letters before. I cannot tell how I knew it.
+I felt a stirring, a straining in my father's letter. It was there,
+even though my mother stumbled over strange words, even though she
+cried, as women will when somebody is going away. My father was
+inspired by a vision. He saw something--he promised us something. It
+was this "America." And "America" became my dream.
+
+While it was nothing new for my father to go far from home in search
+of his fortune, the circumstances in which he left us were unlike
+anything we had experienced before. We had absolutely no reliable
+source of income, no settled home, no immediate prospects. We hardly
+knew where we belonged in the simple scheme of our society. My mother,
+as a bread-winner, had nothing like her former success. Her health was
+permanently impaired, her place in the business world had long been
+filled by others, and there was no capital to start her anew. Her
+brothers did what they could for her. They were well-to-do, but they
+all had large families, with marriageable daughters and sons to be
+bought out of military service. The allowance they made her was
+generous compared to their means,--affection and duty could do no
+more,--but there were four of us growing children, and my mother was
+obliged to make every effort within her power to piece out her income.
+
+How quickly we came down from a large establishment, with servants and
+retainers, and a place among the best in Polotzk, to a single room
+hired by the week, and the humblest associations, and the averted
+heads of former friends! But oftenest it was my mother who turned away
+her head. She took to using the side streets to avoid the pitiful eyes
+of the kind, and the scornful eyes of the haughty. Both were turned on
+her as she trudged from store to store, and from house to house,
+peddling tea or other ware; and both were hard to bear. Many a winter
+morning she arose in the dark, to tramp three or four miles in the
+gripping cold, through the dragging snow, with a pound of tea for a
+distant customer; and her profit was perhaps twenty kopecks. Many a
+time she fell on the ice, as she climbed the steep bank on the far
+side of the Dvina, a heavy basket on each arm. More than once she
+fainted at the doors of her customers, ashamed to knock as suppliant
+where she had used to be received as an honored guest. I hope the
+angels did not have to count the tears that fell on her frost-bitten,
+aching hands as she counted her bitter earnings at night.
+
+And who took care of us children while my mother tramped the streets
+with her basket? Why, who but Fetchke? Who but the little housewife of
+twelve? Sure of our safety was my mother with Fetchke to watch; sure
+of our comfort with Fetchke to cook the soup and divide the scrap of
+meat and remember the next meal. Joseph was in heder all day; the baby
+was a quiet little thing; Mashke was no worse than usual. But still
+there was plenty to do, with order to keep in a crowded room, and the
+washing, and the mending. And Fetchke did it all. She went to the
+river with the women to wash the clothes, and tucked up her dress and
+stood bare-legged in the water, like the rest of them, and beat and
+rubbed with all her might, till our miserable rags gleamed white
+again.
+
+And I? I usually had a cold, or a cough, or something to disable me;
+and I never had any talent for housework. If I swept and sanded the
+floor, polished the samovar, and ran errands, I was doing much. I
+minded the baby, who did not need much minding. I was willing enough,
+I suppose, but the hard things were done without my help.
+
+Not that I mean to belittle the part that I played in our reduced
+domestic economy. Indeed, I am very particular to get all the credit
+due me. I always remind my sister Deborah, who was the baby of those
+humble days, that it was I who pierced her ears. Earrings were a
+requisite part of a girl's toilet. Even a beggar girl must have
+earrings, were they only loops of thread with glass beads. I heard my
+mother bemoan the baby because she had not time to pierce her ears.
+Promptly I armed myself with a coarse needle and a spool of thread,
+and towed Deborah out into the woodshed. The operation was entirely
+successful, though the baby was entirely ungrateful. And I am proud to
+this day of the unflinching manner in which I did what I conceived to
+be my duty. If Deborah chooses to go with ungarnished ears, it is her
+affair; my conscience is free of all reproach.
+
+    [Illustration: WINTER SCENE ON THE DVINA]
+
+I had a direct way in everything. I rushed right in--I spoke right
+out. My mother sent me sometimes to deliver a package of tea, and I
+was proud to help in business. One day I went across the Dvina and far
+up "the other side." It was a good-sized expedition for me to make
+alone, and I was not a little pleased with myself when I delivered my
+package, safe and intact, into the hands of my customer. But the
+storekeeper was not pleased at all. She sniffed and sniffed, she
+pinched the tea, she shook it all out on the counter.
+
+"_Na_, take it back," she said in disgust; "this is not the tea I
+always buy. It's a poorer quality."
+
+I knew the woman was mistaken. I was acquainted with my mother's
+several grades of tea. So I spoke up manfully.
+
+"Oh, no," I said; "this is the tea my mother always sends you. There
+is no worse tea."
+
+Nothing in my life ever hurt me more than that woman's answer to my
+argument. She laughed--she simply laughed. But I understood, even
+before she controlled herself sufficiently to make verbal remarks,
+that I had spoken like a fool, had lost my mother a customer. I had
+only spoken the truth, but I had not expressed it diplomatically.
+That was no way to make business.
+
+I felt very sore to be returning home with the tea still in my hand,
+but I forgot my trouble in watching a summer storm gather up the
+river. The few passengers who took the boat with me looked scared as
+the sky darkened, and the boatman grasped his oars very soberly. It
+took my breath away to see the signs, but I liked it; and I was much
+disappointed to get home dry.
+
+When my mother heard of my misadventure she laughed, too; but that was
+different, and I was able to laugh with her.
+
+This is the way I helped in the housekeeping and in business. I hope
+it does not appear as if I did not take our situation to heart, for I
+did--in my own fashion. It was plain, even to an idle dreamer like me,
+that we were living on the charity of our friends, and barely living
+at that. It was plain, from my father's letters, that he was scarcely
+able to support himself in America, and that there was no immediate
+prospect of our joining him. I realized it all, but I considered it
+temporary, and I found plenty of comfort in writing long letters to my
+father--real, original letters this time, not copies of Reb' Isaiah's
+model--letters which my father treasured for years.
+
+As an instance of what I mean by my own fashion of taking trouble to
+heart, I recall the day when our household effects were attached for a
+debt. We had plenty of debts, but the stern creditor who set the law
+on us this time was none of ours. The claim was against a family to
+whom my mother sublet two of our three rooms, furnished with her own
+things. The police officers, who swooped down upon us without warning,
+as was their habit, asked no questions and paid no heed to
+explanations. They affixed a seal to every lame chair and cracked
+pitcher in the place; aye, to every faded petticoat found hanging in
+the wardrobe. These goods, comprising all our possessions and all our
+tenant's, would presently be removed, to be sold at auction, for the
+benefit of the creditor.
+
+Lame chairs and faded petticoats, when they are the last one has, have
+a vital value in the owner's eyes. My mother moved about, weeping
+distractedly, all the while the officers were in the house. The
+frightened children cried. Our neighbors gathered to bemoan our
+misfortune. And over everything was the peculiar dread which only Jews
+in Russia feel when agents of the Government invade their homes.
+
+The fear of the moment was in my heart, as in every other heart there.
+It was a horrid, oppressive fear. I retired to a quiet corner to
+grapple with it. I was not given to weeping, but I must think things
+out in words. I repeated to myself that the trouble was all about
+money. Somebody wanted money from our tenant, who had none to give.
+Our furniture was going to be sold to make this money. It was a
+mistake, but then the officers would not believe my mother. Still, it
+was only about money. Nobody was dead, nobody was ill. It was all
+about _money_. Why, there was plenty of money in Polotzk! My own uncle
+had many times as much as the creditor claimed. He could buy all our
+things back, or somebody else could. What did it matter? It was only
+_money_, and money was got by working, and we were all willing to
+work. There was nothing gone, nothing lost, as when somebody died.
+This furniture could be moved from place to place, and so could money
+be moved, and nothing was lost out of the world by the transfer.
+_That_ was all. If anybody--
+
+Why, what do I see at the window? Breine Malke, our next-door
+neighbor, is--yes, she is smuggling something out of the window! If
+she is caught--! Oh, I must help! Breine Malke beckons. She wants me
+to do something. I see--I understand. I must stand in the doorway, to
+obstruct the view of the officers, who are all engaged in the next
+room just now. I move readily to my post, but I cannot resist my
+curiosity. I must look over my shoulder a last time, to see what it is
+Breine Malke wants to smuggle out.
+
+I can scarcely stifle my laughter. Of all our earthly goods, our
+neighbor has chosen for salvation a dented bandbox containing a
+moth-eaten bonnet from my mother's happier days! And I laugh not only
+from amusement but also from lightness of heart. For I have succeeded
+in reducing our catastrophe to its simplest terms, and I find that it
+is only a trifle, and no matter of life and death.
+
+I could not help it. That was the way it looked to me.
+
+I am sure I made as serious efforts as anybody to prepare myself for
+life in America on the lines indicated in my father's letters. In
+America, he wrote, it was no disgrace to work at a trade. Workmen and
+capitalists were equal. The employer addressed the employee as _you_,
+not, familiarly, as _thou_. The cobbler and the teacher had the same
+title, "Mister." And all the children, boys and girls, Jews and
+Gentiles, went to school! Education would be ours for the asking, and
+economic independence also, as soon as we were prepared. He wanted
+Fetchke and me to be taught some trade; so my sister was apprenticed
+to a dressmaker and I to a milliner.
+
+Fetchke, of course, was successful, and I, of course, was not. My
+sister managed to learn her trade, although most of the time at the
+dressmaker's she had to spend in sweeping, running errands, and
+minding the babies; the usual occupations of the apprentice in any
+trade.
+
+But I--I had to be taken away from the milliner's after a couple of
+months. I did try, honestly. With all my eyes I watched my mistress
+build up a chimney pot of straw and things. I ripped up old bonnets
+with enthusiasm. I picked up everybody's spools and thimbles, and
+other far-rolling objects. I did just as I was told, for I was
+determined to become a famous milliner, since America honored the
+workman so. But most of the time I was sent away on errands--to the
+market to buy soup greens, to the corner store to get change, and all
+over town with bandboxes half as round again as I. It was winter, and
+I was not very well dressed. I froze; I coughed; my mistress said I
+was not of much use to her. So my mother kept me at home, and my
+career as a milliner was blighted.
+
+This was during our last year in Russia, when I was between twelve and
+thirteen years of age. I was old enough to be ashamed of my failures,
+but I did not have much time to think about them, because my Uncle
+Solomon took me with him to Vitebsk.
+
+It was not my first visit to that city. A few years before I had spent
+some days there, in the care of my father's cousin Rachel, who
+journeyed periodically to the capital of the province to replenish her
+stock of spools and combs and like small wares, by the sale of which
+she was slowly earning her dowry.
+
+On that first occasion, Cousin Rachel, who had developed in business
+that dual conscience, one for her Jewish neighbors and one for the
+Gentiles, decided to carry me without a ticket. I was so small, though
+of an age to pay half-fare, that it was not difficult. I remember her
+simple stratagem from beginning to end. When we approached the ticket
+office she whispered to me to stoop a little, and I stooped. The
+ticket agent passed me. In the car she bade me curl up in the seat,
+and I curled up. She threw a shawl over me and bade me pretend to
+sleep, and I pretended to sleep. I heard the conductor collect the
+tickets. I knew when he was looking at me. I heard him ask my age and
+I heard Cousin Rachel lie about it. I was allowed to sit up when the
+conductor was gone, and I sat up and looked out of the window and saw
+everything, and was perfectly, perfectly happy. I was fond of my
+cousin, and I smiled at her in perfect understanding and admiration of
+her cleverness in beating the railroad company.
+
+I knew then, as I know now, beyond a doubt, that my Uncle David's
+daughter was an honorable woman. With the righteous she dealt
+squarely; with the unjust, as best she could. She was in duty bound to
+make all the money she could, for money was her only protection in the
+midst of the enemy. Every kopeck she earned or saved was a scale in
+her coat of armor. We learned this code early in life, in Polotzk; so
+I was pleased with the success of our ruse on this occasion, though I
+should have been horrified if I had seen Cousin Rachel cheat a Jew.
+
+We made our headquarters in that part of Vitebsk where my father's
+numerous cousins and aunts lived, in more or less poverty, or at most
+in the humblest comfort; but I was taken to my Uncle Solomon's to
+spend the Sabbath. I remember a long walk, through magnificent
+avenues and past splendid shops and houses and gardens. Vitebsk was a
+metropolis beside provincial Polotzk; and I was very small, even
+without stooping.
+
+Uncle Solomon lived in the better part of the city, and I found his
+place very attractive. Still, after a night's sleep, I was ready for
+further travel and adventures, and I set out, without a word to
+anybody, to retrace my steps clear across the city.
+
+The way was twice as long as on the preceding day, perhaps because
+such small feet set the pace, perhaps because I lingered as long as I
+pleased at the shop windows. At some corners, too, I had to stop and
+study my route. I do not think I was frightened at all, though I
+imagine my back was very straight and my head very high all the way;
+for I was well aware that I was out on an adventure.
+
+I did not speak to any one till I reached my Aunt Leah's; and then I
+hardly had a chance to speak, I was so much hugged and laughed over
+and cried over, and questioned and cross-questioned, without anybody
+waiting to hear my answers. I had meant to surprise Cousin Rachel, and
+I had frightened her. When she had come to Uncle Solomon's to take me
+back, she found the house in an uproar, everybody frightened at my
+disappearance. The neighborhood was searched, and at last messengers
+were sent to Aunt Leah's. The messengers in their haste quite
+overlooked me. It was their fault if they took a short cut unknown to
+me. I was all the time faithfully steering by the sign of the tobacco
+shop, and the shop with the jumping-jack in the window, and the garden
+with the iron fence, and the sentry box opposite a drug store, and all
+the rest of my landmarks, as carefully entered on my mental chart the
+day before.
+
+All this I told my scared relatives as soon as they let me, till they
+were convinced that I was not lost, nor stolen by the gypsies, nor
+otherwise done away with. Cousin Rachel was so glad that she would not
+have to return to Polotzk empty-handed that she would not let anybody
+scold me. She made me tell over and over what I had seen on the way,
+till they all laughed and praised my acuteness for seeing so much more
+than they had supposed there was to see. Indeed, I was made a heroine,
+which was just what I intended to be when I set out on my adventure.
+And thus ended most of my unlawful escapades; I was more petted than
+scolded for my insubordination.
+
+My second journey to Vitebsk, in the company of Uncle Solomon, I
+remember as well as the first. I had been up all night, dancing at a
+wedding, and had gone home only to pick up my small bundle and be
+picked up, in turn, by my uncle. I was a little taller now, and had my
+own ticket, like a real traveller.
+
+It was still early in the morning when the train pulled out of the
+station, or else it was a misty day. I know the fields looked soft and
+gray when we got out into the country, and the trees were blurred. I
+did not want to sleep. A new day had begun--a new adventure. I would
+not miss any of it.
+
+But the last day, so unnaturally prolonged, was entangled in the
+skirts of the new. When did yesterday end? Why was not this new day
+the same day continued? I looked up at my uncle, but he was smiling at
+me in that amused way of his--he always seemed to be amused at me, and
+he would make me talk and then laugh at me--so I did not ask my
+question. Indeed, I could not formulate it, so I kept staring out on
+the dim country, and thinking, and thinking; and all the while the
+engine throbbed and lurched, and the wheels ground along, and I was
+astonished to hear that they were keeping perfectly the time of the
+last waltz I had danced at the wedding. I sang it through in my head.
+Yes, that was the rhythm. The engine knew it, the whole machine
+repeated it, and sent vibrations through my body that were just like
+the movements of the waltz. I was so much interested in this discovery
+that I forgot the problem of the Continuity of Time; and from that day
+to this, whenever I have heard that waltz,--one of the sweet Danube
+waltzes,--I have lived through that entire experience; the festive
+night, the misty morning, the abnormal consciousness of time, as if I
+had existed forever, without a break; the journey, the dim landscape,
+and the tune singing itself in my head. Never can I hear that waltz
+without the accompaniment of engine wheels grinding rhythmically along
+speeding tracks.
+
+I remained in Vitebsk about six months. I do not believe I was ever
+homesick during all that time. I was too happy to be homesick. The
+life suited me extremely well. My life in Polotzk had grown meaner and
+duller, as the family fortunes declined. For years there had been no
+lessons, no pleasant excursions, no jolly gatherings with uncles and
+aunts. Poverty, shadowed by pride, trampled down our simple ambitions
+and simpler joys. I cannot honestly say that I was very sensitive to
+our losses. I do not remember suffering because there was no jam on my
+bread, and no new dress for the holidays. I do not know whether I was
+hurt when some of our playmates abandoned us. I remember myself
+oftener in the attitude of an onlooker, as on the occasion of the
+attachment of our furniture, when I went off into a corner to think
+about it. Perhaps I was not able to cling to negations. The possession
+of the bread was a more absorbing fact than the loss of the jam. If I
+were to read my character backwards, I ought to believe that I did
+miss what I lacked in our days of privation; for I know, to my shame,
+that in more recent years I have cried for jam. But I am trying not to
+reason, only to remember; and from many scattered and shadowy
+memories, that glimmer and fade away so fast that I cannot fix them on
+this page, I form an idea, almost a conviction, that it was with me as
+I say.
+
+However indifferent I may have been to what I had not, I was fully
+alive to what I had. So when I came to Vitebsk I eagerly seized on the
+many new things that I found around me; and these new impressions and
+experiences affected me so much that I count that visit as an epoch in
+my Russian life.
+
+I was very much at home in my uncle's household. I was a little afraid
+of my aunt, who had a quick temper, but on the whole I liked her. She
+was fair and thin and had a pretty smile in the wake of her tempers.
+Uncle Solomon was an old friend. I was fond of him and he made much of
+me. His fine brown eyes were full of smiles, and there always was a
+pleasant smile for me, or a teasing one.
+
+Uncle Solomon was comparatively prosperous, so I soon forgot whatever
+I had known at home of sordid cares. I do not remember that I was ever
+haunted by the thought of my mother, who slaved to keep us in bread;
+or of my sister, so little older than myself, who bent her little back
+to a woman's work. I took up the life around me as if there were no
+other life. I did not play all the time, but I enjoyed whatever work I
+found because I was so happy. I helped my Cousin Dinke help her
+mother with the housework. I put it this way because I think my aunt
+never set me any tasks; but Dinke was glad to have me help wash dishes
+and sweep and make beds. My cousin was a gentle, sweet girl, blue-eyed
+and fair, and altogether attractive. She talked to me about grown-up
+things, and I liked it. When her friends came to visit her she did not
+mind having me about, although my skirts were so short.
+
+My helping hand was extended also to my smaller cousins, Mendele and
+Perele. I played lotto with Mendele and let him beat me; I found him
+when he was lost, and I helped him play tricks on our elders. Perele,
+the baby, was at times my special charge, and I think she did not
+suffer in my hands. I was a good nurse, though my methods were
+somewhat original.
+
+Uncle Solomon was often away on business, and in his absence Cousin
+Hirshel was my hero. Hirshel was only a little older than I, but he
+was a pupil in the high school, and wore the student's uniform, and
+knew nearly as much as my uncle, I thought. When he buckled on his
+satchel of books in the morning, and strode away straight as a
+soldier,--no heder boy ever walked like that,--I stood in the doorway
+and worshipped his retreating steps. I met him on his return in the
+late afternoon, and hung over him when he laid out his books for his
+lessons. Sometimes he had long Russian pieces to commit to memory. He
+would walk up and down repeating the lines out loud, and I learned as
+fast as he. He would let me hold the book while he recited, and a
+proud girl was I if I could correct him.
+
+My interest in his lessons amused him; he did not take me seriously.
+He looked much like his father, and twinkled his eyes at me in the
+same way and made fun of me, too. But sometimes he condescended to set
+me a lesson in spelling or arithmetic,--in reading I was as good as
+he,--and if I did well, he praised me and went and told the family
+about it; but lest I grow too proud of my achievements, he would sit
+down and do mysterious sums--I now believe it was algebra--to which I
+had no clue whatever, and which duly impressed me with a sense of my
+ignorance.
+
+There were other books in the house than school-books. The Hebrew
+books, of course, were there, as in other Jewish homes; but I was no
+longer devoted to the Psalms. There were a few books about in Russian
+and in Yiddish, that were neither works of devotion nor of
+instruction. These were story-books and poems. They were a great
+surprise to me and a greater delight. I read them hungrily, all there
+were--a mere handful, but to me an overwhelming treasure. Of all those
+books I remember by name only "Robinson Crusoe." I think I preferred
+the stories to the poems, though poetry was good to recite, walking up
+and down, like Cousin Hirshel. That was my introduction to secular
+literature, but I did not understand it at the time.
+
+When I had exhausted the books, I began on the old volumes of a
+Russian periodical which I found on a shelf in my room. There was a
+high stack of these paper volumes, and I was so hungry for books that
+I went at them greedily, fearing that I might not get through before I
+had to return to Polotzk.
+
+I read every spare minute of the day, and most of the night. I
+scarcely ever stopped at night until my lamp burned out. Then I would
+creep into bed beside Dinke, but often my head burned so from
+excitement that I did not sleep at once. And no wonder. The violent
+romances which rushed through the pages of that periodical were fit to
+inflame an older, more sophisticated brain than mine. I must believe
+that it was a thoroughly respectable magazine, because I found it in
+my Uncle Solomon's house; but the novels it printed were certainly
+sensational, if I dare judge from my lurid recollections. These
+romances, indeed, may have had their literary qualities, which I was
+too untrained to appreciate. I remember nothing but startling
+adventures of strange heroes and heroines, violent catastrophes in
+every chapter, beautiful maidens abducted by cruel Cossacks, inhuman
+mothers who poisoned their daughters for jealousy of their lovers; and
+all these unheard-of things happening in a strange world, the very
+language of which was unnatural to me. I was quick enough to fix
+meanings to new words, however, so keen was my interest in what I
+read. Indeed, when I recall the zest with which I devoured those
+fearful pages, the thrill with which I followed the heartless mother
+or the abused maiden in her adventures, my heart beating in my throat
+when my little lamp began to flicker; and then, myself, big-eyed and
+shivery in the dark, stealing to bed like a guilty ghost,--when I
+remember all this, I have an unpleasant feeling, as of one hearing of
+another's debauch; and I would be glad to shake the little bony
+culprit that I was then.
+
+My uncle was away so much of the time that I doubt if he knew how I
+spent my nights. My aunt, poor hard-worked housewife, knew too little
+of books to direct my reading. My cousins were not enough older than
+myself to play mentors to me. Besides all this, I think it was tacitly
+agreed, at my uncle's as at home, that Mashke was best let alone in
+such matters. So I burnt my midnight lamp, and filled my mind with a
+conglomeration of images entirely unsuited to my mental digestion; and
+no one can say what they would have bred in me, besides headache and
+nervousness, had they not been so soon dispelled and superseded by a
+host of strong new impressions. For these readings ended with my
+visit, which was closely followed by the preparations for our
+emigration.
+
+On the whole, then, I do not feel that I was seriously harmed by my
+wild reading. I have not been told that my taste was corrupted, and my
+morals, I believe, have also escaped serious stricture. I would even
+say that I have never been hurt by any revelation, however distorted
+or untimely, that I found in books, good or poor; that I have never
+read an idle book that was entirely useless; and that I have never
+quite lost whatever was significant to my spirit in any book, good or
+bad, even though my conscious memory can give no account of it.
+
+One lived, at Uncle Solomon's, not only one's own life, but the life
+of all around. My uncle, when he returned after a short absence, had
+stories to tell and adventures to describe; and I learned that one
+might travel considerably and see things unknown even in Vitebsk,
+without going as far as America. My cousins sometimes went to the
+theatre, and I listened with rapture to their account of what they had
+seen, and I learned the songs they had heard. Once Cousin Hirshel went
+to see a giant, who exhibited himself for three kopecks, and came home
+with such marvellous accounts of his astonishing proportions, and his
+amazing feats of strength, that little Mendele cried for envy, and I
+had to play lotto with him and let him beat me oh, so easily! till he
+felt himself a man again.
+
+And sometimes I had adventures of my own. I explored the city to some
+extent by myself, or else my cousins took me with them on their
+errands. There were so many fine people to see, such wonderful shops,
+such great distances to go. Once they took me to a bookstore. I saw
+shelves and shelves of books, and people buying them, and taking them
+away to keep. I was told that some people had in their own houses more
+books than were in the store. Was not that wonderful? It was a great
+city, Vitebsk; I never could exhaust its delights.
+
+Although I did not often think of my people at home, struggling
+desperately to live while I revelled in abundance and pleasure and
+excitement, I did do my little to help the family by giving lessons in
+lacemaking. As this was the only time in my life that I earned money
+by the work of my hands, I take care not to forget it and I like to
+give an account of it.
+
+I was always, as I have elsewhere admitted, very clumsy with my hands,
+counting five thumbs to the hand. Knitting and embroidery, at which my
+sister was so clever, I could never do with any degree of skill. The
+blue peacock with the red tail that I achieved in cross-stitch was not
+a performance of any grace. Neither was I very much downcast at my
+failures in this field; I was not an ambitious needlewoman. But when
+the fad for "Russian lace" was introduced into Polotzk by a family of
+sisters who had been expelled from St. Petersburg, and all feminine
+Polotzk, on both sides of the Dvina, dropped knitting and crochet
+needles and embroidery frames to take up pillow and bobbins, I, too,
+was carried away by the novelty, and applied myself heartily to learn
+the intricate art, with the result that I did master it. The Russian
+sisters charged enormous fees for lessons, and made a fortune out of
+the sale of patterns while they held the monopoly. Their pupils passed
+on the art at reduced fees, and their pupils' pupils charged still
+less; until even the humblest cottage rang with the pretty click of
+the bobbins, and my Cousin Rachel sold steel pins by the ounce,
+instead of by the dozen, and the women exchanged cardboard patterns
+from one end of town to the other.
+
+My teacher, who taught me without fee, being a friend of our
+prosperous days, lived "on the other side." It was winter, and many a
+time I crossed the frozen river, carrying a lace pillow as big as
+myself, till my hands were numb with cold. But I persisted, afraid as
+I was of cold; and when I came to Vitebsk I was glad of my one
+accomplishment. For Vitebsk had not yet seen "Russian lace," and I was
+an acceptable teacher of the new art, though I was such a mite,
+because there was no other. I taught my Cousin Dinke, of course, and I
+had a number of paying pupils. I gave lessons at my pupils' homes, and
+was very proud, going thus about town and being received as a person
+of importance. If my feet did not reach the floor when I sat in a
+chair, my hands knew their business for once; and I was such a
+conscientious and enthusiastic teacher that I had the satisfaction of
+seeing all my pupils execute difficult pieces before I left Vitebsk.
+
+I never have seen money that was half so bright to look at, half so
+pretty to clink, as the money I earned by these lessons. And it was
+easy to decide what to do with my wealth. I bought presents for
+everybody I knew. I remember to this day the pattern of the shawl I
+bought for my mother. When I came home and unpacked my treasures, I
+was the proudest girl in Polotzk.
+
+The proudest, but not the happiest. I found my family in such a
+pitiful state that all my joy was stifled by care, if only for a
+while.
+
+Unwilling to spoil my holiday, my mother had not written me how things
+had gone from bad to worse during my absence, and I was not prepared.
+Fetchke met me at the station, and conducted me to a more wretched
+hole than I had ever called home before.
+
+I went into the room alone, having been greeted outside by my mother
+and brother. It was evening, and the shabbiness of the apartment was
+all the gloomier for the light of a small kerosene lamp standing on
+the bare deal table. At one end of the table--is this Deborah? My
+little sister, dressed in an ugly gray jacket, sat motionless in the
+lamplight, her fair head drooping, her little hands folded on the edge
+of the table. At sight of her I grew suddenly old. It was merely that
+she was a shy little girl, unbecomingly dressed, and perhaps a little
+pale from underfeeding. But to me, at that moment, she was the
+personification of dejection, the living symbol of the fallen family
+state.
+
+Of course my sober mood did not last long. Even "fallen family state"
+could be interpreted in terms of money--absent money--and that, as
+once established, was a trifling matter. Hadn't I earned money myself?
+Heaps of it! Only look at this, and this, and this that I brought from
+Vitebsk, bought with my own money! No, I did not remain old. For many
+years more I was a very childish child.
+
+Perhaps I had spent my time in Vitebsk to better advantage than at the
+milliner's, from any point of view. When I returned to my native town
+I _saw_ things. I saw the narrowness, the stifling narrowness, of life
+in Polotzk. My books, my walks, my visits, as teacher, to many homes,
+had been so many doors opening on a wider world; so many horizons, one
+beyond the other. The boundaries of life had stretched, and I had
+filled my lungs with the thrilling air from a great Beyond. Child
+though I was, Polotzk, when I came back, was too small for me.
+
+And even Vitebsk, for all its peepholes into a Beyond, presently began
+to shrink in my imagination, as America loomed near. My father's
+letters warned us to prepare for the summons, and we lived in a quiver
+of expectation.
+
+Not that my father had grown suddenly rich. He was so far from rich
+that he was going to borrow every cent of the money for our
+third-class passage; but he had a business in view which he could
+carry on all the better for having the family with him; and, besides,
+we were borrowing right and left anyway, and to no definite purpose.
+With the children, he argued, every year in Russia was a year lost.
+They should be spending the precious years in school, in learning
+English, in becoming Americans. United in America, there were ten
+chances of our getting to our feet again to one chance in our
+scattered, aimless state.
+
+So at last I was going to America! Really, really going, at last! The
+boundaries burst. The arch of heaven soared. A million suns shone out
+for every star. The winds rushed in from outer space, roaring in my
+ears, "America! America!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE EXODUS
+
+
+On the day when our steamer ticket arrived, my mother did not go out
+with her basket, my brother stayed out of heder, and my sister salted
+the soup three times. I do not know what I did to celebrate the
+occasion. Very likely I played tricks on Deborah, and wrote a long
+letter to my father.
+
+Before sunset the news was all over Polotzk that Hannah Hayye had
+received a steamer ticket for America. Then they began to come. Friends
+and foes, distant relatives and new acquaintances, young and old, wise
+and foolish, debtors and creditors, and mere neighbors,--from every
+quarter of the city, from both sides of the Dvina, from over the
+Polota, from nowhere,--a steady stream of them poured into our street,
+both day and night, till the hour of our departure. And my mother gave
+audience. Her faded kerchief halfway off her head, her black ringlets
+straying, her apron often at her eyes, she received her guests in a
+rainbow of smiles and tears. She was the heroine of Polotzk, and she
+conducted herself appropriately. She gave her heart's thanks for the
+congratulations and blessings that poured in on her; ready tears for
+condolences; patient answers to monotonous questions; and handshakes
+and kisses and hugs she gave gratis.
+
+What did they not ask, the eager, foolish, friendly people? They
+wanted to handle the ticket, and mother must read them what is written
+on it. How much did it cost? Was it all paid for? Were we going to
+have a foreign passport or did we intend to steal across the border?
+Were we not all going to have new dresses to travel in? Was it sure
+that we could get koscher food on the ship? And with the questions
+poured in suggestions, and solid chunks of advice were rammed in by
+nimble prophecies. Mother ought to make a pilgrimage to a "Good
+Jew"--say, the Rebbe of Lubavitch--to get his blessing on our journey.
+She must be sure and pack her prayer books and Bible, and twenty
+pounds of zwieback at the least. If they did serve trefah on the ship,
+she and the four children would have to starve, unless she carried
+provisions from home.--Oh, she must take all the featherbeds!
+Featherbeds are scarce in America. In America they sleep on hard
+mattresses, even in winter. Haveh Mirel, Yachne the dressmaker's
+daughter, who emigrated to New York two years ago, wrote her mother
+that she got up from childbed with sore sides, because she had no
+featherbed.--Mother mustn't carry her money in a pocketbook. She must
+sew it into the lining of her jacket. The policemen in Castle Garden
+take all their money from the passengers as they land, unless the
+travellers deny having any.
+
+And so on, and so on, till my poor mother was completely bewildered.
+And as the day set for our departure approached, the people came
+oftener and stayed longer, and rehearsed my mother in long messages
+for their friends in America, praying that she deliver them promptly
+on her arrival, and without fail, and might God bless her for her
+kindness, and she must be sure and write them how she found their
+friends.
+
+Hayye Dvoshe, the wig-maker, for the eleventh time repeating herself,
+to my mother, still patiently attentive, thus:--
+
+"Promise me, I beg you. I don't sleep nights for thinking of him.
+Emigrated to America eighteen months ago, fresh and well and strong,
+with twenty-five ruble in his pocket, besides his steamer ticket, with
+new phylacteries, and a silk skull-cap, and a suit as good as
+new,--made it only three years before,--everything respectable, there
+could be nothing better;--sent one letter, how he arrived in Castle
+Garden, how well he was received by his uncle's son-in-law, how he was
+conducted to the baths, how they bought him an American suit,
+everything good, fine, pleasant;--wrote how his relative promised him
+a position in his business--a clothing merchant is he--makes
+gold,--and since then not a postal card, not a word, just as if he had
+vanished, as if the earth had swallowed him. _Oi, weh!_ what haven't I
+imagined, what haven't I dreamed, what haven't I lamented! Already
+three letters have I sent--the last one, you know, you yourself wrote
+for me, Hannah Hayye, dear--and no answer. Lost, as if in the sea!"
+
+And after the application of a corner of her shawl to eyes and nose,
+Hayye Dvoshe, continuing:--
+
+"So you will go into the newspaper, and ask them what has become of my
+Möshele, and if he isn't in Castle Garden, maybe he went up to
+Balti-moreh,--it's in the neighborhood, you know,--and you can tell
+them, for a mark, that he has a silk handkerchief with his monogram in
+Russian, that his betrothed embroidered for him before the engagement
+was broken. And may God grant you an easy journey, and may you arrive
+in a propitious hour, and may you find your husband well, and strong,
+and rich, and may you both live to lead your children to the wedding
+canopy, and may America shower gold on you. Amen."
+
+The weeks skipped, the days took wing, an hour was a flash of thought;
+so brimful of events was the interval before our departure. And no one
+was more alive than I to the multiple significance of the daily drama.
+My mother, full of grief at the parting from home and family and all
+things dear, anxious about the journey, uncertain about the future,
+but ready, as ever, to take up what new burdens awaited her; my
+sister, one with our mother in every hope and apprehension; my
+brother, rejoicing in his sudden release from heder; and the little
+sister, vaguely excited by mysteries afoot; the uncles and aunts and
+devoted neighbors, sad and solemn over their coming loss; and my
+father away over in Boston, eager and anxious about us in Polotzk,--an
+American citizen impatient to start his children on American
+careers,--I knew the minds of every one of these, and I lived their
+days and nights with them after an apish fashion of my own.
+
+But at bottom I was aloof from them all. What made me silent and
+big-eyed was the sense of being in the midst of a tremendous
+adventure. From morning till night I was all attention. I must credit
+myself with some pang of parting; I certainly felt the thrill of
+expectation; but keener than these was my delight in the progress of
+the great adventure. It was delightful just to be myself. I rejoiced,
+with the younger children, during the weeks of packing and
+preparation, in the relaxation of discipline and the general
+demoralization of our daily life. It was pleasant to be petted and
+spoiled by favorite cousins and stuffed with belated sweets by
+unfavorite ones. It was distinctly interesting to catch my mother
+weeping in corner cupboards over precious rubbish that could by no
+means be carried to America. It was agreeable to have my Uncle Moses
+stroke my hair and regard me with affectionate eyes, while he told me
+that I would soon forget him, and asked me, so coaxingly, to write him
+an account of our journey. It was delicious to be notorious through
+the length and breadth of Polotzk; to be stopped and questioned at
+every shop-door, when I ran out to buy two kopecks' worth of butter;
+to be treated with respect by my former playmates, if ever I found
+time to mingle with them; to be pointed at by my enemies, as I passed
+them importantly on the street. And all my delight and pride and
+interest were steeped in a super-feeling, the sense that it was I,
+Mashke, _I myself_, that was moving and acting in the midst of unusual
+events. Now that I was sure of America, I was in no hurry to depart,
+and not impatient to arrive. I was willing to linger over every detail
+of our progress, and so cherish the flavor of the adventure.
+
+The last night in Polotzk we slept at my uncle's house, having
+disposed of all our belongings, to the last three-legged stool, except
+such as we were taking with us. I could go straight to the room where
+I slept with my aunt that night, if I were suddenly set down in
+Polotzk. But I did not really sleep. Excitement kept me awake, and my
+aunt snored hideously. In the morning I was going away from Polotzk,
+forever and ever. I was going on a wonderful journey. I was going to
+America. How could I sleep?
+
+My uncle gave out a false bulletin, with the last batch that the
+gossips carried away in the evening. He told them that we were not
+going to start till the second day. This he did in the hope of
+smuggling us quietly out, and so saving us the wear and tear of a
+public farewell. But his ruse failed of success. Half of Polotzk was
+at my uncle's gate in the morning, to conduct us to the railway
+station, and the other half was already there before we arrived.
+
+The procession resembled both a funeral and a triumph. The women wept
+over us, reminding us eloquently of the perils of the sea, of the
+bewilderment of a foreign land, of the torments of homesickness that
+awaited us. They bewailed my mother's lot, who had to tear herself
+away from blood relations to go among strangers; who had to face
+gendarmes, ticket agents, and sailors, unprotected by a masculine
+escort; who had to care for four young children in the confusion of
+travel, and very likely feed them trefah or see them starve on the
+way. Or they praised her for a brave pilgrim, and expressed confidence
+in her ability to cope with gendarmes and ticket agents, and blessed
+her with every other word, and all but carried her in their arms.
+
+At the station the procession disbanded and became a mob. My uncle and
+my tall cousins did their best to protect us, but we wanderers were
+almost torn to pieces. They did get us into a car at last, but the
+riot on the station platform continued unquelled. When the warning
+bell rang out, it was drowned in a confounding babel of
+voices,--fragments of the oft-repeated messages, admonitions,
+lamentations, blessings, farewells. "Don't forget!"--"Take care of--"
+"Keep your tickets--" "Möshele--newspapers!" "Garlick is best!" "Happy
+journey!" "God help you!" "Good-bye! Good-bye!" "Remember--"
+
+The last I saw of Polotzk was an agitated mass of people, waving
+colored handkerchiefs and other frantic bits of calico, madly
+gesticulating, falling on each other's necks, gone wild altogether.
+Then the station became invisible, and the shining tracks spun out
+from sky to sky. I was in the middle of the great, great world, and
+the longest road was mine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Memory may take a rest while I copy from a contemporaneous document
+the story of the great voyage. In accordance with my promise to my
+uncle, I wrote, during my first months in America, a detailed account
+of our adventures between Polotzk and Boston. Ink was cheap, and the
+epistle, in Yiddish, occupied me for many hot summer hours. It was a
+great disaster, therefore, to have a lamp upset on my writing-table,
+when I was near the end, soaking the thick pile of letter sheets in
+kerosene. I was obliged to make a fair copy for my uncle, and my
+father kept the oily, smelly original. After a couple of years'
+teasing, he induced me to translate the letter into English, for the
+benefit of a friend who did not know Yiddish; for the benefit of the
+present narrative, which was not thought of thirteen years ago. I can
+hardly refrain from moralizing as I turn to the leaves of my childish
+manuscript, grateful at last for the calamity of the overturned lamp.
+
+Our route lay over the German border, with Hamburg for our port. On
+the way to the frontier we stopped for a farewell visit in Vilna,
+where my mother had a brother. Vilna is slighted in my description. I
+find special mention of only two things, the horse-cars and the
+bookstores.
+
+On a gray wet morning in early April we set out for the frontier. This
+was the real beginning of our journey, and all my faculties of
+observation were alert. I took note of everything,--the weather, the
+trains, the bustle of railroad stations, our fellow passengers, and
+the family mood at every stage of our progress.
+
+The bags and bundles which composed our travelling outfit were much
+more bulky than valuable. A trifling sum of money, the steamer ticket,
+and the foreign passport were the magic agents by means of which we
+hoped to span the five thousand miles of earth and water between us
+and my father. The passport was supposed to pass us over the frontier
+without any trouble, but on account of the prevalence of cholera in
+some parts of the country, the poorer sort of travellers, such as
+emigrants, were subjected, at this time, to more than ordinary
+supervision and regulation.
+
+At Versbolovo, the last station on the Russian side, we met the first
+of our troubles. A German physician and several gendarmes boarded the
+train and put us through a searching examination as to our health,
+destination, and financial resources. As a result of the inquisition
+we were informed that we would not be allowed to cross the frontier
+unless we exchanged our third-class steamer ticket for second-class,
+which would require two hundred rubles more than we possessed. Our
+passport was taken from us, and we were to be turned back on our
+journey.
+
+My letter describes the situation:--
+
+    We were homeless, houseless, and friendless in a strange place.
+    We had hardly money enough to last us through the voyage for
+    which we had hoped and waited for three long years. We had
+    suffered much that the reunion we longed for might come about;
+    we had prepared ourselves to suffer more in order to bring it
+    about, and had parted with those we loved, with places that were
+    dear to us in spite of what we passed through in them, never
+    again to see them, as we were convinced--all for the same dear
+    end. With strong hopes and high spirits that hid the sad
+    parting, we had started on our long journey. And now we were
+    checked so unexpectedly but surely, the blow coming from where
+    we little expected it, being, as we believed, safe in that
+    quarter. When my mother had recovered enough to speak, she began
+    to argue with the gendarme, telling him our story and begging
+    him to be kind. The children were frightened and all but I
+    cried. I was only wondering what would happen.
+
+Moved by our distress, the German officers gave us the best advice
+they could. We were to get out at the station of Kibart on the Russian
+side, and apply to one Herr Schidorsky, who might help us on our way.
+
+The letter goes on:--
+
+    We are in Kibart, at the depot. The least important particular,
+    even, of that place, I noticed and remembered. How the
+    porter--he was an ugly, grinning man--carried in our things and
+    put them away in the southern corner of the big room, on the
+    floor; how we sat down on a settee near them, a yellow settee;
+    how the glass roof let in so much light that we had to shade our
+    eyes because the car had been dark and we had been crying; how
+    there were only a few people besides ourselves there, and how I
+    began to count them and stopped when I noticed a sign over the
+    head of the fifth person--a little woman with a red nose and a
+    pimple on it--and tried to read the German, with the aid of the
+    Russian translation below. I noticed all this and remembered it,
+    as if there were nothing else in the world for me to think of.
+
+The letter dwells gratefully on the kindness of Herr Schidorsky, who
+became the agent of our salvation. He procured my mother a pass to
+Eidtkuhnen, the German frontier station, where his older brother, as
+chairman of a well-known emigrant aid association, arranged for our
+admission into Germany. During the negotiations, which took several
+days, the good man of Kibart entertained us in his own house, shabby
+emigrants though we were. The Schidorsky brothers were Jews, but it is
+not on that account that their name has been lovingly remembered for
+fifteen years in my family.
+
+On the German side our course joined that of many other emigrant
+groups, on their way to Hamburg and other ports. We were a clumsy
+enough crowd, with wide, unsophisticated eyes, with awkward bundles
+hugged in our arms, and our hearts set on America.
+
+The letter to my uncle faithfully describes every stage of our
+bustling progress. Here is a sample scene of many that I recorded:--
+
+    There was a terrible confusion in the baggage-room where we were
+    directed to go. Boxes, baskets, bags, valises, and great,
+    shapeless things belonging to no particular class, were thrown
+    about by porters and other men, who sorted them and put tickets
+    on all but those containing provisions, while others were opened
+    and examined in haste. At last our turn came, and our things,
+    along with those of all other American-bound travellers, were
+    taken away to be steamed and smoked and other such processes
+    gone through. We were told to wait till notice should be given
+    us of something else to be done.
+
+The phrases "we were told to do this" and "told to do that" occur
+again and again in my narrative, and the most effective handling of
+the facts could give no more vivid picture of the proceedings. We
+emigrants were herded at the stations, packed in the cars, and driven
+from place to place like cattle.
+
+    At the expected hour we all tried to find room in a car
+    indicated by the conductor. We tried, but could only find enough
+    space on the floor for our baggage, on which we made-believe
+    sitting comfortably. For now we were obliged to exchange the
+    comparative comforts of a third-class passenger train for the
+    certain discomforts of a fourth-class one. There were only four
+    narrow benches in the whole car, and about twice as many people
+    were already seated on these as they were probably supposed to
+    accommodate. All other space, to the last inch, was crowded by
+    passengers or their luggage. It was very hot and close and
+    altogether uncomfortable, and still at every new station fresh
+    passengers came crowding in, and actually made room, spare as it
+    was, for themselves. It became so terrible that all glared madly
+    at the conductor as he allowed more people to come into that
+    prison, and trembled at the announcement of every station. I
+    cannot see even now how the officers could allow such a thing;
+    it was really dangerous.
+
+The following is my attempt to describe a flying glimpse of a
+metropolis:--
+
+    Towards evening we came into Berlin. I grow dizzy even now when
+    I think of our whirling through that city. It seemed we were
+    going faster and faster all the time, but it was only the whirl
+    of trains passing in opposite directions and close to us that
+    made it seem so. The sight of crowds of people such as we had
+    never seen before, hurrying to and fro, in and out of great
+    depots that danced past us, helped to make it more so. Strange
+    sights, splendid buildings, shops, people, and animals, all
+    mingled in one great, confused mass of a disposition to
+    continually move in a great hurry, wildly, with no other aim but
+    to make one's head go round and round, in following its dreadful
+    motions. Round and round went my head. It was nothing but
+    trains, depots, crowds,--crowds, depots, trains,--again and
+    again, with no beginning, no end, only a mad dance! Faster and
+    faster we go, faster still, and the noise increases with the
+    speed. Bells, whistles, hammers, locomotives shrieking madly,
+    men's voices, peddlers' cries, horses' hoofs, dogs'
+    barkings--all united in doing their best to drown every other
+    sound but their own, and made such a deafening uproar in the
+    attempt that nothing could keep it out.
+
+The plight of the bewildered emigrant on the way to foreign parts is
+always pitiful enough, but for us who came from plague-ridden Russia
+the terrors of the way were doubled.
+
+    In a great lonely field, opposite a solitary house within a
+    large yard, our train pulled up at last, and a conductor
+    commanded the passengers to make haste and get out. He need not
+    have told us to hurry; we were glad enough to be free again
+    after such a long imprisonment in the uncomfortable car. All
+    rushed to the door. We breathed more freely in the open field,
+    but the conductor did not wait for us to enjoy our freedom. He
+    hurried us into the one large room which made up the house, and
+    then into the yard. Here a great many men and women, dressed in
+    white, received us, the women attending to the women and girls
+    of the passengers, and the men to the others.
+
+    This was another scene of bewildering confusion, parents losing
+    their children, and little ones crying; baggage being thrown
+    together in one corner of the yard, heedless of contents, which
+    suffered in consequence; those white-clad Germans shouting
+    commands, always accompanied with "Quick! Quick!"--the confused
+    passengers obeying all orders like meek children, only
+    questioning now and then what was going to be done with them.
+
+    And no wonder if in some minds stories arose of people being
+    captured by robbers, murderers, and the like. Here we had been
+    taken to a lonely place where only that house was to be seen;
+    our things were taken away, our friends separated from us; a man
+    came to inspect us, as if to ascertain our full value;
+    strange-looking people driving us about like dumb animals,
+    helpless and unresisting; children we could not see crying in a
+    way that suggested terrible things; ourselves driven into a
+    little room where a great kettle was boiling on a little stove;
+    our clothes taken off, our bodies rubbed with a slippery
+    substance that might be any bad thing; a shower of warm water
+    let down on us without warning; again driven to another little
+    room where we sit, wrapped in woollen blankets till large,
+    coarse bags are brought in, their contents turned out, and we
+    see only a cloud of steam, and hear the women's orders to dress
+    ourselves,--"Quick! Quick!"--or else we'll miss--something we
+    cannot hear. We are forced to pick out our clothes from among
+    all the others, with the steam blinding us; we choke, cough,
+    entreat the women to give us time; they persist, "Quick!
+    Quick!--or you'll miss the train!"--Oh, so we really won't be
+    murdered! They are only making us ready for the continuing of
+    our journey, cleaning us of all suspicions of dangerous
+    sickness. Thank God!
+
+In Polotzk, if the cholera broke out, as it did once or twice in every
+generation, we made no such fuss as did these Germans. Those who died
+of the sickness were buried, and those who lived ran to the synagogues
+to pray. We travellers felt hurt at the way the Germans treated us. My
+mother nearly died of cholera once, but she was given a new name, a
+lucky one, which saved her; and that was when she was a small girl.
+None of us were sick now, yet hear how we were treated! Those
+gendarmes and nurses always shouted their commands at us from a
+distance, as fearful of our touch as if we had been lepers.
+
+We arrived in Hamburg early one morning, after a long night in the
+crowded cars. We were marched up to a strange vehicle, long and
+narrow and high, drawn by two horses and commanded by a mute driver.
+We were piled up on this wagon, our baggage was thrown after us, and
+we started on a sight-seeing tour across the city of Hamburg. The
+sights I faithfully enumerate for the benefit of my uncle include
+little carts drawn by dogs, and big cars that run of themselves, later
+identified as electric cars.
+
+The humorous side of our adventures did not escape me. Again and again
+I come across a laugh in the long pages of the historic epistle. The
+description of the ride through Hamburg ends with this:--
+
+    The sight-seeing was not all on our side. I noticed many people
+    stopping to look at us as if amused, though most passed by us as
+    though used to such sights. We did make a queer appearance all
+    in a long row, up above people's heads. In fact, we looked like
+    a flock of giant fowls roosting, only wide awake.
+
+The smiles and shivers fairly crowded each other in some parts of our
+career.
+
+    Suddenly, when everything interesting seemed at an end, we all
+    recollected how long it was since we had started on our funny
+    ride. Hours, we thought, and still the horses ran. Now we rode
+    through quieter streets where there were fewer shops and more
+    wooden houses. Still the horses seemed to have but just started.
+    I looked over our perch again. Something made me think of a
+    description I had read of criminals being carried on long
+    journeys in uncomfortable things--like this? Well, it was
+    strange--this long, long drive, the conveyance, no word of
+    explanation; and all, though going different ways, being packed
+    off together. We were strangers; the driver knew it. He might
+    take us anywhere--how could we tell? I was frightened again as
+    in Berlin. The faces around me confessed the same.
+
+    Yes, we are frightened. We are very still. Some Polish women
+    over there have fallen asleep, and the rest of us look such a
+    picture of woe, and yet so funny, it is a sight to see and
+    remember.
+
+Our mysterious ride came to an end on the outskirts of the city, where
+we were once more lined up, cross-questioned, disinfected, labelled,
+and pigeonholed. This was one of the occasions when we suspected that
+we were the victims of a conspiracy to extort money from us; for here,
+as at every repetition of the purifying operations we had undergone, a
+fee was levied on us, so much per head. My mother, indeed, seeing her
+tiny hoard melting away, had long since sold some articles from our
+baggage to a fellow passenger richer than she, but even so she did not
+have enough money to pay the fee demanded of her in Hamburg. Her
+statement was not accepted, and we all suffered the last indignity of
+having our persons searched.
+
+This last place of detention turned out to be a prison. "Quarantine"
+they called it, and there was a great deal of it--two weeks of it. Two
+weeks within high brick walls, several hundred of us herded in half a
+dozen compartments,--numbered compartments,--sleeping in rows, like
+sick people in a hospital; with roll-call morning and night, and short
+rations three times a day; with never a sign of the free world beyond
+our barred windows; with anxiety and longing and homesickness in our
+hearts, and in our ears the unfamiliar voice of the invisible ocean,
+which drew and repelled us at the same time. The fortnight in
+quarantine was not an episode; it was an epoch, divisible into eras,
+periods, events.
+
+    The greatest event was the arrival of some ship to take some of
+    the waiting passengers. When the gates were opened and the lucky
+    ones said good-bye, those left behind felt hopeless of ever
+    seeing the gates open for them. It was both pleasant and
+    painful, for the strangers grew to be fast friends in a day, and
+    really rejoiced in each other's fortune; but the regretful envy
+    could not be helped either.
+
+Our turn came at last. We were conducted through the gate of
+departure, and after some hours of bewildering manœuvres, described
+in great detail in the report to my uncle, we found ourselves--we five
+frightened pilgrims from Polotzk--on the deck of a great big steamship
+afloat on the strange big waters of the ocean.
+
+For sixteen days the ship was our world. My letter dwells solemnly on
+the details of the life at sea, as if afraid to cheat my uncle of the
+smallest circumstance. It does not shrink from describing the torments
+of seasickness; it notes every change in the weather. A rough night is
+described, when the ship pitched and rolled so that people were thrown
+from their berths; days and nights when we crawled through dense fogs,
+our foghorn drawing answering warnings from invisible ships. The
+perils of the sea were not minimized in the imaginations of us
+inexperienced voyagers. The captain and his officers ate their
+dinners, smoked their pipes and slept soundly in their turns, while we
+frightened emigrants turned our faces to the wall and awaited our
+watery graves.
+
+All this while the seasickness lasted. Then came happy hours on deck,
+with fugitive sunshine, birds atop the crested waves, band music and
+dancing and fun. I explored the ship, made friends with officers and
+crew, or pursued my thoughts in quiet nooks. It was my first
+experience of the ocean, and I was profoundly moved.
+
+    Oh, what solemn thoughts I had! How deeply I felt the greatness,
+    the power of the scene! The immeasurable distance from horizon
+    to horizon; the huge billows forever changing their shapes--now
+    only a wavy and rolling plain, now a chain of great mountains,
+    coming and going farther away; then a town in the distance,
+    perhaps, with spires and towers and buildings of gigantic
+    dimensions; and mostly a vast mass of uncertain shapes, knocking
+    against each other in fury, and seething and foaming in their
+    anger; the gray sky, with its mountains of gloomy clouds,
+    flying, moving with the waves, as it seemed, very near them; the
+    absence of any object besides the one ship; and the deep, solemn
+    groans of the sea, sounding as if all the voices of the world
+    had been turned into sighs and then gathered into that one
+    mournful sound--so deeply did I feel the presence of these
+    things, that the feeling became one of awe, both painful and
+    sweet, and stirring and warming, and deep and calm and grand.
+
+    I would imagine myself all alone on the ocean, and Robinson
+    Crusoe was very real to me. I was alone sometimes. I was aware
+    of no human presence; I was conscious only of sea and sky and
+    something I did not understand. And as I listened to its solemn
+    voice, I felt as if I had found a friend, and knew that I loved
+    the ocean. It seemed as if it were within as well as without,
+    part of myself; and I wondered how I had lived without it, and
+    if I could ever part with it.
+
+And so suffering, fearing, brooding, rejoicing we crept nearer and
+nearer to the coveted shore, until, on a glorious May morning, six
+weeks after our departure from Polotzk, our eyes beheld the Promised
+Land, and my father received us in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+
+Having made such good time across the ocean, I ought to be able to
+proceed no less rapidly on _terra firma_, where, after all, I am more
+at home. And yet here is where I falter. Not that I hesitated, even
+for the space of a breath, in my first steps in America. There was no
+time to hesitate. The most ignorant immigrant, on landing proceeds to
+give and receive greetings, to eat, sleep and rise, after the manner
+of his own country; wherein he is corrected, admonished, and laughed
+at, whether by interested friends or the most indifferent strangers;
+and his American experience is thus begun. The process is spontaneous
+on all sides, like the education of the child by the family circle.
+But while the most stupid nursery maid is able to contribute her part
+toward the result, we do not expect an analysis of the process to be
+furnished by any member of the family, least of all by the engaging
+infant. The philosophical maiden aunt alone, or some other witness
+equally psychological and aloof, is able to trace the myriad efforts
+by which the little Johnnie or Nellie acquires a secure hold on the
+disjointed parts of the huge plaything, life.
+
+Now I was not exactly an infant when I was set down, on a May day some
+fifteen years ago, in this pleasant nursery of America. I had long
+since acquired the use of my faculties, and had collected some bits of
+experience practical and emotional, and had even learned to give an
+account of them. Still, I had very little perspective, and my
+observations and comparisons were superficial. I was too much carried
+away to analyze the forces that were moving me. My Polotzk I knew well
+before I began to judge it and experiment with it. America was
+bewilderingly strange, unimaginably complex, delightfully unexplored.
+I rushed impetuously out of the cage of my provincialism and looked
+eagerly about the brilliant universe. My question was, What have we
+here?--not, What does this mean? That query came much later. When I
+now become retrospectively introspective, I fall into the predicament
+of the centipede in the rhyme, who got along very smoothly until he
+was asked which leg came after which, whereupon he became so rattled
+that he couldn't take a step. I know I have come on a thousand feet,
+on wings, winds and American machines,--I have leaped and run and
+climbed and crawled,--but to tell which step came after which I find a
+puzzling matter. Plenty of maiden aunts were present during my second
+infancy, in the guise of immigrant officials, school-teachers,
+settlement workers, and sundry other unprejudiced and critical
+observers. Their statistics I might properly borrow to fill the gaps
+in my recollections, but I am prevented by my sense of harmony. The
+individual, we know, is a creature unknown to the statistician,
+whereas I undertook to give the personal view of everything. So I am
+bound to unravel, as well as I can, the tangle of events, outer and
+inner, which made up the first breathless years of my American life.
+
+During his three years of probation, my father had made a number of
+false starts in business. His history for that period is the history
+of thousands who come to America, like him, with pockets empty, hands
+untrained to the use of tools, minds cramped by centuries of
+repression in their native land. Dozens of these men pass under your
+eyes every day, my American friend, too absorbed in their honest
+affairs to notice the looks of suspicion which you cast at them, the
+repugnance with which you shrink from their touch. You see them
+shuffle from door to door with a basket of spools and buttons, or
+bending over the sizzling irons in a basement tailor shop, or
+rummaging in your ash can, or moving a pushcart from curb to curb, at
+the command of the burly policeman. "The Jew peddler!" you say, and
+dismiss him from your premises and from your thoughts, never dreaming
+that the sordid drama of his days may have a moral that concerns you.
+What if the creature with the untidy beard carries in his bosom his
+citizenship papers? What if the cross-legged tailor is supporting a
+boy in college who is one day going to mend your state constitution
+for you? What if the ragpicker's daughters are hastening over the
+ocean to teach your children in the public schools? Think, every time
+you pass the greasy alien on the street, that he was born thousands of
+years before the oldest native American; and he may have something to
+communicate to you, when you two shall have learned a common language.
+Remember that his very physiognomy is a cipher the key to which it
+behooves you to search for most diligently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the time we joined my father, he had surveyed many avenues of
+approach toward the coveted citadel of fortune. One of these,
+heretofore untried, he now proposed to essay, armed with new courage,
+and cheered on by the presence of his family. In partnership with an
+energetic little man who had an English chapter in his history, he
+prepared to set up a refreshment booth on Crescent Beach. But while he
+was completing arrangements at the beach we remained in town, where we
+enjoyed the educational advantages of a thickly populated
+neighborhood; namely, Wall Street, in the West End of Boston.
+
+Anybody who knows Boston knows that the West and North Ends are the
+wrong ends of that city. They form the tenement district, or, in the
+newer phrase, the slums of Boston. Anybody who is acquainted with the
+slums of any American metropolis knows that that is the quarter where
+poor immigrants foregather, to live, for the most part, as unkempt,
+half-washed, toiling, unaspiring foreigners; pitiful in the eyes of
+social missionaries, the despair of boards of health, the hope of ward
+politicians, the touchstone of American democracy. The well-versed
+metropolitan knows the slums as a sort of house of detention for poor
+aliens, where they live on probation till they can show a certificate
+of good citizenship.
+
+He may know all this and yet not guess how Wall Street, in the West
+End, appears in the eyes of a little immigrant from Polotzk. What
+would the sophisticated sight-seer say about Union Place, off Wall
+Street, where my new home waited for me? He would say that it is no
+place at all, but a short box of an alley. Two rows of three-story
+tenements are its sides, a stingy strip of sky is its lid, a littered
+pavement is the floor, and a narrow mouth its exit.
+
+But I saw a very different picture on my introduction to Union Place.
+I saw two imposing rows of brick buildings, loftier than any dwelling
+I had ever lived in. Brick was even on the ground for me to tread on,
+instead of common earth or boards. Many friendly windows stood open,
+filled with uncovered heads of women and children. I thought the
+people were interested in us, which was very neighborly. I looked up
+to the topmost row of windows, and my eyes were filled with the May
+blue of an American sky!
+
+In our days of affluence in Russia we had been accustomed to
+upholstered parlors, embroidered linen, silver spoons and
+candlesticks, goblets of gold, kitchen shelves shining with copper and
+brass. We had featherbeds heaped halfway to the ceiling; we had
+clothes presses dusky with velvet and silk and fine woollen. The three
+small rooms into which my father now ushered us, up one flight of
+stairs, contained only the necessary beds, with lean mattresses; a few
+wooden chairs; a table or two; a mysterious iron structure, which
+later turned out to be a stove; a couple of unornamental kerosene
+lamps; and a scanty array of cooking-utensils and crockery. And yet we
+were all impressed with our new home and its furniture. It was not
+only because we had just passed through our seven lean years, cooking
+in earthen vessels, eating black bread on holidays and wearing cotton;
+it was chiefly because these wooden chairs and tin pans were American
+chairs and pans that they shone glorious in our eyes. And if there was
+anything lacking for comfort or decoration we expected it to be
+presently supplied--at least, we children did. Perhaps my mother
+alone, of us newcomers, appreciated the shabbiness of the little
+apartment, and realized that for her there was as yet no laying down
+of the burden of poverty.
+
+Our initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new
+soil. My father found occasion to instruct or correct us even on
+the way from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded
+together in a rickety cab. He told us not to lean out of the windows,
+not to point, and explained the word "greenhorn." We did not want to
+be "greenhorns," and gave the strictest attention to my father's
+instructions. I do not know when my parents found opportunity to
+review together the history of Polotzk in the three years past, for we
+children had no patience with the subject; my mother's narrative was
+constantly interrupted by irrelevant questions, interjections, and
+explanations.
+
+   [Illustration: UNION PLACE (BOSTON) WHERE MY NEW HOME WAITED
+   FOR ME]
+
+The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father
+produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking,
+from little tin cans that had printing all over them. He attempted to
+introduce us to a queer, slippery kind of fruit, which he called
+"banana," but had to give it up for the time being. After the meal, he
+had better luck with a curious piece of furniture on runners, which he
+called "rocking-chair." There were five of us newcomers, and we found
+five different ways of getting into the American machine of perpetual
+motion, and as many ways of getting out of it. One born and bred to
+the use of a rocking-chair cannot imagine how ludicrous people can
+make themselves when attempting to use it for the first time. We
+laughed immoderately over our various experiments with the novelty,
+which was a wholesome way of letting off steam after the unusual
+excitement of the day.
+
+In our flat we did not think of such a thing as storing the coal in
+the bathtub. There was no bathtub. So in the evening of the first day
+my father conducted us to the public baths. As we moved along in a
+little procession, I was delighted with the illumination of the
+streets. So many lamps, and they burned until morning, my father
+said, and so people did not need to carry lanterns. In America, then,
+everything was free, as we had heard in Russia. Light was free; the
+streets were as bright as a synagogue on a holy day. Music was free;
+we had been serenaded, to our gaping delight, by a brass band of many
+pieces, soon after our installation on Union Place.
+
+Education was free. That subject my father had written about
+repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence
+of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not
+even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to
+promise us when he sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter. On
+our second day I was thrilled with the realization of what this
+freedom of education meant. A little girl from across the alley came
+and offered to conduct us to school. My father was out, but we five
+between us had a few words of English by this time. We knew the word
+school. We understood. This child, who had never seen us till
+yesterday, who could not pronounce our names, who was not much better
+dressed than we, was able to offer us the freedom of the schools of
+Boston! No application made, no questions asked, no examinations,
+rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees. The doors stood open
+for every one of us. The smallest child could show us the way.
+
+This incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance
+of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete
+proof--almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand
+it.
+
+It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not
+to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of
+the term, he said, and we were going to move to Crescent Beach in a
+week or so. We had to wait until the opening of the schools in
+September. What a loss of precious time--from May till September!
+
+Not that the time was really lost. Even the interval on Union Place
+was crowded with lessons and experiences. We had to visit the stores
+and be dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to learn
+the mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube;
+we had to learn to trade with the fruit peddler through the window,
+and not to be afraid of the policeman; and, above all, we had to learn
+English.
+
+The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a
+group by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen
+them from those early days till now, I should still have remembered
+them with gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of my American
+teachers, I must begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and
+taught us our first steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the
+cookstove, the woman who showed her how to make the fire was an angel
+of deliverance. A fairy godmother to us children was she who led us to
+a wonderful country called "uptown," where, in a dazzlingly beautiful
+palace called a "department store," we exchanged our hateful homemade
+European costumes, which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the
+children on the street, for real American machine-made garments, and
+issued forth glorified in each other's eyes.
+
+With our despised immigrant clothing we shed also our impossible
+Hebrew names. A committee of our friends, several years ahead of us in
+American experience, put their heads together and concocted American
+names for us all. Those of our real names that had no pleasing
+American equivalents they ruthlessly discarded, content if they
+retained the initials. My mother, possessing a name that was not
+easily translatable, was punished with the undignified nickname of
+Annie. Fetchke, Joseph, and Deborah issued as Frieda, Joseph, and
+Dora, respectively. As for poor me, I was simply cheated. The name
+they gave me was hardly new. My Hebrew name being Maryashe in full,
+Mashke for short, Russianized into Marya (_Mar-ya_), my friends said
+that it would hold good in English as _Mary_; which was very
+disappointing, as I longed to possess a strange-sounding American name
+like the others.
+
+I am forgetting the consolation I had, in this matter of names, from
+the use of my surname, which I have had no occasion to mention until
+now. I found on my arrival that my father was "Mr. Antin" on the
+slightest provocation, and not, as in Polotzk, on state occasions
+alone. And so I was "Mary Antin," and I felt very important to answer
+to such a dignified title. It was just like America that even plain
+people should wear their surnames on week days.
+
+As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and
+so clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to
+Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household
+goods, my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way,
+and I am sure he was not ashamed of us. So much we had achieved toward
+our Americanization during the two weeks since our landing.
+
+Crescent Beach is a name that is printed in very small type on the
+maps of the environs of Boston, but a life-size strip of sand curves
+from Winthrop to Lynn; and that is historic ground in the annals of my
+family. The place is now a popular resort for holiday crowds, and is
+famous under the name of Revere Beach. When the reunited Antins made
+their stand there, however, there were no boulevards, no stately
+bath-houses, no hotels, no gaudy amusement places, no illuminations,
+no showmen, no tawdry rabble. There was only the bright clean sweep of
+sand, the summer sea, and the summer sky. At high tide the whole
+Atlantic rushed in, tossing the seaweeds in his mane; at low tide he
+rushed out, growling and gnashing his granite teeth. Between tides a
+baby might play on the beach, digging with pebbles and shells, till it
+lay asleep on the sand. The whole sun shone by day, troops of stars by
+night, and the great moon in its season.
+
+Into this grand cycle of the seaside day I came to live and learn and
+play. A few people came with me, as I have already intimated; but the
+main thing was that _I_ came to live on the edge of the sea--I, who
+had spent my life inland, believing that the great waters of the world
+were spread out before me in the Dvina. My idea of the human world had
+grown enormously during the long journey; my idea of the earth had
+expanded with every day at sea; my idea of the world outside the earth
+now budded and swelled during my prolonged experience of the wide and
+unobstructed heavens.
+
+Not that I got any inkling of the conception of a multiple world. I
+had had no lessons in cosmogony, and I had no spontaneous revelation
+of the true position of the earth in the universe. For me, as for my
+fathers, the sun set and rose, and I did not feel the earth rushing
+through space. But I lay stretched out in the sun, my eyes level with
+the sea, till I seemed to be absorbed bodily by the very materials of
+the world around me; till I could not feel my hand as separate from
+the warm sand in which it was buried. Or I crouched on the beach at
+full moon, wondering, wondering, between the two splendors of the sky
+and the sea. Or I ran out to meet the incoming storm, my face full in
+the wind, my being a-tingle with an awesome delight to the tips of my
+fog-matted locks flying behind; and stood clinging to some stake or
+upturned boat, shaken by the roar and rumble of the waves. So
+clinging, I pretended that I was in danger, and was deliciously
+frightened; I held on with both hands, and shook my head, exulting in
+the tumult around me, equally ready to laugh or sob. Or else I sat, on
+the stillest days, with my back to the sea, not looking at all, but
+just listening to the rustle of the waves on the sand; not thinking at
+all, but just breathing with the sea.
+
+Thus courting the influence of sea and sky and variable weather, I was
+bound to have dreams, hints, imaginings. It was no more than this,
+perhaps: that the world as I knew it was not large enough to contain
+all that I saw and felt; that the thoughts that flashed through my
+mind, not half understood, unrelated to my utterable thoughts,
+concerned something for which I had as yet no name. Every imaginative
+growing child has these flashes of intuition, especially one that
+becomes intimate with some one aspect of nature. With me it was the
+growing time, that idle summer by the sea, and I grew all the faster
+because I had been so cramped before. My mind, too, had so recently
+been worked upon by the impressive experience of a change of country
+that I was more than commonly alive to impressions, which are the
+seeds of ideas.
+
+Let no one suppose that I spent my time entirely, or even chiefly, in
+inspired solitude. By far the best part of my day was spent in
+play--frank, hearty, boisterous play, such as comes natural to
+American children. In Polotzk I had already begun to be considered too
+old for play, excepting set games or organized frolics. Here I found
+myself included with children who still played, and I willingly
+returned to childhood. There were plenty of playfellows. My father's
+energetic little partner had a little wife and a large family. He kept
+them in the little cottage next to ours; and that the shanty survived
+the tumultuous presence of that brood is a wonder to me to-day. The
+young Wilners included an assortment of boys, girls, and twins, of
+every possible variety of age, size, disposition, and sex. They
+swarmed in and out of the cottage all day long, wearing the door-sill
+hollow, and trampling the ground to powder. They swung out of windows
+like monkeys, slid up the roof like flies, and shot out of trees like
+fowls. Even a small person like me couldn't go anywhere without being
+run over by a Wilner; and I could never tell which Wilner it was
+because none of them ever stood still long enough to be identified;
+and also because I suspected that they were in the habit of
+interchanging conspicuous articles of clothing, which was very
+confusing.
+
+You would suppose that the little mother must have been utterly lost,
+bewildered, trodden down in this horde of urchins; but you are
+mistaken. Mrs. Wilner was a positively majestic little person. She
+ruled her brood with the utmost coolness and strictness. She had even
+the biggest boy under her thumb, frequently under her palm. If they
+enjoyed the wildest freedom outdoors, indoors the young Wilners lived
+by the clock. And so at five o'clock in the evening, on seven days in
+the week, my father's partner's children could be seen in two long
+rows around the supper table. You could tell them apart on this
+occasion, because they all had their faces washed. And this is the
+time to count them: there are twelve little Wilners at table.
+
+I managed to retain my identity in this multitude somehow, and while I
+was very much impressed with their numbers, I even dared to pick and
+choose my friends among the Wilners. One or two of the smaller boys I
+liked best of all, for a game of hide-and-seek or a frolic on the
+beach. We played in the water like ducks, never taking the trouble to
+get dry. One day I waded out with one of the boys, to see which of us
+dared go farthest. The tide was extremely low, and we had not wet our
+knees when we began to look back to see if familiar objects were still
+in sight. I thought we had been wading for hours, and still the water
+was so shallow and quiet. My companion was marching straight ahead, so
+I did the same. Suddenly a swell lifted us almost off our feet, and we
+clutched at each other simultaneously. There was a lesser swell, and
+little waves began to run, and a sigh went up from the sea. The tide
+was turning--perhaps a storm was on the way--and we were miles,
+dreadful miles from dry land.
+
+Boy and girl turned without a word, four determined bare legs
+ploughing through the water, four scared eyes straining toward the
+land. Through an eternity of toil and fear they kept dumbly on, death
+at their heels, pride still in their hearts. At last they reach
+high-water mark--six hours before full tide.
+
+Each has seen the other afraid, and each rejoices in the knowledge.
+But only the boy is sure of his tongue.
+
+"You was scared, warn't you?" he taunts.
+
+The girl understands so much, and is able to reply:--
+
+"You can schwimmen, I not."
+
+"Betcher life I can schwimmen," the other mocks.
+
+And the girl walks off, angry and hurt.
+
+"An' I can walk on my hands," the tormentor calls after her. "Say, you
+greenhorn, why don'tcher look?"
+
+The girl keeps straight on, vowing that she would never walk with that
+rude boy again, neither by land nor sea, not even though the waters
+should part at his bidding.
+
+I am forgetting the more serious business which had brought us to
+Crescent Beach. While we children disported ourselves like mermaids
+and mermen in the surf, our respective fathers dispensed cold
+lemonade, hot peanuts, and pink popcorn, and piled up our respective
+fortunes, nickel by nickel, penny by penny. I was very proud of my
+connection with the public life of the beach. I admired greatly our
+shining soda fountain, the rows of sparkling glasses, the pyramids of
+oranges, the sausage chains, the neat white counter, and the bright
+array of tin spoons. It seemed to me that none of the other
+refreshment stands on the beach--there were a few--were half so
+attractive as ours. I thought my father looked very well in a long
+white apron and shirt sleeves. He dished out ice cream with
+enthusiasm, so I supposed he was getting rich. It never occurred to me
+to compare his present occupation with the position for which he had
+been originally destined; or if I thought about it, I was just as well
+content, for by this time I had by heart my father's saying, "America
+is not Polotzk." All occupations were respectable, all men were equal,
+in America.
+
+If I admired the soda fountain and the sausage chains, I almost
+worshipped the partner, Mr. Wilner. I was content to stand for an hour
+at a time watching him make potato chips. In his cook's cap and apron,
+with a ladle in his hand and a smile on his face, he moved about with
+the greatest agility, whisking his raw materials out of nowhere,
+dipping into his bubbling kettle with a flourish, and bringing forth
+the finished product with a caper. Such potato chips were not to be had
+anywhere else on Crescent Beach. Thin as tissue paper, crisp as dry
+snow, and salt as the sea--such thirst-producing, lemonade-selling,
+nickel-bringing potato chips only Mr. Wilner could make. On holidays,
+when dozens of family parties came out by every train from town, he
+could hardly keep up with the demand for his potato chips. And with a
+waiting crowd around him our partner was at his best. He was as voluble
+as he was skilful, and as witty as he was voluble; at least so I
+guessed from the laughter that frequently drowned his voice. I could
+not understand his jokes, but if I could get near enough to watch his
+lips and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could
+talk so fast, and in English, was marvel enough, but that this prodigy
+should belong to _our_ establishment was a fact to thrill me. I had
+never seen anything like Mr. Wilner, except a wedding jester; but then
+he spoke common Yiddish. So proud was I of the talent and good taste
+displayed at our stand that if my father beckoned to me in the crowd
+and sent me on an errand, I hoped the people noticed that I, too, was
+connected with the establishment.
+
+And all this splendor and glory and distinction came to a sudden end.
+There was some trouble about a license--some fee or fine--there was a
+storm in the night that damaged the soda fountain and other
+fixtures--there was talk and consultation between the houses of Antin
+and Wilner--and the promising partnership was dissolved. No more would
+the merry partner gather the crowd on the beach; no more would the
+twelve young Wilners gambol like mermen and mermaids in the surf. And
+the less numerous tribe of Antin must also say farewell to the jolly
+seaside life; for men in such humble business as my father's carry
+their families, along with their other earthly goods, wherever they
+go, after the manner of the gypsies. We had driven a feeble stake into
+the sand. The jealous Atlantic, in conspiracy with the Sunday law, had
+torn it out. We must seek our luck elsewhere.
+
+In Polotzk we had supposed that "America" was practically synonymous
+with "Boston." When we landed in Boston, the horizon was pushed back,
+and we annexed Crescent Beach. And now, espying other lands of
+promise, we took possession of the province of Chelsea, in the name of
+our necessity.
+
+In Chelsea, as in Boston, we made our stand in the wrong end of the
+town. Arlington Street was inhabited by poor Jews, poor Negroes, and a
+sprinkling of poor Irish. The side streets leading from it were
+occupied by more poor Jews and Negroes. It was a proper locality for a
+man without capital to do business. My father rented a tenement with a
+store in the basement. He put in a few barrels of flour and of sugar,
+a few boxes of crackers, a few gallons of kerosene, an assortment of
+soap of the "save the coupon" brands; in the cellar, a few barrels of
+potatoes, and a pyramid of kindling-wood; in the showcase, an alluring
+display of penny candy. He put out his sign, with a gilt-lettered
+warning of "Strictly Cash," and proceeded to give credit
+indiscriminately. That was the regular way to do business on Arlington
+Street. My father, in his three years' apprenticeship, had learned the
+tricks of many trades. He knew when and how to "bluff." The legend of
+"Strictly Cash" was a protection against notoriously irresponsible
+customers; while none of the "good" customers, who had a record for
+paying regularly on Saturday, hesitated to enter the store with empty
+purses.
+
+If my father knew the tricks of the trade, my mother could be counted
+on to throw all her talent and tact into the business. Of course she
+had no English yet, but as she could perform the acts of weighing,
+measuring, and mental computation of fractions mechanically, she was
+able to give her whole attention to the dark mysteries of the
+language, as intercourse with her customers gave her opportunity. In
+this she made such rapid progress that she soon lost all sense of
+disadvantage, and conducted herself behind the counter very much as if
+she were back in her old store in Polotzk. It was far more cosey than
+Polotzk--at least, so it seemed to me; for behind the store was the
+kitchen, where, in the intervals of slack trade, she did her cooking
+and washing. Arlington Street customers were used to waiting while the
+storekeeper salted the soup or rescued a loaf from the oven.
+
+Once more Fortune favored my family with a thin little smile, and my
+father, in reply to a friendly inquiry, would say, "One makes a
+living," with a shrug of the shoulders that added "but nothing to boast
+of." It was characteristic of my attitude toward bread-and-butter
+matters that this contented me, and I felt free to devote myself to the
+conquest of my new world. Looking back to those critical first years,
+I see myself always behaving like a child let loose in a garden to play
+and dig and chase the butterflies. Occasionally, indeed, I was stung by
+the wasp of family trouble; but I knew a healing ointment--my faith in
+America. My father had come to America to make a living. America, which
+was free and fair and kind, must presently yield him what he sought. I
+had come to America to see a new world, and I followed my own ends with
+the utmost assiduity; only, as I ran out to explore, I would look back
+to see if my house were in order behind me--if my family still kept its
+head above water.
+
+In after years, when I passed as an American among Americans, if I was
+suddenly made aware of the past that lay forgotten,--if a letter from
+Russia, or a paragraph in the newspaper, or a conversation overheard
+in the street-car, suddenly reminded me of what I might have been,--I
+thought it miracle enough that I, Mashke, the granddaughter of Raphael
+the Russian, born to a humble destiny, should be at home in an
+American metropolis, be free to fashion my own life, and should dream
+my dreams in English phrases. But in the beginning my admiration was
+spent on more concrete embodiments of the splendors of America; such
+as fine houses, gay shops, electric engines and apparatus, public
+buildings, illuminations, and parades. My early letters to my Russian
+friends were filled with boastful descriptions of these glories of my
+new country. No native citizen of Chelsea took such pride and delight
+in its institutions as I did. It required no fife and drum corps, no
+Fourth of July procession, to set me tingling with patriotism. Even
+the common agents and instruments of municipal life, such as the
+letter carrier and the fire engine, I regarded with a measure of
+respect. I know what I thought of people who said that Chelsea was a
+very small, dull, unaspiring town, with no discernible excuse for a
+separate name or existence.
+
+The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the
+bright September morning when I entered the public school. That day I
+must always remember, even if I live to be so old that I cannot tell
+my name. To most people their first day at school is a memorable
+occasion. In my case the importance of the day was a hundred times
+magnified, on account of the years I had waited, the road I had come,
+and the conscious ambitions I entertained.
+
+I am wearily aware that I am speaking in extreme figures, in
+superlatives. I wish I knew some other way to render the mental life
+of the immigrant child of reasoning age. I may have been ever so much
+an exception in acuteness of observation, powers of comparison, and
+abnormal self-consciousness; none the less were my thoughts and
+conduct typical of the attitude of the intelligent immigrant child
+toward American institutions. And what the child thinks and feels is a
+reflection of the hopes, desires, and purposes of the parents who
+brought him overseas, no matter how precocious and independent the
+child may be. Your immigrant inspectors will tell you what poverty the
+foreigner brings in his baggage, what want in his pockets. Let the
+overgrown boy of twelve, reverently drawing his letters in the baby
+class, testify to the noble dreams and high ideals that may be hidden
+beneath the greasy caftan of the immigrant. Speaking for the Jews, at
+least, I know I am safe in inviting such an investigation.
+
+Who were my companions on my first day at school? Whose hand was in
+mine, as I stood, overcome with awe, by the teacher's desk, and
+whispered my name as my father prompted? Was it Frieda's steady,
+capable hand? Was it her loyal heart that throbbed, beat for beat with
+mine, as it had done through all our childish adventures? Frieda's
+heart did throb that day, but not with my emotions. My heart pulsed
+with joy and pride and ambition; in her heart longing fought with
+abnegation. For I was led to the schoolroom, with its sunshine and its
+singing and the teacher's cheery smile; while she was led to the
+workshop, with its foul air, care-lined faces, and the foreman's stern
+command. Our going to school was the fulfilment of my father's best
+promises to us, and Frieda's share in it was to fashion and fit the
+calico frocks in which the baby sister and I made our first appearance
+in a public schoolroom.
+
+I remember to this day the gray pattern of the calico, so
+affectionately did I regard it as it hung upon the wall--my
+consecration robe awaiting the beatific day. And Frieda, I am sure,
+remembers it, too, so longingly did she regard it as the crisp,
+starchy breadths of it slid between her fingers. But whatever were her
+longings, she said nothing of them; she bent over the sewing-machine
+humming an Old-World melody. In every straight, smooth seam, perhaps,
+she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched
+the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of
+rebellion made her straighten up for an instant, the next instant she
+was bending to adjust a ruffle to the best advantage. And when the
+momentous day arrived, and the little sister and I stood up to be
+arrayed, it was Frieda herself who patted and smoothed my stiff new
+calico; who made me turn round and round, to see that I was perfect;
+who stooped to pull out a disfiguring basting-thread. If there was
+anything in her heart besides sisterly love and pride and good-will,
+as we parted that morning, it was a sense of loss and a woman's
+acquiescence in her fate; for we had been close friends, and now our
+ways would lie apart. Longing she felt, but no envy. She did not
+grudge me what she was denied. Until that morning we had been children
+together, but now, at the fiat of her destiny, she became a woman,
+with all a woman's cares; whilst I, so little younger than she, was
+bidden to dance at the May festival of untroubled childhood.
+
+I wish, for my comfort, that I could say that I had some notion of the
+difference in our lots, some sense of the injustice to her, of the
+indulgence to me. I wish I could even say that I gave serious thought
+to the matter. There had always been a distinction between us rather
+out of proportion to the difference in our years. Her good health and
+domestic instincts had made it natural for her to become my mother's
+right hand, in the years preceding the emigration, when there were no
+more servants or dependents. Then there was the family tradition that
+Mary was the quicker, the brighter of the two, and that hers could be
+no common lot. Frieda was relied upon for help, and her sister for
+glory. And when I failed as a milliner's apprentice, while Frieda made
+excellent progress at the dressmaker's, our fates, indeed, were
+sealed. It was understood, even before we reached Boston, that she
+would go to work and I to school. In view of the family prejudices, it
+was the inevitable course. No injustice was intended. My father sent
+us hand in hand to school, before he had ever thought of America. If,
+in America, he had been able to support his family unaided, it would
+have been the culmination of his best hopes to see all his children at
+school, with equal advantages at home. But when he had done his best,
+and was still unable to provide even bread and shelter for us all, he
+was compelled to make us children self-supporting as fast as it was
+practicable. There was no choosing possible; Frieda was the oldest,
+the strongest, the best prepared, and the only one who was of legal
+age to be put to work.
+
+My father has nothing to answer for. He divided the world between his
+children in accordance with the laws of the country and the compulsion
+of his circumstances. I have no need of defending him. It is myself
+that I would like to defend, and I cannot. I remember that I accepted
+the arrangements made for my sister and me without much reflection,
+and everything that was planned for my advantage I took as a matter of
+course. I was no heartless monster, but a decidedly self-centred
+child. If my sister had seemed unhappy it would have troubled me; but
+I am ashamed to recall that I did not consider how little it was that
+contented her. I was so preoccupied with my own happiness that I did
+not half perceive the splendid devotion of her attitude towards me,
+the sweetness of her joy in my good luck. She not only stood by
+approvingly when I was helped to everything; she cheerfully waited on
+me herself. And I took everything from her hand as if it were my due.
+
+The two of us stood a moment in the doorway of the tenement house on
+Arlington Street, that wonderful September morning when I first went
+to school. It was I that ran away, on winged feet of joy and
+expectation; it was she whose feet were bound in the treadmill of
+daily toil. And I was so blind that I did not see that the glory lay
+on her, and not on me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Father himself conducted us to school. He would not have delegated
+that mission to the President of the United States. He had awaited the
+day with impatience equal to mine, and the visions he saw as he
+hurried us over the sun-flecked pavements transcended all my dreams.
+Almost his first act on landing on American soil, three years before,
+had been his application for naturalization. He had taken the
+remaining steps in the process with eager promptness, and at the
+earliest moment allowed by the law, he became a citizen of the United
+States. It is true that he had left home in search of bread for his
+hungry family, but he went blessing the necessity that drove him to
+America. The boasted freedom of the New World meant to him far more
+than the right to reside, travel, and work wherever he pleased; it
+meant the freedom to speak his thoughts, to throw off the shackles of
+superstition, to test his own fate, unhindered by political or
+religious tyranny. He was only a young man when he landed--thirty-two;
+and most of his life he had been held in leading-strings. He was
+hungry for his untasted manhood.
+
+Three years passed in sordid struggle and disappointment. He was not
+prepared to make a living even in America, where the day laborer eats
+wheat instead of rye. Apparently the American flag could not protect
+him against the pursuing Nemesis of his limitations; he must expiate
+the sins of his fathers who slept across the seas. He had been endowed
+at birth with a poor constitution, a nervous, restless temperament,
+and an abundance of hindering prejudices. In his boyhood his body was
+starved, that his mind might be stuffed with useless learning. In his
+youth this dearly gotten learning was sold, and the price was the
+bread and salt which he had not been trained to earn for himself.
+Under the wedding canopy he was bound for life to a girl whose
+features were still strange to him; and he was bidden to multiply
+himself, that sacred learning might be perpetuated in his sons, to the
+glory of the God of his fathers. All this while he had been led about
+as a creature without a will, a chattel, an instrument. In his
+maturity he awoke, and found himself poor in health, poor in purse,
+poor in useful knowledge, and hampered on all sides. At the first nod
+of opportunity he broke away from his prison, and strove to atone for
+his wasted youth by a life of useful labor; while at the same time he
+sought to lighten the gloom of his narrow scholarship by freely
+partaking of modern ideas. But his utmost endeavor still left him far
+from his goal. In business, nothing prospered with him. Some fault of
+hand or mind or temperament led him to failure where other men found
+success. Wherever the blame for his disabilities be placed, he reaped
+their bitter fruit. "Give me bread!" he cried to America. "What will
+you do to earn it?" the challenge came back. And he found that he was
+master of no art, of no trade; that even his precious learning was of
+no avail, because he had only the most antiquated methods of
+communicating it.
+
+So in his primary quest he had failed. There was left him the
+compensation of intellectual freedom. That he sought to realize in
+every possible way. He had very little opportunity to prosecute his
+education, which, in truth, had never been begun. His struggle for a
+bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public evening
+school; but he lost nothing of what was to be learned through reading,
+through attendance at public meetings, through exercising the rights
+of citizenship. Even here he was hindered by a natural inability to
+acquire the English language. In time, indeed, he learned to read, to
+follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write
+correctly, and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this
+day.
+
+If education, culture, the higher life were shining things to be
+worshipped from afar, he had still a means left whereby he could draw
+one step nearer to them. He could send his children to school, to
+learn all those things that he knew by fame to be desirable. The
+common school, at least, perhaps high school; for one or two, perhaps
+even college! His children should be students, should fill his house
+with books and intellectual company; and thus he would walk by proxy
+in the Elysian Fields of liberal learning. As for the children
+themselves, he knew no surer way to their advancement and happiness.
+
+So it was with a heart full of longing and hope that my father led us
+to school on that first day. He took long strides in his eagerness,
+the rest of us running and hopping to keep up.
+
+At last the four of us stood around the teacher's desk; and my father,
+in his impossible English, gave us over in her charge, with some
+broken word of his hopes for us that his swelling heart could no
+longer contain. I venture to say that Miss Nixon was struck by
+something uncommon in the group we made, something outside of Semitic
+features and the abashed manner of the alien. My little sister was as
+pretty as a doll, with her clear pink-and-white face, short golden
+curls, and eyes like blue violets when you caught them looking up. My
+brother might have been a girl, too, with his cherubic contours of
+face, rich red color, glossy black hair, and fine eyebrows. Whatever
+secret fears were in his heart, remembering his former teachers, who
+had taught with the rod, he stood up straight and uncringing before
+the American teacher, his cap respectfully doffed. Next to him stood a
+starved-looking girl with eyes ready to pop out, and short dark curls
+that would not have made much of a wig for a Jewish bride.
+
+All three children carried themselves rather better than the common
+run of "green" pupils that were brought to Miss Nixon. But the figure
+that challenged attention to the group was the tall, straight father,
+with his earnest face and fine forehead, nervous hands eloquent in
+gesture, and a voice full of feeling. This foreigner, who brought his
+children to school as if it were an act of consecration, who regarded
+the teacher of the primer class with reverence, who spoke of visions,
+like a man inspired, in a common schoolroom, was not like other
+aliens, who brought their children in dull obedience to the law; was
+not like the native fathers, who brought their unmanageable boys, glad
+to be relieved of their care. I think Miss Nixon guessed what my
+father's best English could not convey. I think she divined that by
+the simple act of delivering our school certificates to her he took
+possession of America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+INITIATION
+
+
+It is not worth while to refer to voluminous school statistics to see
+just how many "green" pupils entered school last September, not
+knowing the days of the week in English, who next February will be
+declaiming patriotic verses in honor of George Washington and Abraham
+Lincoln, with a foreign accent, indeed, but with plenty of enthusiasm.
+It is enough to know that this hundred-fold miracle is common to the
+schools in every part of the United States where immigrants are
+received. And if I was one of Chelsea's hundred in 1894, it was only
+to be expected, since I was one of the older of the "green" children,
+and had had a start in my irregular schooling in Russia, and was
+carried along by a tremendous desire to learn, and had my family to
+cheer me on.
+
+I was not a bit too large for my little chair and desk in the baby
+class, but my mind, of course, was too mature by six or seven years
+for the work. So as soon as I could understand what the teacher said
+in class, I was advanced to the second grade. This was within a week
+after Miss Nixon took me in hand. But I do not mean to give my dear
+teacher all the credit for my rapid progress, nor even half the
+credit. I shall divide it with her on behalf of my race and my family.
+I was Jew enough to have an aptitude for language in general, and to
+bend my mind earnestly to my task; I was Antin enough to read each
+lesson with my heart, which gave me an inkling of what was coming
+next, and so carried me along by leaps and bounds. As for the teacher,
+she could best explain what theory she followed in teaching us
+foreigners to read. I can only describe the method, which was so
+simple that I wish holiness could be taught in the same way.
+
+There were about half a dozen of us beginners in English, in age from
+six to fifteen. Miss Nixon made a special class of us, and aided us so
+skilfully and earnestly in our endeavors to "see-a-cat," and
+"hear-a-dog-bark," and "look-at-the-hen," that we turned over page
+after page of the ravishing history, eager to find out how the common
+world looked, smelled, and tasted in the strange speech. The teacher
+knew just when to let us help each other out with a word in our own
+tongue,--it happened that we were all Jews,--and so, working all
+together, we actually covered more ground in a lesson than the native
+classes, composed entirely of the little tots.
+
+But we stuck--stuck fast--at the definite article; and sometimes the
+lesson resolved itself into a species of lingual gymnastics, in which
+we all looked as if we meant to bite our tongues off. Miss Nixon was
+pretty, and she must have looked well with her white teeth showing in
+the act; but at the time I was too solemnly occupied to admire her
+looks. I did take great pleasure in her smile of approval, whenever I
+pronounced well; and her patience and perseverance in struggling with
+us over that thick little word are becoming to her even now, after
+fifteen years. It is not her fault if any of us to-day give a buzzing
+sound to the dreadful English _th_.
+
+I shall never have a better opportunity to make public declaration of
+my love for the English language. I am glad that American history
+runs, chapter for chapter, the way it does; for thus America came to
+be the country I love so dearly. I am glad, most of all, that the
+Americans began by being Englishmen, for thus did I come to inherit
+this beautiful language in which I think. It seems to me that in any
+other language happiness is not so sweet, logic is not so clear. I am
+not sure that I could believe in my neighbors as I do if I thought
+about them in un-English words. I could almost say that my conviction
+of immortality is bound up with the English of its promise. And as I
+am attached to my prejudices, I must love the English language!
+
+Whenever the teachers did anything special to help me over my private
+difficulties, my gratitude went out to them, silently. It meant so
+much to me that they halted the lesson to give me a lift, that I needs
+must love them for it. Dear Miss Carrol, of the second grade, would be
+amazed to hear what small things I remember, all because I was so
+impressed at the time with her readiness and sweetness in taking
+notice of my difficulties.
+
+Says Miss Carrol, looking straight at me:--
+
+"If Johnnie has three marbles, and Charlie has twice as many, how many
+marbles has Charlie?"
+
+I raise my hand for permission to speak.
+
+"Teacher, I don't know vhat is tvice."
+
+Teacher beckons me to her, and whispers to me the meaning of the
+strange word, and I am able to write the sum correctly. It's all in
+the day's work with her; with me, it is a special act of kindness and
+efficiency.
+
+She whom I found in the next grade became so dear a friend that I can
+hardly name her with the rest, though I mention none of them lightly.
+Her approval was always dear to me, first because she was "Teacher,"
+and afterwards, as long as she lived, because she was my Miss
+Dillingham. Great was my grief, therefore, when, shortly after my
+admission to her class, I incurred discipline, the first, and next to
+the last, time in my school career.
+
+The class was repeating in chorus the Lord's Prayer, heads bowed on
+desks. I was doing my best to keep up by the sound; my mind could not
+go beyond the word "hallowed," for which I had not found the meaning.
+In the middle of the prayer a Jewish boy across the aisle trod on my
+foot to get my attention. "You must not say that," he admonished in a
+solemn whisper; "it's Christian." I whispered back that it wasn't, and
+went on to the "Amen." I did not know but what he was right, but the
+name of Christ was not in the prayer, and I was bound to do everything
+that the class did. If I had any Jewish scruples, they were lagging
+away behind my interest in school affairs. How American this was: two
+pupils side by side in the schoolroom, each holding to his own
+opinion, but both submitting to the common law; for the boy at least
+bowed his head as the teacher ordered.
+
+But all Miss Dillingham knew of it was that two of her pupils
+whispered during morning prayer, and she must discipline them. So I
+was degraded from the honor row to the lowest row, and it was many a
+day before I forgave that young missionary; it was not enough for my
+vengeance that he suffered punishment with me. Teacher, of course,
+heard us both defend ourselves, but there was a time and a place for
+religious arguments, and she meant to help us remember that point.
+
+I remember to this day what a struggle we had over the word "water,"
+Miss Dillingham and I. It seemed as if I could not give the sound of
+_w_; I said "vater" every time. Patiently my teacher worked with me,
+inventing mouth exercises for me, to get my stubborn lips to produce
+that _w_; and when at last I could say "village" and "water" in rapid
+alternation, without misplacing the two initials, that memorable word
+was sweet on my lips. For we had conquered, and Teacher was pleased.
+
+Getting a language in this way, word by word, has a charm that may be
+set against the disadvantages. It is like gathering a posy blossom by
+blossom. Bring the bouquet into your chamber, and these nasturtiums
+stand for the whole flaming carnival of them tumbling over the fence
+out there; these yellow pansies recall the velvet crescent of color
+glowing under the bay window; this spray of honeysuckle smells like
+the wind-tossed masses of it on the porch, ripe and bee-laden; the
+whole garden in a glass tumbler. So it is with one who gathers words,
+loving them. Particular words remain associated with important
+occasions in the learner's mind. I could thus write a history of my
+English vocabulary that should be at the same time an account of my
+comings and goings, my mistakes and my triumphs, during the years of
+my initiation.
+
+If I was eager and diligent, my teachers did not sleep. As fast as my
+knowledge of English allowed, they advanced me from grade to grade,
+without reference to the usual schedule of promotions. My father was
+right, when he often said, in discussing my prospects, that ability
+would be promptly recognized in the public schools. Rapid as was my
+progress, on account of the advantages with which I started, some of
+the other "green" pupils were not far behind me; within a grade or
+two, by the end of the year. My brother, whose childhood had been one
+hideous nightmare, what with the stupid rebbe, the cruel whip, and the
+general repression of life in the Pale, surprised my father by the
+progress he made under intelligent, sympathetic guidance. Indeed, he
+soon had a reputation in the school that the American boys envied; and
+all through the school course he more than held his own with pupils of
+his age. So much for the right and wrong way of doing things.
+
+There is a record of my early progress in English much better than my
+recollections, however accurate and definite these may be. I have
+several reasons for introducing it here. First, it shows what the
+Russian Jew can do with an adopted language; next, it proves that
+vigilance of our public-school teachers of which I spoke; and last, I
+am proud of it! That is an unnecessary confession, but I could not be
+satisfied to insert the record here, with my vanity unavowed.
+
+This is the document, copied from an educational journal, a tattered
+copy of which lies in my lap as I write--treasured for fifteen years,
+you see, by my vanity.
+
+    EDITOR "PRIMARY EDUCATION":--
+
+    This is the uncorrected paper of a Russian child twelve years
+    old, who had studied English only four months. She had never,
+    until September, been to school even in her own country and has
+    heard English spoken _only_ at school. I shall be glad if the
+    paper of my pupil and the above explanation may appear in your
+    paper.
+
+    M.S. DILLINGHAM.
+
+    CHELSEA, MASS.
+
+    SNOW
+
+    Snow is frozen moisture which comes from the clouds. Now the
+    snow is coming down in feather-flakes, which makes nice
+    snow-balls. But there is still one kind of snow more. This kind
+    of snow is called snow-crystals, for it comes down in little
+    curly balls. These snow-crystals aren't quiet as good for
+    snow-balls as feather-flakes, for they (the snow-crystals) are
+    dry: so they can't keep together as feather-flakes do.
+
+    The snow is dear to some children for they like sleighing.
+
+    As I said at the top--the snow comes from the clouds.
+
+    Now the trees are bare, and no flowers are to see in the fields
+    and gardens, (we all know why) and the whole world seems like
+    asleep without the happy birds songs which left us till spring.
+    But the snow which drove away all these pretty and happy things,
+    try, (as I think) not to make us at all unhappy; they covered up
+    the branches of the trees, the fields, the gardens and houses,
+    and the whole world looks like dressed in a beautiful
+    white--instead of green--dress, with the sky looking down on it
+    with a pale face.
+
+    And so the people can find some joy in it, too, without the
+    happy summer.
+
+    MARY ANTIN.
+
+And now that it stands there, with _her_ name over it, I am ashamed of
+my flippant talk about vanity. More to me than all the praise I could
+hope to win by the conquest of fifty languages is the association of
+this dear friend with my earliest efforts at writing; and it pleases
+me to remember that to her I owe my very first appearance in print.
+Vanity is the least part of it, when I remember how she called me to
+her desk, one day after school was out, and showed me my
+composition--my own words, that I had written out of my own
+head--printed out, clear black and white, with my name at the end!
+Nothing so wonderful had ever happened to me before. My whole
+consciousness was suddenly transformed. I suppose that was the moment
+when I became a writer. I always loved to write,--I wrote letters
+whenever I had an excuse,--yet it had never occurred to me to sit down
+and write my thoughts for no person in particular, merely to put the
+word on paper. But now, as I read my own words, in a delicious
+confusion, the idea was born. I stared at my name: MARY ANTIN. Was
+that really I? The printed characters composing it seemed strange to
+me all of a sudden. If that was my name, and those were the words out
+of my own head, what relation did it all have to _me_, who was alone
+there with Miss Dillingham, and the printed page between us? Why, it
+meant that I could write again, and see my writing printed for people
+to read! I could write many, many, many things: I could write a book!
+The idea was so huge, so bewildering, that my mind scarcely could
+accommodate it.
+
+I do not know what my teacher said to me; probably very little. It was
+her way to say only a little, and look at me, and trust me to
+understand. Once she had occasion to lecture me about living a shut-up
+life; she wanted me to go outdoors. I had been repeatedly scolded and
+reproved on that score by other people, but I had only laughed, saying
+that I was too happy to change my ways. But when Miss Dillingham spoke
+to me, I saw that it was a serious matter; and yet she only said a few
+words, and looked at me with that smile of hers that was only half a
+smile, and the rest a meaning. Another time she had a great question
+to ask me, touching my life to the quick. She merely put her question,
+and was silent; but I knew what answer she expected, and not being
+able to give it then, I went away sad and reproved. Years later I had
+my triumphant answer, but she was no longer there to receive it; and
+so her eyes look at me, from the picture on the mantel there, with a
+reproach I no longer merit.
+
+I ought to go back and strike out all that talk about vanity. What
+reason have I to be vain, when I reflect how at every step I was
+petted, nursed, and encouraged? I did not even discover my own talent.
+It was discovered first by my father in Russia, and next by my friend
+in America. What did I ever do but write when they told me to write? I
+suppose my grandfather who drove a spavined horse through lonely
+country lanes sat in the shade of crisp-leaved oaks to refresh himself
+with a bit of black bread; and an acorn falling beside him, in the
+immense stillness, shook his heart with the echo, and left him
+wondering. I suppose my father stole away from the synagogue one long
+festival day, and stretched himself out in the sun-warmed grass, and
+lost himself in dreams that made the world of men unreal when he
+returned to them. And so what is there left for me to do, who do not
+have to drive a horse nor interpret ancient lore, but put my
+grandfather's question into words and set to music my father's dream?
+The tongue am I of those who lived before me, as those that are to
+come will be the voice of my unspoken thoughts. And so who shall be
+applauded if the song be sweet, if the prophecy be true?
+
+I never heard of any one who was so watched and coaxed, so passed
+along from hand to helping hand, as was I. I always had friends. They
+sprang up everywhere, as if they had stood waiting for me to come. So
+here was my teacher, the moment she saw that I could give a good
+paraphrase of her talk on "Snow," bent on finding out what more I
+could do. One day she asked me if I had ever written poetry. I had
+not, but I went home and tried. I believe it was more snow, and I
+know it was wretched. I wish I could produce a copy of that early
+effusion; it would prove that my judgment is not severe. Wretched it
+was,--worse, a great deal, than reams of poetry that is written by
+children about whom there is no fuss made. But Miss Dillingham was not
+discouraged. She saw that I had no idea of metre, so she proceeded to
+teach me. We repeated miles of poetry together, smooth lines that sang
+themselves, mostly out of Longfellow. Then I would go home and
+write--oh, about the snow in our back yard!--but when Miss Dillingham
+came to read my verses, they limped and they lagged and they dragged,
+and there was no tune that would fit them.
+
+At last came the moment of illumination: I saw where my trouble lay. I
+had supposed that my lines matched when they had an equal number of
+syllables, taking no account of accent. Now I knew better; now I could
+write poetry! The everlasting snow melted at last, and the mud puddles
+dried in the spring sun, and the grass on the common was green, and
+still I wrote poetry! Again I wish I had some example of my springtime
+rhapsodies, the veriest rubbish of the sort that ever a child
+perpetrated. Lizzie McDee, who had red hair and freckles, and a
+Sunday-school manner on weekdays, and was below me in the class, did a
+great deal better. We used to compare verses; and while I do not
+remember that I ever had the grace to own that she was the better
+poet, I do know that I secretly wondered why the teachers did not
+invite her to stay after school and study poetry, while they took so
+much pains with me. But so it was always with me: somebody did
+something for me all the time.
+
+Making fair allowance for my youth, retarded education, and
+strangeness to the language, it must still be admitted that I never
+wrote good verse. But I loved to read it. My half-hours with Miss
+Dillingham were full of delight for me, quite apart from my new-born
+ambition to become a writer. What, then, was my joy, when Miss
+Dillingham, just before locking up her desk one evening, presented me
+with a volume of Longfellow's poems! It was a thin volume of
+selections, but to me it was a bottomless treasure. I had never owned
+a book before. The sense of possession alone was a source of bliss,
+and this book I already knew and loved. And so Miss Dillingham, who
+was my first American friend, and who first put my name in print, was
+also the one to start my library. Deep is my regret when I consider
+that she was gone before I had given much of an account of all her
+gifts of love and service to me.
+
+About the middle of the year I was promoted to the grammar school.
+Then it was that I walked on air. For I said to myself that I was a
+_student_ now, in earnest, not merely a school-girl learning to spell
+and cipher. I was going to learn out-of-the-way things, things that
+had nothing to do with ordinary life--things to _know_. When I walked
+home afternoons, with the great big geography book under my arm, it
+seemed to me that the earth was conscious of my step. Sometimes I
+carried home half the books in my desk, not because I should need
+them, but because I loved to hold them; and also because I loved to be
+seen carrying books. It was a badge of scholarship, and I was proud of
+it. I remembered the days in Vitebsk when I used to watch my cousin
+Hirshel start for school in the morning, every thread of his student's
+uniform, every worn copybook in his satchel, glorified in my envious
+eyes. And now I was myself as he: aye, greater than he; for I knew
+English, and I could write poetry.
+
+If my head was not turned at this time it was because I was so busy
+from morning till night. My father did his best to make me vain and
+silly. He made much of me to every chance caller, boasting of my
+progress at school, and of my exalted friends, the teachers. For a
+school-teacher was no ordinary mortal in his eyes; she was a superior
+being, set above the common run of men by her erudition and devotion
+to higher things. That a school-teacher could be shallow or petty, or
+greedy for pay, was a thing that he could not have been brought to
+believe, at this time. And he was right, if he could only have stuck
+to it in later years, when a new-born pessimism, fathered by his
+perception that in America, too, some things needed mending, threw him
+to the opposite extreme of opinion, crying that nothing in the
+American scheme of society or government was worth tinkering.
+
+He surely was right in his first appraisal of the teacher. The mean
+sort of teachers are not teachers at all; they are self-seekers who
+take up teaching as a business, to support themselves and keep their
+hands white. These same persons, did they keep store or drive a milk
+wagon or wash babies for a living, would be respectable. As
+trespassers on a noble profession, they are worth no more than the
+books and slates and desks over which they preside; so much furniture,
+to be had by the gross. They do not love their work. They contribute
+nothing to the higher development of their pupils. They busy
+themselves, not with research into the science of teaching, but with
+organizing political demonstrations to advance the cause of selfish
+candidates for public office, who promise them rewards. The true
+teachers are of another strain. Apostles all of an ideal, they go to
+their work in a spirit of love and inquiry, seeking not comfort, not
+position, not old-age pensions, but truth that is the soul of wisdom,
+the joy of big-eyed children, the food of hungry youth.
+
+They were true teachers who used to come to me on Arlington Street, so
+my father had reason to boast of the distinction brought upon his
+house. For the school-teacher in her trim, unostentatious dress was an
+uncommon visitor in our neighborhood; and the talk that passed in the
+bare little "parlor" over the grocery store would not have been
+entirely comprehensible to our next-door neighbor.
+
+In the grammar school I had as good teaching as I had had in the
+primary. It seems to me in retrospect that it was as good, on the
+whole, as the public school ideals of the time made possible. When I
+recall how I was taught geography, I see, indeed, that there was room
+for improvement occasionally both in the substance and in the method
+of instruction. But I know of at least one teacher of Chelsea who
+realized this; for I met her, eight years later, at a great
+metropolitan university that holds a summer session for the benefit of
+school-teachers who want to keep up with the advance in their science.
+Very likely they no longer teach geography entirely within doors, and
+by rote, as I was taught. Fifteen years is plenty of time for
+progress.
+
+When I joined the first grammar grade, the class had had a half-year's
+start of me, but it was not long before I found my place near the
+head. In all branches except geography it was genuine progress. I
+overtook the youngsters in their study of numbers, spelling, reading,
+and composition. In geography I merely made a bluff, but I did not
+know it. Neither did my teacher. I came up to such tests as she put
+me.
+
+The lesson was on Chelsea, which was right: geography, like charity,
+should begin at home. Our text ran on for a paragraph or so on the
+location, boundaries, natural features, and industries of the town,
+with a bit of local history thrown in. We were to learn all these
+interesting facts, and be prepared to write them out from memory the
+next day. I went home and learned--learned every word of the text,
+every comma, every footnote. When the teacher had read my paper she
+marked it "EE." "E" was for "excellent," but my paper was absolutely
+perfect, and must be put in a class by itself. The teacher exhibited
+my paper before the class, with some remarks about the diligence that
+could overtake in a week pupils who had had half a year's start. I
+took it all as modestly as I could, never doubting that I was indeed a
+very bright little girl, and getting to be very learned to boot. I was
+"perfect" in geography, a most erudite subject.
+
+But what was the truth? The words that I repeated so accurately on my
+paper had about as much meaning to me as the words of the Psalms I
+used to chant in Hebrew. I got an idea that the city of Chelsea, and
+the world in general, was laid out flat, like the common, and shaved
+off at the ends, to allow the north, south, east, and west to snuggle
+up close, like the frame around a picture. If I looked at the map, I
+was utterly bewildered; I could find no correspondence between the
+picture and the verbal explanations. With words I was safe; I could
+learn any number of words by heart, and sometime or other they would
+pop out of the medley, clothed with meaning. Chelsea, I read, was
+bounded on all sides--"bounded" appealed to my imagination--by various
+things that I had never identified, much as I had roamed about the
+town. I immediately pictured these remote boundaries as a six-foot
+fence in a good state of preservation, with the Mystic River, the
+towns of Everett and Revere, and East Boston Creek, rejoicing, on the
+south, west, north, and east of it, respectively, that they had got
+inside; while the rest of the world peeped in enviously through a knot
+hole. In the middle of this cherished area piano factories--or was it
+shoe factories?--proudly reared their chimneys, while the population
+promenaded on a _rope walk_, saluted at every turn by the benevolent
+inmates of the Soldiers' Home on the top of Powderhorn Hill.
+
+Perhaps the fault was partly mine, because I always would reduce
+everything to a picture. Partly it may have been because I had not had
+time to digest the general definitions and explanations at the
+beginning of the book. Still, I can take but little of the blame, when
+I consider how I fared through my geography, right to the end of the
+grammar-school course. I did in time disentangle the symbolism of the
+orange revolving on a knitting-needle from the astronomical facts in
+the case, but it took years of training under a master of the subject
+to rid me of my distrust of the map as a representation of the earth.
+To this day I sometimes blunder back to my early impression that any
+given portion of the earth's surface is constructed upon a skeleton
+consisting of two crossed bars, terminating in arrowheads which pin
+the cardinal points into place; and if I want to find any desired
+point of the compass, I am inclined to throw myself flat on my nose,
+my head due north, and my outstretched arms seeking the east and west
+respectively.
+
+For in the schoolroom, as far as the study of the map went, we began
+with the symbol and stuck to the symbol. No teacher of geography I
+ever had, except the master I referred to, took the pains to ascertain
+whether I had any sense of the facts for which the symbols stood.
+Outside the study of maps, geography consisted of statistics: tables
+of population, imports and exports, manufactures, and degrees of
+temperature; dimensions of rivers, mountains, and political states;
+with lists of minerals, plants, and plagues native to any given part
+of the globe. The only part of the whole subject that meant anything
+to me was the description of the aspect of foreign lands, and the
+manners and customs of their peoples. The relation of physiography to
+human history--what might be called the moral of geography--was not
+taught at all, or was touched upon in an unimpressive manner. The
+prevalence of this defect in the teaching of school geography is borne
+out by the surprise of the college freshman, who remarked to the
+professor of geology that it was curious to note how all the big
+rivers and harbors on the Atlantic coastal plain occurred in the
+neighborhood of large cities! A little instruction in the elements of
+chartography--a little practice in the use of the compass and the
+spirit level, a topographical map of the town common, an excursion
+with a road map--would have given me a fat round earth in place of my
+paper ghost; would have illumined the one dark alley in my school
+life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"MY COUNTRY"
+
+
+The public school has done its best for us foreigners, and for the
+country, when it has made us into good Americans. I am glad it is mine
+to tell how the miracle was wrought in one case. You should be glad to
+hear of it, you born Americans; for it is the story of the growth of
+your country; of the flocking of your brothers and sisters from the
+far ends of the earth to the flag you love; of the recruiting of your
+armies of workers, thinkers, and leaders. And you will be glad to hear
+of it, my comrades in adoption; for it is a rehearsal of your own
+experience, the thrill and wonder of which your own hearts have felt.
+
+How long would you say, wise reader, it takes to make an American? By
+the middle of my second year in school I had reached the sixth grade.
+When, after the Christmas holidays, we began to study the life of
+Washington, running through a summary of the Revolution, and the early
+days of the Republic, it seemed to me that all my reading and study
+had been idle until then. The reader, the arithmetic, the song book,
+that had so fascinated me until now, became suddenly sober exercise
+books, tools wherewith to hew a way to the source of inspiration. When
+the teacher read to us out of a big book with many bookmarks in it, I
+sat rigid with attention in my little chair, my hands tightly clasped
+on the edge of my desk; and I painfully held my breath, to prevent
+sighs of disappointment escaping, as I saw the teacher skip the parts
+between bookmarks. When the class read, and it came my turn, my voice
+shook and the book trembled in my hands. I could not pronounce the
+name of George Washington without a pause. Never had I prayed, never
+had I chanted the songs of David, never had I called upon the Most
+Holy, in such utter reverence and worship as I repeated the simple
+sentences of my child's story of the patriot. I gazed with adoration
+at the portraits of George and Martha Washington, till I could see
+them with my eyes shut. And whereas formerly my self-consciousness had
+bordered on conceit, and I thought myself an uncommon person, parading
+my schoolbooks through the streets, and swelling with pride when a
+teacher detained me in conversation, now I grew humble all at once,
+seeing how insignificant I was beside the Great.
+
+As I read about the noble boy who would not tell a lie to save himself
+from punishment, I was for the first time truly repentant of my sins.
+Formerly I had fasted and prayed and made sacrifice on the Day of
+Atonement, but it was more than half play, in mimicry of my elders. I
+had no real horror of sin, and I knew so many ways of escaping
+punishment. I am sure my family, my neighbors, my teachers in
+Polotzk--all my world, in fact--strove together, by example and
+precept, to teach me goodness. Saintliness had a new incarnation in
+about every third person I knew. I did respect the saints, but I could
+not help seeing that most of them were a little bit stupid, and that
+mischief was much more fun than piety. Goodness, as I had known it,
+was respectable, but not necessarily admirable. The people I really
+admired, like my Uncle Solomon, and Cousin Rachel, were those who
+preached the least and laughed the most. My sister Frieda was
+perfectly good, but she did not think the less of me because I played
+tricks. What I loved in my friends was not inimitable. One could be
+downright good if one really wanted to. One could be learned if one
+had books and teachers. One could sing funny songs and tell anecdotes
+if one travelled about and picked up such things, like one's uncles
+and cousins. But a human being strictly good, perfectly wise, and
+unfailingly valiant, all at the same time, I had never heard or
+dreamed of. This wonderful George Washington was as inimitable as he
+was irreproachable. Even if I had never, never told a lie, I could not
+compare myself to George Washington; for I was not brave--I was afraid
+to go out when snowballs whizzed--and I could never be the First
+President of the United States.
+
+So I was forced to revise my own estimate of myself. But the twin of
+my new-born humility, paradoxical as it may seem, was a sense of
+dignity I had never known before. For if I found that I was a person
+of small consequence, I discovered at the same time that I was more
+nobly related than I had ever supposed. I had relatives and friends
+who were notable people by the old standards,--I had never been
+ashamed of my family,--but this George Washington, who died long
+before I was born, was like a king in greatness, and he and I were
+Fellow Citizens. There was a great deal about Fellow Citizens in the
+patriotic literature we read at this time; and I knew from my father
+how he was a Citizen, through the process of naturalization, and how I
+also was a citizen, by virtue of my relation to him. Undoubtedly I was
+a Fellow Citizen, and George Washington was another. It thrilled me to
+realize what sudden greatness had fallen on me; and at the same time
+it sobered me, as with a sense of responsibility. I strove to conduct
+myself as befitted a Fellow Citizen.
+
+Before books came into my life, I was given to stargazing and
+daydreaming. When books were given me, I fell upon them as a glutton
+pounces on his meat after a period of enforced starvation. I lived
+with my nose in a book, and took no notice of the alternations of the
+sun and stars. But now, after the advent of George Washington and the
+American Revolution, I began to dream again. I strayed on the common
+after school instead of hurrying home to read. I hung on fence rails,
+my pet book forgotten under my arm, and gazed off to the
+yellow-streaked February sunset, and beyond, and beyond. I was no
+longer the central figure of my dreams; the dry weeds in the lane
+crackled beneath the tread of Heroes.
+
+What more could America give a child? Ah, much more! As I read how the
+patriots planned the Revolution, and the women gave their sons to die
+in battle, and the heroes led to victory, and the rejoicing people set
+up the Republic, it dawned on me gradually what was meant by _my
+country_. The people all desiring noble things, and striving for them
+together, defying their oppressors, giving their lives for each
+other--all this it was that made _my country_. It was not a thing that
+I _understood_; I could not go home and tell Frieda about it, as I
+told her other things I learned at school. But I knew one could say
+"my country" and _feel_ it, as one felt "God" or "myself." My teacher,
+my schoolmates, Miss Dillingham, George Washington himself could not
+mean more than I when they said "my country," after I had once felt
+it. For the Country was for all the Citizens, and _I was a Citizen_.
+And when we stood up to sing "America," I shouted the words with all
+my might. I was in very earnest proclaiming to the world my love for
+my new-found country.
+
+    "I love thy rocks and rills.
+    Thy woods and templed hills."
+
+Boston Harbor, Crescent Beach, Chelsea Square--all was hallowed ground
+to me. As the day approached when the school was to hold exercises in
+honor of Washington's Birthday, the halls resounded at all hours with
+the strains of patriotic songs; and I, who was a model of the
+attentive pupil, more than once lost my place in the lesson as I
+strained to hear, through closed doors, some neighboring class
+rehearsing "The Star-Spangled Banner." If the doors happened to open,
+and the chorus broke out unveiled--
+
+    "O! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
+    O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?"--
+
+delicious tremors ran up and down my spine, and I was faint with
+suppressed enthusiasm.
+
+Where had been my country until now? What flag had I loved? What
+heroes had I worshipped? The very names of these things had been
+unknown to me. Well I knew that Polotzk was not my country. It was
+_goluth_--exile. On many occasions in the year we prayed to God to
+lead us out of exile. The beautiful Passover service closed with the
+words, "Next year, may we be in Jerusalem." On childish lips, indeed,
+those words were no conscious aspiration; we repeated the Hebrew
+syllables after our elders, but without their hope and longing. Still
+not a child among us was too young to feel in his own flesh the lash
+of the oppressor. We knew what it was to be Jews in exile, from the
+spiteful treatment we suffered at the hands of the smallest urchin
+who crossed himself; and thence we knew that Israel had good reason to
+pray for deliverance. But the story of the Exodus was not history to
+me in the sense that the story of the American Revolution was. It was
+more like a glorious myth, a belief in which had the effect of cutting
+me off from the actual world, by linking me with a world of phantoms.
+Those moments of exaltation which the contemplation of the Biblical
+past afforded us, allowing us to call ourselves the children of
+princes, served but to tinge with a more poignant sense of
+disinheritance the long humdrum stretches of our life. In very truth
+we were a people without a country. Surrounded by mocking foes and
+detractors, it was difficult for me to realize the persons of my
+people's heroes or the events in which they moved. Except in moments
+of abstraction from the world around me, I scarcely understood that
+Jerusalem was an actual spot on the earth, where once the Kings of the
+Bible, real people, like my neighbors in Polotzk, ruled in puissant
+majesty. For the conditions of our civil life did not permit us to
+cultivate a spirit of nationalism. The freedom of worship that was
+grudgingly granted within the narrow limits of the Pale by no means
+included the right to set up openly any ideal of a Hebrew State, any
+hero other than the Czar. What we children picked up of our ancient
+political history was confused with the miraculous story of the
+Creation, with the supernatural legends and hazy associations of Bible
+lore. As to our future, we Jews in Polotzk had no national
+expectations; only a life-worn dreamer here and there hoped to die in
+Palestine. If Fetchke and I sang, with my father, first making sure of
+our audience, "Zion, Zion, Holy Zion, not forever is it lost," we did
+not really picture to ourselves Judæa restored.
+
+So it came to pass that we did not know what _my country_ could mean
+to a man. And as we had no country, so we had no flag to love. It was
+by no far-fetched symbolism that the banner of the House of Romanoff
+became the emblem of our latter-day bondage in our eyes. Even a child
+would know how to hate the flag that we were forced, on pain of severe
+penalties, to hoist above our housetops, in celebration of the advent
+of one of our oppressors. And as it was with country and flag, so it
+was with heroes of war. We hated the uniform of the soldier, to the
+last brass button. On the person of a Gentile, it was the symbol of
+tyranny; on the person of a Jew, it was the emblem of shame.
+
+So a little Jewish girl in Polotzk was apt to grow up hungry-minded
+and empty-hearted; and if, still in her outreaching youth, she was set
+down in a land of outspoken patriotism, she was likely to love her new
+country with a great love, and to embrace its heroes in a great
+worship. Naturalization, with us Russian Jews, may mean more than the
+adoption of the immigrant by America. It may mean the adoption of
+America by the immigrant.
+
+On the day of the Washington celebration I recited a poem that I had
+composed in my enthusiasm. But "composed" is not the word. The process
+of putting on paper the sentiments that seethed in my soul was really
+very discomposing. I dug the words out of my heart, squeezed the
+rhymes out of my brain, forced the missing syllables out of their
+hiding-places in the dictionary. May I never again know such travail
+of the spirit as I endured during the fevered days when I was engaged
+on the poem. It was not as if I wanted to say that snow was white or
+grass was green. I could do that without a dictionary. It was a
+question now of the loftiest sentiments, of the most abstract truths,
+the names of which were very new in my vocabulary. It was necessary to
+use polysyllables, and plenty of them; and where to find rhymes for
+such words as "tyranny," "freedom," and "justice," when you had less
+than two years' acquaintance with English! The name I wished to
+celebrate was the most difficult of all. Nothing but "Washington"
+rhymed with "Washington." It was a most ambitious undertaking, but my
+heart could find no rest till it had proclaimed itself to the world;
+so I wrestled with my difficulties, and spared not ink, till
+inspiration perched on my penpoint, and my soul gave up its best.
+
+When I had done, I was myself impressed with the length, gravity, and
+nobility of my poem. My father was overcome with emotion as he read
+it. His hands trembled as he held the paper to the light, and the mist
+gathered in his eyes. My teacher, Miss Dwight, was plainly astonished
+at my performance, and said many kind things, and asked many
+questions; all of which I took very solemnly, like one who had been in
+the clouds and returned to earth with a sign upon him. When Miss
+Dwight asked me to read my poem to the class on the day of
+celebration, I readily consented. It was not in me to refuse a chance
+to tell my schoolmates what I thought of George Washington.
+
+I was not a heroic figure when I stood up in front of the class to
+pronounce the praises of the Father of his Country. Thin, pale, and
+hollow, with a shadow of short black curls on my brow, and the staring
+look of prominent eyes, I must have looked more frightened than
+imposing. My dress added no grace to my appearance. "Plaids" were in
+fashion, and my frock was of a red-and-green "plaid" that had a
+ghastly effect on my complexion. I hated it when I thought of it, but
+on the great day I did not know I had any dress on. Heels clapped
+together, and hands glued to my sides, I lifted up my voice in praise
+of George Washington. It was not much of a voice; like my hollow
+cheeks, it suggested consumption. My pronunciation was faulty, my
+declamation flat. But I had the courage of my convictions. I was face
+to face with twoscore Fellow Citizens, in clean blouses and extra
+frills. I must tell them what George Washington had done for their
+country--for _our_ country--for me.
+
+I can laugh now at the impossible metres, the grandiose phrases, the
+verbose repetitions of my poem. Years ago I must have laughed at it,
+when I threw my only copy into the wastebasket. The copy I am now
+turning over was loaned me by Miss Dwight, who faithfully preserved it
+all these years, for the sake, no doubt, of what I strove to express
+when I laboriously hitched together those dozen and more ungraceful
+stanzas. But to the forty Fellow Citizens sitting in rows in front of
+me it was no laughing matter. Even the bad boys sat in attitudes of
+attention, hypnotized by the solemnity of my demeanor. If they got any
+inkling of what the hail of big words was about, it must have been
+through occult suggestion. I fixed their eighty eyes with my single
+stare, and gave it to them, stanza after stanza, with such emphasis as
+the lameness of the lines permitted.
+
+    He whose courage, will, amazing bravery,
+      Did free his land from a despot's rule,
+    From man's greatest evil, almost slavery,
+      And all that's taught in tyranny's school.
+    Who gave his land its liberty,
+      Who was he?
+
+    'T was he who e'er will be our pride.
+      Immortal Washington,
+    Who always did in truth confide.
+      We hail our Washington!
+
+   [Illustration: TWOSCORE OF MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--PUBLIC SCHOOL,
+   CHELSEA]
+
+The best of the verses were no better than these, but the children
+listened. They had to. Presently I gave them news, declaring that
+Washington
+
+    Wrote the famous Constitution; sacred's the hand
+    That this blessed guide to man had given, which says, "One
+    And all of mankind are alike, excepting none."
+
+This was received in respectful silence, possibly because the other
+Fellow Citizens were as hazy about historical facts as I at this
+point. "Hurrah for Washington!" they understood, and "Three cheers for
+the Red, White, and Blue!" was only to be expected on that occasion.
+But there ran a special note through my poem--a thought that only
+Israel Rubinstein or Beckie Aronovitch could have fully understood,
+besides myself. For I made myself the spokesman of the "luckless sons
+of Abraham," saying--
+
+    Then we weary Hebrew children at last found rest
+    In the land where reigned Freedom, and like a nest
+    To homeless birds your land proved to us, and therefore
+    Will we gratefully sing your praise evermore.
+
+The boys and girls who had never been turned away from any door
+because of their father's religion sat as if fascinated in their
+places. But they woke up and applauded heartily when I was done,
+following the example of Miss Dwight, who wore the happy face which
+meant that one of her pupils had done well.
+
+The recitation was repeated, by request, before several other classes,
+and the applause was equally prolonged at each repetition. After the
+exercises I was surrounded, praised, questioned, and made much of, by
+teachers as well as pupils. Plainly I had not poured my praise of
+George Washington into deaf ears. The teachers asked me if anybody had
+helped me with the poem. The girls invariably asked, "Mary Antin, how
+could you think of all those words?" None of them thought of the
+dictionary!
+
+If I had been satisfied with my poem in the first place, the applause
+with which it was received by my teachers and schoolmates convinced me
+that I had produced a very fine thing indeed. So the person, whoever
+it was,--perhaps my father--who suggested that my tribute to
+Washington ought to be printed, did not find me difficult to persuade.
+When I had achieved an absolutely perfect copy of my verses, at the
+expense of a dozen sheets of blue-ruled note paper, I crossed the
+Mystic River to Boston and boldly invaded Newspaper Row.
+
+It never occurred to me to send my manuscript by mail. In fact, it has
+never been my way to send a delegate where I could go myself.
+Consciously or unconsciously, I have always acted on the motto of a
+wise man who was one of the dearest friends that Boston kept for me
+until I came. "Personal presence moves the world," said the great Dr.
+Hale; and I went in person to beard the editor in his armchair.
+
+From the ferry slip to the offices of the "Boston Transcript" the way
+was long, strange, and full of perils; but I kept resolutely on up
+Hanover Street, being familiar with that part of my route, till I came
+to a puzzling corner. There I stopped, utterly bewildered by the
+tangle of streets, the roar of traffic, the giddy swarm of
+pedestrians. With the precious manuscript tightly clasped, I balanced
+myself on the curbstone, afraid to plunge into the boiling vortex of
+the crossing. Every time I made a start, a clanging street car
+snatched up the way. I could not even pick out my street; the
+unobtrusive street signs were lost to my unpractised sight, in the
+glaring confusion of store signs and advertisements. If I accosted a
+pedestrian to ask the way, I had to speak several times before I was
+heard. Jews, hurrying by with bearded chins on their bosoms and eyes
+intent, shrugged their shoulders at the name "Transcript," and
+shrugged till they were out of sight. Italians sauntering behind their
+fruit carts answered my inquiry with a lift of the head that made
+their earrings gleam, and a wave of the hand that referred me to all
+four points of the compass at once. I was trying to catch the eye of
+the tall policeman who stood grandly in the middle of the crossing, a
+stout pillar around which the waves of traffic broke, when deliverance
+bellowed in my ear.
+
+"Herald, Globe, Record, _Tra-avel-er_! Eh? Whatcher want, sis?" The
+tall newsboy had to stoop to me. "Transcript? Sure!" And in half a
+twinkling he had picked me out a paper from his bundle. When I
+explained to him, he good-naturedly tucked the paper in again, piloted
+me across, unravelled the end of Washington Street for me, and with
+much pointing out of landmarks, headed me for my destination, my nose
+seeking the spire of the Old South Church.
+
+I found the "Transcript" building a waste of corridors tunnelled by a
+maze of staircases. On the glazed-glass doors were many signs with the
+names or nicknames of many persons: "City Editor"; "Beggars and
+Peddlers not Allowed." The nameless world not included in these
+categories was warned off, forbidden to be or do: "Private--No
+Admittance"; "Don't Knock." And the various inhospitable legends on
+the doors and walls were punctuated by frequent cuspidors on the
+floor. There was no sign anywhere of the welcome which I, as an
+author, expected to find in the home of a newspaper.
+
+I was descending from the top story to the street for the seventh
+time, trying to decide what kind of editor a patriotic poem belonged
+to, when an untidy boy carrying broad paper streamers and whistling
+shrilly, in defiance of an express prohibition on the wall, bustled
+through the corridor and left a door ajar. I slipped in behind him,
+and found myself in a room full of editors.
+
+I was a little surprised at the appearance of the editors. I had
+imagined my editor would look like Mr. Jones, the principal of my
+school, whose coat was always buttoned, and whose finger nails were
+beautiful. These people were in shirt sleeves, and they smoked, and
+they didn't politely turn in their revolving chairs when I came in,
+and ask, "What can I do for you?"
+
+The room was noisy with typewriters, and nobody heard my "Please, can
+you tell me." At last one of the machines stopped, and the operator
+thought he heard something in the pause. He looked up through his own
+smoke. I guess he thought he saw something, for he stared. It troubled
+me a little to have him stare so. I realized suddenly that the hand in
+which I carried my manuscript was moist, and I was afraid it would
+make marks on the paper. I held out the manuscript to the editor,
+explaining that it was a poem about George Washington, and would he
+please print it in the "Transcript."
+
+There was something queer about that particular editor. The way he
+stared and smiled made me feel about eleven inches high, and my voice
+kept growing smaller and smaller as I neared the end of my speech.
+
+At last he spoke, laying down his pipe, and sitting back at his ease.
+
+"So you have brought us a poem, my child?"
+
+"It's about George Washington," I repeated impressively. "Don't you
+want to read it?"
+
+"I should be delighted, my dear, but the fact is--"
+
+He did not take my paper. He stood up and called across the room.
+
+"Say, Jack! here is a young lady who has brought us a poem--about
+George Washington.--Wrote it yourself, my dear?--Wrote it all herself.
+What shall we do with her?"
+
+Mr. Jack came over, and another man. My editor made me repeat my
+business, and they all looked interested, but nobody took my paper
+from me. They put their hands into their pockets, and my hand kept
+growing clammier all the time. The three seemed to be consulting, but
+I could not understand what they said, or why Mr. Jack laughed.
+
+A fourth man, who had been writing busily at a desk near by, broke in
+on the consultation.
+
+"That's enough, boys," he said, "that's enough. Take the young lady to
+Mr. Hurd."
+
+Mr. Hurd, it was found, was away on a vacation, and of several other
+editors in several offices, to whom I was referred, none proved to be
+the proper editor to take charge of a poem about George Washington. At
+last an elderly editor suggested that as Mr. Hurd would be away for
+some time, I would do well to give up the "Transcript" and try the
+"Herald," across the way.
+
+A little tired by my wanderings, and bewildered by the complexity of
+the editorial system, but still confident about my mission, I picked
+my way across Washington Street and found the "Herald" offices. Here I
+had instant good luck. The first editor I addressed took my paper and
+invited me to a seat. He read my poem much more quickly than I could
+myself, and said it was very nice, and asked me some questions, and
+made notes on a slip of paper which he pinned to my manuscript. He
+said he would have my piece printed very soon, and would send me a
+copy of the issue in which it appeared. As I was going, I could not
+help giving the editor my hand, although I had not experienced any
+handshaking in Newspaper Row. I felt that as author and editor we were
+on a very pleasant footing, and I gave him my hand in token of
+comradeship.
+
+I had regained my full stature and something over, during this cordial
+interview, and when I stepped out into the street and saw the crowd
+intently studying the bulletin board I swelled out of all proportion.
+For I told myself that I, Mary Antin, was one of the inspired
+brotherhood who made newspapers so interesting. I did not know whether
+my poem would be put upon the bulletin board; but at any rate, it
+would be in the paper, with my name at the bottom, like my story about
+"Snow" in Miss Dillingham's school journal. And all these people in
+the streets, and more, thousands of people--all Boston!--would read my
+poem, and learn my name, and wonder who I was. I smiled to myself in
+delicious amusement when a man deliberately put me out of his path, as
+I dreamed my way through the jostling crowd; if he only _knew_ whom
+he was treating so unceremoniously!
+
+When the paper with my poem in it arrived, the whole house pounced
+upon it at once. I was surprised to find that my verses were not all
+over the front page. The poem was a little hard to find, if anything,
+being tucked away in the middle of the voluminous sheet. But when we
+found it, it looked wonderful, just like real poetry, not at all as if
+somebody we knew had written it. It occupied a gratifying amount of
+space, and was introduced by a flattering biographical sketch of the
+author--the _author_!--the material for which the friendly editor had
+artfully drawn from me during that happy interview. And my name, as I
+had prophesied, was at the bottom!
+
+When the excitement in the house had subsided, my father took all the
+change out of the cash drawer and went to buy up the "Herald." He did
+not count the pennies. He just bought "Heralds," all he could lay his
+hands on, and distributed them gratis to all our friends, relatives,
+and acquaintances; to all who could read, and to some who could not.
+For weeks he carried a clipping from the "Herald" in his breast
+pocket, and few were the occasions when he did not manage to introduce
+it into the conversation. He treasured that clipping as for years he
+had treasured the letters I wrote him from Polotzk.
+
+Although my father bought up most of the issue containing my poem, a
+few hundred copies were left to circulate among the general public,
+enough to spread the flame of my patriotic ardor and to enkindle a
+thousand sluggish hearts. Really, there was something more solemn than
+vanity in my satisfaction. Pleased as I was with my notoriety--and
+nobody but I knew how exceedingly pleased--I had a sober feeling about
+it all. I enjoyed being praised and admired and envied; but what gave
+a divine flavor to my happiness was the idea that I had publicly borne
+testimony to the goodness of my exalted hero, to the greatness of my
+adopted country. I did not discount the homage of Arlington Street,
+because I did not properly rate the intelligence of its population. I
+took the admiration of my schoolmates without a grain of salt; it was
+just so much honey to me. I could not know that what made me great in
+the eyes of my neighbors was that "there was a piece about me in the
+paper"; it mattered very little to them what the "piece" was about. I
+thought they really admired my sentiments. On the street, in the
+schoolyard, I was pointed out. The people said, "That's Mary Antin.
+She had her name in the paper." _I_ thought they said, "This is she
+who loves her country and worships George Washington."
+
+To repeat, I was well aware that I was something of a celebrity, and
+took all possible satisfaction in the fact; yet I gave my schoolmates
+no occasion to call me "stuck-up." My vanity did not express itself in
+strutting or wagging the head. I played tag and puss-in-the-corner in
+the schoolyard, and did everything that was comrade-like. But in the
+schoolroom I conducted myself gravely, as befitted one who was
+preparing for the noble career of a poet.
+
+I am forgetting Lizzie McDee. I am trying to give the impression that
+I behaved with at least outward modesty during my schoolgirl triumphs,
+whereas Lizzie could testify that she knew Mary Antin as a vain
+boastful, curly-headed little Jew. For I had a special style of
+deportment for Lizzie. If there was any girl in the school besides me
+who could keep near the top of the class all the year through, and
+give bright answers when the principal or the school committee popped
+sudden questions, and write rhymes that almost always rhymed, _I_ was
+determined that that ambitious person should not soar unduly in her
+own estimation. So I took care to show Lizzie all my poetry, and when
+she showed me hers I did not admire it too warmly. Lizzie, as I have
+already said, was in a Sunday-school mood even on week days; her
+verses all had morals. My poems were about the crystal snow, and the
+ocean blue, and sweet spring, and fleecy clouds; when I tried to drag
+in a moral it kicked so that the music of my lines went out in a
+groan. So I had a sweet revenge when Lizzie, one day, volunteered to
+bolster up the eloquence of Mr. Jones, the principal, who was
+lecturing the class for bad behavior, by comparing the bad boy in the
+schoolroom to the rotten apple that spoils the barrelful. The groans,
+coughs, a-hem's, feet shufflings, and paper pellets that filled the
+room as Saint Elizabeth sat down, even in the principal's presence,
+were sweet balm to my smart of envy; I didn't care if I didn't know
+how to moralize.
+
+When my teacher had visitors I was aware that I was the show pupil of
+the class. I was always made to recite, my compositions were passed
+around, and often I was called up on the platform--oh, climax of
+exaltation!--to be interviewed by the distinguished strangers; while
+the class took advantage of the teacher's distraction, to hold
+forbidden intercourse on matters not prescribed in the curriculum.
+When I returned to my seat, after such public audience with the great,
+I looked to see if Lizzie McDee was taking notice; and Lizzie, who was
+a generous soul, her Sunday-school airs notwithstanding, generally
+smiled, and I forgave her her rhymes.
+
+Not but what I paid a price for my honors. With all my self-possession
+I had a certain capacity for shyness. Even when I arose to recite
+before the customary audience of my class I suffered from incipient
+stage fright, and my voice trembled over the first few words. When
+visitors were in the room I was even more troubled; and when I was
+made the special object of their attention my triumph was marred by
+acute distress. If I was called up to speak to the visitors, forty
+pairs of eyes pricked me in the back as I went. I stumbled in the
+aisle, and knocked down things that were not at all in my way; and my
+awkwardness increasing my embarrassment I would gladly have changed
+places with Lizzie or the bad boy in the back row; anything, only to
+be less conspicuous. When I found myself shaking hands with an august
+School-Committeeman, or a teacher from New York, the remnants of my
+self-possession vanished in awe; and it was in a very husky voice that
+I repeated, as I was asked, my name, lineage, and personal history. On
+the whole, I do not think that the School-Committeeman found a very
+forward creature in the solemn-faced little girl with the tight curls
+and the terrible red-and-green "plaid."
+
+These awful audiences did not always end with the handshaking.
+Sometimes the great personages asked me to write to them, and
+exchanged addresses with me. Some of these correspondences continued
+through years, and were the source of much pleasure, on one side at
+least. And Arlington Street took notice when I received letters with
+important-looking or aristocratic-looking letterheads. Lizzie McDee
+also took notice. _I_ saw to that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MIRACLES
+
+
+It was not always in admiration that the finger was pointed at me. One
+day I found myself the centre of an excited group in the middle of the
+schoolyard, with a dozen girls interrupting each other to express
+their disapproval of me. For I had coolly told them, in answer to a
+question, that I did not believe in God.
+
+How had I arrived at such a conviction? How had I come, from praying
+and fasting and Psalm-singing, to extreme impiety? Alas! my
+backsliding had cost me no travail of spirit. Always weak in my faith,
+playing at sanctity as I played at soldiers, just as I was in the mood
+or not, I had neglected my books of devotion and given myself up to
+profane literature at the first opportunity, in Vitebsk; and I never
+took up my prayer book again. On my return to Polotzk, America loomed
+so near that my imagination was fully occupied, and I did not revive
+the secret experiments with which I used to test the nature and
+intention of Deity. It was more to me that I was going to America than
+that I might not be going to Heaven. And when we joined my father, and
+I saw that he did not wear the sacred fringes, and did not put on the
+phylacteries and pray, I was neither surprised nor shocked,
+remembering the Sabbath night when he had with his own hand turned out
+the lamp. When I saw him go out to work on Sabbath exactly as on a
+week day, I understood why God had not annihilated me with his
+lightnings that time when I purposely carried something in my pocket
+on Sabbath: there was no God, and there was no sin. And I ran out to
+play, pleased to find that I was free, like other little girls in the
+street, instead of being hemmed about with prohibitions and
+obligations at every step. And yet if the golden truth of Judaism had
+not been handed me in the motley rags of formalism, I might not have
+been so ready to put away my religion.
+
+It was Rachel Goldstein who provoked my avowal of atheism. She asked
+if I wasn't going to stay out of school during Passover, and I said
+no. Wasn't I a Jew? she wanted to know. No, I wasn't; I was a
+Freethinker. What was that? I didn't believe in God. Rachel was
+horrified. Why, Kitty Maloney believed in God, and Kitty was only a
+Catholic! She appealed to Kitty.
+
+"Kitty Maloney! Come over here. Don't you believe in God?--There, now,
+Mary Antin!--Mary Antin says she doesn't believe in God!"
+
+Rachel Goldstein's horror is duplicated. Kitty Maloney, who used to
+mock Rachel's Jewish accent, instantly becomes her voluble ally, and
+proceeds to annihilate me by plying me with crucial questions.
+
+"You don't believe in God? Then who made you, Mary Antin?"
+
+"Nature made me."
+
+"_Nature_ made you! What's that?"
+
+"It's--everything. It's the trees--no, it's what makes the trees grow.
+_That's_ what it is."
+
+"But _God_ made the trees, Mary Antin," from Rachel and Kitty in
+chorus. "Maggie O'Reilly! Listen to Mary Antin. She says there isn't
+any God. She says the trees made her!"
+
+Rachel and Kitty and Maggie, Sadie and Annie and Beckie, made a circle
+around me, and pressed me with questions, and mocked me, and
+threatened me with hell flames and utter extinction. I held my ground
+against them all obstinately enough, though my argument was
+exceedingly lame. I glibly repeated phrases I had heard my father use,
+but I had no real understanding of his atheistic doctrines. I had been
+surprised into this dispute. I had no spontaneous interest in the
+subject; my mind was occupied with other things. But as the number of
+my opponents grew, and I saw how unanimously they condemned me, my
+indifference turned into a heat of indignation. The actual point at
+issue was as little as ever to me, but I perceived that a crowd of
+Free Americans were disputing the right of a Fellow Citizen to have
+any kind of God she chose. I knew, from my father's teaching, that
+this persecution was contrary to the Constitution of the United
+States, and I held my ground as befitted the defender of a cause.
+George Washington would not have treated me as Rachel Goldstein and
+Kitty Maloney were doing! "This is a free country," I reminded them in
+the middle of the argument.
+
+The excitement in the yard amounted to a toy riot. When the school
+bell rang and the children began to file in, I stood out there as long
+as any of my enemies remained, although it was my habit to go to my
+room very promptly. And as the foes of American Liberty crowded and
+pushed in the line, whispering to those who had not heard that a
+heretic had been discovered in their midst, the teacher who kept the
+line in the corridor was obliged to scold and pull the noisy ones into
+order; and Sadie Cohen told her, in tones of awe, what the commotion
+was about.
+
+Miss Bland waited till the children had filed in before she asked me,
+in a tone encouraging confidence, to give my version of the story.
+This I did, huskily but fearlessly; and the teacher, who was a woman
+of tact, did not smile or commit herself in any way. She was sorry
+that the children had been rude to me, but she thought they would not
+trouble me any more if I let the subject drop. She made me understand,
+somewhat as Miss Dillingham had done on the occasion of my whispering
+during prayer, that it was proper American conduct to avoid religious
+arguments on school territory. I felt honored by this private
+initiation into the doctrine of the separation of Church and State,
+and I went to my seat with a good deal of dignity, my alarm about the
+safety of the Constitution allayed by the teacher's calmness.
+
+This is not so strictly the story of the second generation that I may
+not properly give a brief account of how it fared with my mother when
+my father undertook to purge his house of superstition. The process of
+her emancipation, it is true, was not obvious to me at the time, but
+what I observed of her outward conduct has been interpreted by my
+subsequent experience; so that to-day I understand how it happens that
+all the year round my mother keeps the same day of rest as her Gentile
+neighbors; but when the ram's horn blows on the Day of Atonement,
+calling upon Israel to cleanse its heart from sin and draw nearer to
+the God of its fathers, her soul is stirred as of old, and she needs
+must join in the ancient service. It means, I have come to know, that
+she has dropped the husk and retained the kernel of Judaism; but years
+were required for this process of instinctive selection.
+
+My father, in his ambition to make Americans of us, was rather
+headlong and strenuous in his methods. To my mother, on the eve of
+departure for the New World, he wrote boldly that progressive Jews in
+America did not spend their days in praying; and he urged her to leave
+her wig in Polotzk, as a first step of progress. My mother, like the
+majority of women in the Pale, had all her life taken her religion on
+authority; so she was only fulfilling her duty to her husband when she
+took his hint, and set out upon her journey in her own hair. Not that
+it was done without reluctance; the Jewish faith in her was deeply
+rooted, as in the best of Jews it always is. The law of the Fathers
+was binding to her, and the outward symbols of obedience inseparable
+from the spirit. But the breath of revolt against orthodox externals
+was at this time beginning to reach us in Polotzk from the greater
+world, notably from America. Sons whose parents had impoverished
+themselves by paying the fine for non-appearance for military duty, in
+order to save their darlings from the inevitable sins of violated
+Judaism while in the service, sent home portraits of themselves with
+their faces shaved; and the grieved old fathers and mothers, after
+offering up special prayers for the renegades, and giving charity in
+their name, exhibited the significant portraits on their parlor
+tables. My mother's own nephew went no farther than Vilna, ten hours'
+journey from Polotzk, to learn to cut his beard; and even within our
+town limits young women of education were beginning to reject the wig
+after marriage. A notorious example was the beautiful daughter of
+Lozhe the Rav, who was not restrained by her father's conspicuous
+relation to Judaism from exhibiting her lovely black curls like a
+maiden; and it was a further sign of the times that the rav did not
+disown his daughter. What wonder, then, that my poor mother, shaken
+by these foreshadowings of revolution in our midst, and by the express
+authority of her husband, gave up the emblem of matrimonial chastity
+with but a passing struggle? Considering how the heavy burdens which
+she had borne from childhood had never allowed her time to think for
+herself at all, but had obliged her always to tread blindly in the
+beaten paths, I think it greatly to her credit that in her puzzling
+situation she did not lose her poise entirely. Bred to submission,
+submit she must; and when she perceived a conflict of authorities, she
+prepared to accept the new order of things under which her children's
+future was to be formed; wherein she showed her native adaptability,
+the readiness to fall into line, which is one of the most charming
+traits of her gentle, self-effacing nature.
+
+My father gave my mother very little time to adjust herself. He was
+only three years from the Old World with its settled prejudices.
+Considering his education, he had thought out a good deal for himself,
+but his line of thinking had not as yet brought him to include woman
+in the intellectual emancipation for which he himself had been so
+eager even in Russia. This was still in the day when he was astonished
+to learn that women had written books--had used their minds, their
+imaginations, unaided. He still rated the mental capacity of the
+average woman as only a little above that of the cattle she tended. He
+held it to be a wife's duty to follow her husband in all things. He
+could do all the thinking for the family, he believed; and being
+convinced that to hold to the outward forms of orthodox Judaism was to
+be hampered in the race for Americanization, he did not hesitate to
+order our family life on unorthodox lines. There was no conscious
+despotism in this; it was only making manly haste to realize an ideal
+the nobility of which there was no one to dispute.
+
+My mother, as we know, had not the initial impulse to depart from
+ancient usage that my father had in his habitual scepticism. He had
+always been a nonconformist in his heart; she bore lovingly the yoke
+of prescribed conduct. Individual freedom, to him, was the only
+tolerable condition of life; to her it was confusion. My mother,
+therefore, gradually divested herself, at my father's bidding, of the
+mantle of orthodox observance; but the process cost her many a pang,
+because the fabric of that venerable garment was interwoven with the
+fabric of her soul.
+
+My father did not attempt to touch the fundamentals of her faith. He
+certainly did not forbid her to honor God by loving her neighbor,
+which is perhaps not far from being the whole of Judaism. If his loud
+denials of the existence of God influenced her to reconsider her
+creed, it was merely an incidental result of the freedom of expression
+he was so eager to practise, after his life of enforced hypocrisy. As
+the opinions of a mere woman on matters so abstract as religion did
+not interest him in the least, he counted it no particular triumph if
+he observed that my mother weakened in her faith as the years went by.
+He allowed her to keep a Jewish kitchen as long as she pleased, but he
+did not want us children to refuse invitations to the table of our
+Gentile neighbors. He would have no bar to our social intercourse with
+the world around us, for only by freely sharing the life of our
+neighbors could we come into our full inheritance of American freedom
+and opportunity. On the holy days he bought my mother a ticket for the
+synagogue, but the children he sent to school. On Sabbath eve my
+mother might light the consecrated candles, but he kept the store open
+until Sunday morning. My mother might believe and worship as she
+pleased, up to the point where her orthodoxy began to interfere with
+the American progress of the family.
+
+The price that all of us paid for this disorganization of our family
+life has been levied on every immigrant Jewish household where the
+first generation clings to the traditions of the Old World, while the
+second generation leads the life of the New. Nothing more pitiful
+could be written in the annals of the Jews; nothing more inevitable;
+nothing more hopeful. Hopeful, yes; alike for the Jew and for the
+country that has given him shelter. For Israel is not the only party
+that has put up a forfeit in this contest. The nations may well sit by
+and watch the struggle, for humanity has a stake in it. I say this,
+whose life has borne witness, whose heart is heavy with revelations it
+has not made. And I speak for thousands; oh, for thousands!
+
+My gray hairs are too few for me to let these pages trespass the limit
+I have set myself. That part of my life which contains the climax of
+my personal drama I must leave to my grandchildren to record. My
+father might speak and tell how, in time, he discovered that in his
+first violent rejection of everything old and established he cast from
+him much that he afterwards missed. He might tell to what extent he
+later retraced his steps, seeking to recover what he had learned to
+value anew; how it fared with his avowed irreligion when put to the
+extreme test; to what, in short, his emancipation amounted. And he,
+like myself, would speak for thousands. My grandchildren, for all I
+know, may have a graver task than I have set them. Perhaps they may
+have to testify that the faith of Israel is a heritage that no heir in
+the direct line has the power to alienate from his successors. Even I,
+with my limited perspective, think it doubtful if the conversion of
+the Jew to any alien belief or disbelief is ever thoroughly
+accomplished. What positive affirmation of the persistence of Judaism
+in the blood my descendants may have to make, I may not be present to
+hear.
+
+It would be superfluous to state that none of these hints and
+prophecies troubled me at the time when I horrified the schoolyard by
+denying the existence of God, on the authority of my father; and
+defended my right to my atheism, on the authority of the Constitution.
+I considered myself absolutely, eternally, delightfully emancipated
+from the yoke of indefensible superstitions. I was wild with
+indignation and pity when I remembered how my poor brother had been
+cruelly tormented because he did not want to sit in heder and learn
+what was after all false or useless. I knew now why poor Reb' Lebe had
+been unable to answer my questions; it was because the truth was not
+whispered outside America. I was very much in love with my
+enlightenment, and eager for opportunities to give proof of it.
+
+It was Miss Dillingham, she who helped me in so many ways, who
+unconsciously put me to an early test, the result of which gave me a
+shock that I did not get over for many a day. She invited me to tea
+one day, and I came in much trepidation. It was my first entrance into
+a genuine American household; my first meal at a Gentile--yes, a
+Christian--board. Would I know how to behave properly? I do not know
+whether I betrayed my anxiety; I am certain only that I was all eyes
+and ears, that nothing should escape me which might serve to guide
+me. This, after all, was a normal state for me to be in, so I suppose
+I looked natural, no matter how much I stared. I had been accustomed
+to consider my table manners irreproachable, but America was not
+Polotzk, as my father was ever saying; so I proceeded very cautiously
+with my spoons and forks. I was cunning enough to try to conceal my
+uncertainty; by being just a little bit slow, I did not get to any
+given spoon until the others at table had shown me which it was.
+
+All went well, until a platter was passed with a kind of meat that was
+strange to me. Some mischievous instinct told me that it was
+ham--forbidden food; and I, the liberal, the free, was afraid to touch
+it! I had a terrible moment of surprise, mortification, self-contempt;
+but I helped myself to a slice of ham, nevertheless, and hung my head
+over my plate to hide my confusion. I was furious with myself for my
+weakness. I to be afraid of a pink piece of pig's flesh, who had
+defied at least two religions in defence of free thought! And I began
+to reduce my ham to indivisible atoms, determined to eat more of it
+than anybody at the table.
+
+Alas! I learned that to eat in defence of principles was not so easy
+as to talk. I ate, but only a newly abnegated Jew can understand with
+what squirming, what protesting of the inner man, what exquisite
+abhorrence of myself. That Spartan boy who allowed the stolen fox
+hidden in his bosom to consume his vitals rather than be detected in
+the theft, showed no such miracle of self-control as did I, sitting
+there at my friend's tea-table, eating unjewish meat.
+
+And to think that so ridiculous a thing as a scrap of meat should be
+the symbol and test of things so august! To think that in the mental
+life of a half-grown child should be reflected the struggles and
+triumphs of ages! Over and over and over again I discover that I am a
+wonderful thing, being human; that I am the image of the universe,
+being myself; that I am the repository of all the wisdom in the world,
+being alive and sane at the beginning of this twentieth century. The
+heir of the ages am I, and all that has been is in me, and shall
+continue to be in my immortal self.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A CHILD'S PARADISE
+
+
+All this while that I was studying and exploring in the borderland
+between the old life and the new; leaping at conclusions, and
+sometimes slipping; finding inspiration in common things, and
+interpretations in dumb things; eagerly scaling the ladder of
+learning, my eyes on star-diademmed peaks of ambition; building up
+friendships that should support my youth and enrich my womanhood;
+learning to think much of myself, and much more of my world,--while I
+was steadily gathering in my heritage, sowed in the dim past, and
+ripened in the sun of my own day, what was my sister doing?
+
+Why, what she had always done: keeping close to my mother's side on
+the dreary marches of a humdrum life; sensing sweet gardens of
+forbidden joy, but never turning from the path of duty. I cannot
+believe but that her sacrifices tasted as dust and ashes to her at
+times; for Frieda was a mere girl, whose childhood, on the whole, had
+been gray, while her appetite for happy things was as great as any
+normal girl's. She had a fine sense for what was best in the life
+about her, though she could not articulate her appreciation. She
+longed to possess the good things, but her position in the family
+forbidding possession, she developed a talent for vicarious enjoyment
+which I never in this life hope to imitate. And her simple mind did
+not busy itself with self-analysis. She did not even know why she was
+happy; she thought life was good to her. Still, there must have been
+moments when she perceived that the finer things were not in
+themselves unattainable, but were kept from her by a social tyranny.
+This I can only surmise, as in our daily intercourse she never gave a
+sign of discontent.
+
+We continued to have part of our life in common for some time after
+she went to work. We formed ourselves into an evening school, she and
+I and the two youngsters, for the study of English and arithmetic. As
+soon as the supper dishes were put away, we gathered around the
+kitchen table, with books borrowed from school, and pencils supplied
+by my father with eager willingness. I was the teacher, the others the
+diligent pupils; and the earnestness with which we labored was worthy
+of the great things we meant to achieve. Whether the results were
+commensurate with our efforts I cannot say. I only know that Frieda's
+cheeks flamed with the excitement of reading English monosyllables;
+and her eyes shone like stars on a moonless night when I explained to
+her how she and I and George Washington were Fellow Citizens together.
+
+Inspired by our studious evenings, what Frieda Antin would not be glad
+to sit all day bent over the needle, that the family should keep on
+its feet, and Mary continue at school? The morning ride on the
+ferryboat, when spring winds dimpled the river, may have stirred her
+heart with nameless longings, but when she took her place at the
+machine her lot was glorified to her, and she wanted to sing; for the
+girls, the foreman, the boss, all talked about Mary Antin, whose poems
+were printed in an American newspaper. Wherever she went on her humble
+business, she was sure to hear her sister's name. For, with
+characteristic loyalty, the whole Jewish community claimed kinship
+with me, simply because I was a Jew; and they made much of my small
+triumphs, and pointed to me with pride, just as they always do when a
+Jew distinguishes himself in any worthy way. Frieda, going home from
+work at sunset, when rosy buds beaded the shining stems, may have felt
+the weariness of those who toil for bread; but when we opened our
+books after supper, her spirit revived afresh, and it was only when
+the lamp began to smoke that she thought of taking rest.
+
+At bedtime she and I chatted as we used to do when we were little
+girls in Polotzk; only now, instead of closing our eyes to see
+imaginary wonders, according to a bedtime game of ours, we exchanged
+anecdotes about the marvellous adventures of our American life. My
+contributions on these occasions were boastful accounts, I have no
+doubt, of what I did at school, and in the company of school-committee
+men, editors, and other notables; and Frieda's delight in my
+achievements was the very flower of her fine sympathy. As formerly,
+when I had been naughty and I invited her to share in my repentance,
+she used to join me in spiritual humility and solemnly dedicate
+herself to a better life; so now, when I was full of pride and
+ambition, she, too, felt the crown on her brows, and heard the
+applause of future generations murmuring in her ear. And so partaking
+of her sister's glory, what Frieda Antin would not say that her
+portion was sufficient reward for a youth of toil?
+
+I did not, like my sister, earn my bread in those days; but let us say
+that I earned my salt, by sweeping, scrubbing, and scouring, on
+Saturdays, when there was no school. My mother's housekeeping was
+necessarily irregular, as she was pretty constantly occupied in the
+store; so there was enough for us children to do to keep the bare
+rooms shining. Even here Frieda did the lion's share; it used to take
+me all Saturday to accomplish what Frieda would do with half a dozen
+turns of her capable hands. I did not like housework, but I loved
+order; so I polished windows with a will, and even got some fun out of
+scrubbing, by laying out the floor in patterns and tracing them all
+around the room in a lively flurry of soapsuds.
+
+There is a joy that comes from doing common things well, especially if
+they seem hard to us. When I faced a day's housework I was half
+paralyzed with a sense of inability, and I wasted precious minutes
+walking around it, to see what a very hard task I had. But having
+pitched in and conquered, it gave me an exquisite pleasure to survey
+my work. My hair tousled and my dress tucked up, streaked arms bare to
+the elbow, I would step on my heels over the damp, clean boards, and
+pass my hand over chair rounds and table legs, to prove that no dust
+was left. I could not wait to put my dress in order before running out
+into the street to see how my windows shone. Every workman who carries
+a dinner pail has these moments of keen delight in the product of his
+drudgery. Men of genius, likewise, in their hours of relaxation from
+their loftier tasks, prove this universal rule. I know a man who fills
+a chair at a great university. I have seen him hold a roomful of
+otherwise restless youths spellbound for an hour, while he discoursed
+about the respective inhabitants of the earth and sea at a time when
+nothing walked on fewer than four legs. And I have seen this scholar,
+his ponderous tomes shelved for a space, turning over and over with
+cherishing hands a letter-box that he had made out of card-board and
+paste, and exhibiting it proudly to his friends. For the hand was the
+first instrument of labor, that distinctive accomplishment by which
+man finally raised himself above his cousins, the lower animals; and a
+respect for the work of the hand survives as an instinct in all of us.
+
+The stretch of weeks from June to September, when the schools were
+closed, would have been hard to fill in had it not been for the public
+library. At first I made myself a calendar of the vacation months, and
+every morning I tore off a day, and comforted myself with the
+decreasing number of vacation days. But after I discovered the public
+library I was not impatient for the reopening of school. The library
+did not open till one o'clock in the afternoon, and each reader was
+allowed to take out only one book at a time. Long before one o'clock I
+was to be seen on the library steps, waiting for the door of paradise
+to open. I spent hours in the reading-room, pleased with the
+atmosphere of books, with the order and quiet of the place, so unlike
+anything on Arlington Street. The sense of these things permeated my
+consciousness even when I was absorbed in a book, just as the rustle
+of pages turned and the tiptoe tread of the librarian reached my ear,
+without distracting my attention. Anything so wonderful as a library
+had never been in my life. It was even better than school in some
+ways. One could read and read, and learn and learn, as fast as one
+knew how, without being obliged to stop for stupid little girls and
+inattentive little boys to catch up with the lesson. When I went home
+from the library I had a book under my arm; and I would finish it
+before the library opened next day, no matter till what hours of the
+night I burned my little lamp.
+
+What books did I read so diligently? Pretty nearly everything that
+came to my hand. I dare say the librarian helped me select my books,
+but, curiously enough, I do not remember. Something must have directed
+me, for I read a great many of the books that are written for
+children. Of these I remember with the greatest delight Louisa
+Alcott's stories. A less attractive series of books was of the Sunday
+School type. In volume after volume a very naughty little girl by the
+name of Lulu was always going into tempers, that her father might have
+opportunity to lecture her and point to her angelic little sister,
+Gracie, as an example of what she should be; after which they all felt
+better and prayed. Next to Louisa Alcott's books in my esteem were
+boys' books of adventure, many of them by Horatio Alger; and I read
+all, I suppose, of the Rollo books, by Jacob Abbott.
+
+But that was not all. I read every kind of printed rubbish that came
+into the house, by design or accident. A weekly story paper of a worse
+than worthless character, that circulated widely in our neighborhood
+because subscribers were rewarded with a premium of a diamond ring,
+warranted I don't know how many karats, occupied me for hours. The
+stories in this paper resembled, in breathlessness of plot, abundance
+of horrors, and improbability of characters, the things I used to read
+in Vitebsk. The text was illustrated by frequent pictures, in which
+the villain generally had his hands on the heroine's throat, while the
+hero was bursting in through a graceful drapery to the rescue of his
+beloved. If a bundle came into the house wrapped in a stained old
+newspaper, I laboriously smoothed out the paper and read it through. I
+enjoyed it all, and found fault with nothing that I read. And, as in
+the case of the Vitebsk readings, I cannot find that I suffered any
+harm. Of course, reading so many better books, there came a time when
+the diamond-ring story paper disgusted me; but in the beginning my
+appetite for print was so enormous that I could let nothing pass
+through my hands unread, while my taste was so crude that nothing
+printed could offend me.
+
+Good reading matter came into the house from one other source besides
+the library. The Yiddish newspapers of the day were excellent, and my
+father subscribed to the best of them. Since that time Yiddish
+journalism has sadly degenerated, through imitation of the vicious
+"yellow journals" of the American press.
+
+There was one book in the library over which I pored very often, and
+that was the encyclopædia. I turned usually to the names of famous
+people, beginning, of course, with George Washington. Oftenest of all
+I read the biographical sketches of my favorite authors, and felt that
+the worthies must have been glad to die just to have their names and
+histories printed out in the book of fame. It seemed to me the
+apotheosis of glory to be even briefly mentioned in an encyclopædia.
+And there grew in me an enormous ambition that devoured all my other
+ambitions, which was no less than this: that I should live to know
+that after my death my name would surely be printed in the
+encyclopædia. It was such a prodigious thing to expect that I kept the
+idea a secret even from myself, just letting it lie where it sprouted,
+in an unexplored corner of my busy brain. But it grew on me in spite
+of myself, till finally I could not resist the temptation to study out
+the exact place in the encyclopædia where my name would belong. I saw
+that it would come not far from "Alcott, Louisa M."; and I covered my
+face with my hands, to hide the silly, baseless joy in it. I practised
+saying my name in the encyclopædic form, "Antin, Mary"; and I realized
+that it sounded chopped off, and wondered if I might not annex a
+middle initial. I wanted to ask my teacher about it, but I was afraid
+I might betray my reasons. For, infatuated though I was with the idea
+of the greatness I might live to attain, I knew very well that thus
+far my claims to posthumous fame were ridiculously unfounded, and I
+did not want to be laughed at for my vanity.
+
+Spirit of all childhood! Forgive me, forgive me, for so lightly
+betraying a child's dream-secrets. I that smile so scoffingly to-day
+at the unsophisticated child that was myself, have I found any nobler
+thing in life than my own longing to be noble? Would I not rather be
+consumed by ambitions that can never be realized than live in stupid
+acceptance of my neighbor's opinion of me? The statue in the public
+square is less a portrait of a mortal individual than a symbol of the
+immortal aspiration of humanity. So do not laugh at the little boy
+playing at soldiers, if he tells you he is going to hew the world into
+good behavior when he gets to be a man. And do, by all means, write my
+name in the book of fame, saying, She was one who aspired. For that,
+in condensed form, is the story of the lives of the great.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Summer days are long, and the evenings, we know, are as long as the
+lamp-wick. So, with all my reading, I had time to play; and, with all
+my studiousness, I had the will to play. My favorite playmates were
+boys. It was but mild fun to play theatre in Bessie Finklestein's
+back yard, even if I had leading parts, which I made impressive by
+recitations in Russian, no word of which was intelligible to my
+audience. It was far better sport to play hide-and-seek with the boys,
+for I enjoyed the use of my limbs--what there was of them. I was so
+often reproached and teased for being little, that it gave me great
+satisfaction to beat a five-foot boy to the goal.
+
+Once a great, hulky colored boy, who was the torment of the
+neighborhood, treated me roughly while I was playing on the street. My
+father, determined to teach the rascal a lesson for once, had him
+arrested and brought to court. The boy was locked up overnight, and he
+emerged from his brief imprisonment with a respect for the rights and
+persons of his neighbors. But the moral of this incident lies not
+herein. What interested me more than my revenge on a bully was what I
+saw of the way in which justice was actually administered in the
+United States. Here we were gathered in the little courtroom, bearded
+Arlington Street against wool-headed Arlington Street; accused and
+accuser, witnesses, sympathizers, sight-seers, and all. Nobody
+cringed, nobody was bullied, nobody lied who didn't want to. We were
+all free, and all treated equally, just as it said in the
+Constitution! The evil-doer was actually punished, and not the victim,
+as might very easily happen in a similar case in Russia. "Liberty and
+justice for all." Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!
+
+There was one occasion in the week when I was ever willing to put away
+my book, no matter how entrancing were its pages. That was on Saturday
+night, when Bessie Finklestein called for me; and Bessie and I, with
+arms entwined, called for Sadie Rabinowitch; and Bessie and Sadie and
+I, still further entwined, called for Annie Reilly; and Bessie, etc.,
+etc., inextricably wound up, marched up Broadway, and took possession
+of all we saw, heard, guessed, or desired, from end to end of that
+main thoroughfare of Chelsea.
+
+Parading all abreast, as many as we were, only breaking ranks to let
+people pass; leaving the imprints of our noses and fingers on
+plate-glass windows ablaze with electric lights and alluring with
+display; inspecting tons of cheap candy, to find a few pennies' worth
+of the most enduring kind, the same to be sucked and chewed by the
+company, turn and turn about, as we continued our promenade; loitering
+wherever a crowd gathered, or running for a block or so to cheer on
+the fire-engine or police ambulance; getting into everybody's way, and
+just keeping clear of serious mischief,--we were only girls,--we
+enjoyed ourselves as only children can whose fathers keep a basement
+grocery store, whose mothers do their own washing, and whose sisters
+operate a machine for five dollars a week. Had we been boys, I suppose
+Bessie and Sadie and the rest of us would have been a "gang," and
+would have popped into the Chinese laundry to tease "Chinky Chinaman,"
+and been chased by the "cops" from comfortable doorsteps, and had a
+"bully" time of it. Being what we were, we called ourselves a "set,"
+and we had a "lovely" time, as people who passed us on Broadway could
+not fail to see. And hear. For we were at the giggling age, and
+Broadway on Saturday night was full of giggles for us. We stayed out
+till all hours, too; for Arlington Street had no strict domestic
+programme, not even in the nursery, the inmates of which were as
+likely to be found in the gutter as in their cots, at any time this
+side of one o'clock in the morning.
+
+There was an element in my enjoyment that was yielded neither by the
+sights, the adventures, nor the chewing-candy. I had a keen feeling
+for the sociability of the crowd. All plebeian Chelsea was abroad, and
+a bourgeois population is nowhere unneighborly. Women shapeless with
+bundles, their hats awry over thin, eager faces, gathered in knots on
+the edge of the curb, boasting of their bargains. Little girls in
+curlpapers and little boys in brimless hats clung to their skirts,
+whining for pennies, only to be silenced by absent-minded cuffs. A few
+disconsolate fathers strayed behind these family groups, the rest
+being distributed between the barber shops and the corner lamp-posts.
+I understood these people, being one of them, and I liked them, and I
+found it all delightfully sociable.
+
+Saturday night is the workman's wife's night, but that does not
+entirely prevent my lady from going abroad, if only to leave an order
+at the florist's. So it happened that Bellingham Hill and Washington
+Avenue, the aristocratic sections of Chelsea, mingled with Arlington
+Street on Broadway, to the further enhancement of my enjoyment of the
+occasion. For I always loved a mixed crowd. I loved the contrasts, the
+high lights and deep shadows, and the gradations that connect the two,
+and make all life one. I saw many, many things that I was not aware of
+seeing at the time. I only found out afterwards what treasures my
+brain had stored up, when, coming to the puzzling places in life,
+light and meaning would suddenly burst on me, the hidden fruit of some
+experience that had not impressed me at the time.
+
+How many times, I wonder, did I brush past my destiny on Broadway,
+foolishly staring after it, instead of going home to pray? I wonder
+did a stranger collide with me, and put me patiently out of his way,
+wondering why such a mite was not at home and abed at ten o'clock in
+the evening, and never dreaming that one day he might have to reckon
+with me? Did some one smile down on my childish glee, I wonder,
+unwarned of a day when we should weep together? I wonder--I wonder. A
+million threads of life and love and sorrow was the common street; and
+whether we would or not, we entangled ourselves in a common maze,
+without paying the homage of a second glance to those who would some
+day master us; too dull to pick that face from out the crowd which one
+day would bend over us in love or pity or remorse. What company of
+skipping, laughing little girls is to be reproached for careless
+hours, when men and women on every side stepped heedlessly into the
+traps of fate? Small sin it was to annoy my neighbor by getting in his
+way, as I stared over my shoulder, if a grown man knew no better than
+to drop a word in passing that might turn the course of another's
+life, as a boulder rolled down from the mountain-side deflects the
+current of a brook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MANNA
+
+
+So went the life in Chelsea for the space of a year or so. Then my
+father, finding a discrepancy between his assets and liabilities on
+the wrong side of the ledger, once more struck tent, collected his
+flock, and set out in search of richer pastures.
+
+There was a charming simplicity about these proceedings. Here to-day,
+apparently rooted; there to-morrow, and just as much at home. Another
+basement grocery, with a freshly painted sign over the door; the broom
+in the corner, the loaf on the table--these things made home for us.
+There were rather more Negroes on Wheeler Street, in the lower South
+End of Boston, than there had been on Arlington Street, which promised
+more numerous outstanding accounts; but they were a neighborly folk,
+and they took us strangers in--sometimes very badly. Then there was
+the school three blocks away, where "America" was sung to the same
+tune as in Chelsea, and geography was made as dark a mystery. It was
+impossible not to feel at home.
+
+And presently, lest anything be lacking to our domestic bliss, there
+was a new baby in a borrowed crib; and little Dora had only a few more
+turns to take with her battered doll carriage before a life-size
+vehicle with a more animated dolly was turned over to her constant
+care.
+
+The Wheeler Street neighborhood is not a place where a refined young
+lady would care to find herself alone, even in the cheery daylight. If
+she came at all, she would be attended by a trusty escort. She
+would not get too close to people on the doorsteps, and she would
+shrink away in disgust and fear from a blear-eyed creature careering
+down the sidewalk on many-jointed legs. The delicate damsel would
+hasten home to wash and purify and perfume herself till the foul
+contact of Wheeler Street was utterly eradicated, and her wonted
+purity restored. And I do not blame her. I only wish that she would
+bring a little soap and water and perfumery into Wheeler Street next
+time she comes; for some people there may be smothering in the filth
+which they abhor as much as she, but from which they cannot, like her,
+run away.
+
+   [Illustration: WHEELER STREET, IN THE LOWER SOUTH END OF BOSTON]
+
+Many years after my escape from Wheeler Street I returned to see if
+the place was as bad as I remembered it. I found the narrow street
+grown even narrower, the sidewalk not broad enough for two to walk
+abreast, the gutter choked with dust and refuse, the dingy row of
+tenements on either side unspeakably gloomy. I discovered, what I had
+not realized before, that Wheeler Street was a crooked lane connecting
+a corner saloon on Shawmut Avenue with a block of houses of ill repute
+on Corning Street. It had been the same in my day, but I had not
+understood much, and I lived unharmed.
+
+On this later visit I walked slowly up one side of the street, and
+down the other, remembering many things. It was eleven o'clock in the
+evening, and sounds of squabbling coming through doors and windows
+informed my experienced ear that a part of Wheeler Street was going to
+bed. The grocery store in the basement of Number 11--my father's old
+store--was still open for business; and in the gutter in front of the
+store, to be sure, was a happy baby, just as there used to be.
+
+I was not alone on this tour of inspection. I was attended by a trusty
+escort. But I brought soap and water with me. I am applying them now.
+
+I found no fault with Wheeler Street when I was fourteen years old. On
+the contrary, I pronounced it good. We had never lived so near the car
+tracks before, and I delighted in the moonlike splendor of the arc
+lamp just in front of the saloon. The space illumined by this lamp and
+enlivened by the passage of many thirsty souls was the favorite
+playground for Wheeler Street youth. On our street there was not room
+to turn around; here the sidewalk spread out wider as it swung around
+to Shawmut Avenue.
+
+I played with the boys by preference, as in Chelsea. I learned to cut
+across the tracks in front of an oncoming car, and it was great fun to
+see the motorman's angry face turn scared, when he thought I was going
+to be shaved this time sure. It was amusing, too, to watch the side
+door of the saloon, which opened right opposite the grocery store, and
+see a drunken man put out by the bartender. The fellow would whine so
+comically, and cling to the doorpost so like a damp leaf to a twig,
+and blubber so like a red-faced baby, that it was really funny to see
+him.
+
+And there was Morgan Chapel. It was worth coming to Wheeler Street
+just for that. All the children of the neighborhood, except the most
+rowdyish, flocked to Morgan Chapel at least once a week. This was on
+Saturday evening, when a free entertainment was given, consisting of
+music, recitations, and other parlor accomplishments. The performances
+were exceedingly artistic, according to the impartial judgment of
+juvenile Wheeler Street. I can speak with authority for the crowd of
+us from Number 11. We hung upon the lips of the beautiful ladies who
+read or sang to us; and they in turn did their best, recognizing the
+quality of our approval. We admired the miraculously clean gentlemen
+who sang or played, as heartily as we applauded their performance.
+Sometimes the beautiful ladies were accompanied by ravishing little
+girls who stood up in a glory of golden curls, frilled petticoats, and
+silk stockings, to recite pathetic or comic pieces, with trained
+expression and practised gestures that seemed to us the perfection of
+the elocutionary art. We were all a little bit stage-struck after
+these entertainments; but what was more, we were genuinely moved by
+the glimpses of a fairer world than ours which we caught through the
+music and poetry; the world in which the beautiful ladies dwelt with
+the fairy children and the clean gentlemen.
+
+Brother Hotchkins, who managed these entertainments, knew what he was
+there for. His programmes were masterly. Classics of the lighter sort
+were judiciously interspersed with the favorite street songs of the
+day. Nothing that savored of the chapel was there: the hour was
+honestly devoted to entertainment. The total effect was an exquisitely
+balanced compound of pleasure, wonder, and longing. Knock-kneed men
+with purple noses, bristling chins, and no collars, who slouched in
+sceptically and sat tentatively on the edge of the rear settees at the
+beginning of the concert, moved nearer the front as the programme went
+on, and openly joined in the applause at the end. Scowling fellows who
+came in with defiant faces occasionally slunk out shamefaced; and both
+the knock-kneed and the defiant sometimes remained to hear Brother
+Tompkins pray and preach. And it was all due to Brother Hotchkins's
+masterly programme. The children behaved very well, for the most part;
+the few "toughs" who came in on purpose to make trouble were promptly
+expelled by Brother Hotchkins and his lieutenants.
+
+I could not help admiring Brother Hotchkins, he was so eminently
+efficient in every part of the hall, at every stage of the
+proceedings. I always believed that he was the author of the alluring
+notices that occupied the bulletin board every Saturday, though I
+never knew it for a fact. The way he handled the bad boys was
+masterly. The way he introduced the performers was inimitable. The way
+he did everything was the best way. And yet I did not like Brother
+Hotchkins. I could not. He was too slim, too pale, too fair. His voice
+was too encouraging, his smile was too restrained. The man was a
+missionary, and it stuck out all over him. I could not abide a
+missionary. That was the Jew in me, the European Jew, trained by the
+cruel centuries of his outcast existence to distrust any one who spoke
+of God by any other name than _Adonai_. But I should have resented the
+suggestion that inherited distrust was the cause of my dislike for
+good Brother Hotchkins; for I considered myself freed from racial
+prejudices, by the same triumph of my infallible judgment which had
+lifted from me the yoke of credulity. An uncompromising atheist, such
+as I was at the age of fourteen, was bound to scorn all those who
+sought to implant religion in their fellow men, and thereby prolong
+the reign of superstition. Of course that was the explanation.
+
+Brother Hotchkins, happily unconscious of my disapproval of his
+complexion, arose at intervals behind the railing, to announce, from a
+slip of paper, that "the next number on our programme will be a
+musical selection by," etc., etc.; until he arrived at "I am sure you
+will all join me in thanking the ladies and gentlemen who have
+entertained us this evening." And as I moved towards the door with my
+companions, I would hear his voice raised for the inevitable "You are
+all invited to remain to a short prayer service, after which--" a
+little louder--"refreshments will be served in the vestry. I will ask
+Brother Tompkins to--" The rest was lost in the shuffle of feet about
+the door and the roar of electric cars glancing past each other on
+opposite tracks. I always got out of the chapel before Brother
+Tompkins could do me any harm. As if there was anything he could steal
+from me, now that there was no God in my heart!
+
+If I were to go back to Morgan Chapel now, I should stay to hear
+Brother Tompkins, and as many other brethren as might have anything to
+say. I would sit very still in my corner seat and listen to the
+prayer, and silently join in the Amen. For I know now what Wheeler
+Street is, and I know what Morgan Chapel is there for, in the midst of
+those crooked alleys, those saloons, those pawnshops, those gloomy
+tenements. It is there to apply soap and water, and it is doing that
+all the time. I have learned, since my deliverance from Wheeler
+Street, that there is more than one road to any given goal. I should
+look with respect at Brother Hotchkins applying soap and water in his
+own way, convinced at last that my way is not the only way. Men must
+work with those tools to the use of which they are best fitted by
+nature. Brother Hotchkins must pray, and I must bear witness, and
+another must nurse a feeble infant. We are all honest workmen, and
+deserve standing-room in the workshop of sweating humanity. It is
+only the idle scoffers who stand by and jeer at our efforts to cleanse
+our house that should be kicked out of the door, as Brother Hotchkins
+turned out the rowdies.
+
+It was characteristic of the looseness of our family discipline at
+this time that nobody was seriously interested in our visits to Morgan
+Chapel. Our time was our own, after school duties and household tasks
+were done. Joseph sold newspapers after school; I swept and washed
+dishes; Dora minded the baby. For the rest, we amused ourselves as
+best we could. Father and mother were preoccupied with the store day
+and night; and not so much with weighing and measuring and making
+change as with figuring out how long it would take the outstanding
+accounts to ruin the business entirely. If my mother had scruples
+against her children resorting to a building with a cross on it, she
+did not have time to formulate them. If my father heard us talking
+about Morgan Chapel, he dismissed the subject with a sarcastic
+characterization, and wanted to know if we were going to join the
+Salvation Army next; but he did not seriously care, and he was willing
+that the children should have a good time. And if my parents had
+objected to Morgan Chapel, was the sidewalk in front of the saloon a
+better place for us children to spend the evening? They could not have
+argued with us very long, so they hardly argued at all.
+
+In Polotzk we had been trained and watched, our days had been
+regulated, our conduct prescribed. In America, suddenly, we were let
+loose on the street. Why? Because my father having renounced his
+faith, and my mother being uncertain of hers, they had no particular
+creed to hold us to. The conception of a system of ethics independent
+of religion could not at once enter as an active principle in their
+life; so that they could give a child no reason why to be truthful or
+kind. And as with religion, so it fared with other branches of our
+domestic education. Chaos took the place of system; uncertainty,
+inconsistency undermined discipline. My parents knew only that they
+desired us to be like American children; and seeing how their
+neighbors gave their children boundless liberty, they turned us also
+loose, never doubting but that the American way was the best way. In
+public deportment, in etiquette, in all matters of social intercourse,
+they had no standards to go by, seeing that America was not Polotzk.
+In their bewilderment and uncertainty they needs must trust us
+children to learn from such models as the tenements afforded. More
+than this, they must step down from their throne of parental
+authority, and take the law from their children's mouths; for they had
+no other means of finding out what was good American form. The result
+was that laxity of domestic organization, that inversion of normal
+relations which makes for friction, and which sometimes ends in
+breaking up a family that was formerly united and happy.
+
+This sad process of disintegration of home life may be observed in
+almost any immigrant family of our class and with our traditions and
+aspirations. It is part of the process of Americanization; an upheaval
+preceding the state of repose. It is the cross that the first and
+second generations must bear, an involuntary sacrifice for the sake of
+the future generations. These are the pains of adjustment, as racking
+as the pains of birth. And as the mother forgets her agonies in the
+bliss of clasping her babe to her breast, so the bent and heart-sore
+immigrant forgets exile and homesickness and ridicule and loss and
+estrangement, when he beholds his sons and daughters moving as
+Americans among Americans.
+
+On Wheeler Street there were no real homes. There were miserable flats
+of three or four rooms, or fewer, in which families that did not
+practise race suicide cooked, washed, and ate; slept from two to four
+in a bed, in windowless bedrooms; quarrelled in the gray morning, and
+made up in the smoky evening; tormented each other, supported each
+other, saved each other, drove each other out of the house. But there
+was no common life in any form that means life. There was no room for
+it, for one thing. Beds and cribs took up most of the floor space,
+disorder packed the interspaces. The centre table in the "parlor" was
+not loaded with books. It held, invariably, a photograph album and an
+ornamental lamp with a paper shade; and the lamp was usually out of
+order. So there was as little motive for a common life as there was
+room. The yard was only big enough for the perennial rubbish heap. The
+narrow sidewalk was crowded. What were the people to do with
+themselves? There were the saloons, the missions, the libraries, the
+cheap amusement places, and the neighborhood houses. People selected
+their resorts according to their tastes. The children, let it be
+thankfully recorded, flocked mostly to the clubs; the little girls to
+sew, cook, dance, and play games; the little boys to hammer and paste,
+mend chairs, debate, and govern a toy republic. All these, of course,
+are forms of baptism by soap and water.
+
+Our neighborhood went in search of salvation to Morgan Memorial Hall,
+Barnard Memorial, Morgan Chapel aforementioned, and some other clean
+places that lighted a candle in their window. My brother, my sister
+Dora, and I were introduced to some of the clubs by our young
+neighbors, and we were glad to go. For our home also gave us little
+besides meals in the kitchen and beds in the dark. What with the six
+of us, and the store, and the baby, and sometimes a "greener" or two
+from Polotzk, whom we lodged as a matter of course till they found a
+permanent home--what with such a company and the size of our tenement,
+we needed to get out almost as much as our neighbors' children. I say
+almost; for our parlor we managed to keep pretty clear, and the lamp
+on our centre table was always in order, and its light fell often on
+an open book. Still, it was part of the life of Wheeler Street to
+belong to clubs, so we belonged.
+
+I didn't care for sewing or cooking, so I joined a dancing-club; and
+even here I was a failure. I had been a very good dancer in Russia,
+but here I found all the steps different, and I did not have the
+courage to go out in the middle of the slippery floor and mince it and
+toe it in front of the teacher. When I retired to a corner and tried
+to play dominoes, I became suddenly shy of my partner; and I never
+could win a game of checkers, although formerly I used to beat my
+father at it. I tried to be friends with a little girl I had known in
+Chelsea, but she met my advances coldly. She lived on Appleton Street,
+which was too aristocratic to mix with Wheeler Street. Geraldine was
+studying elocution, and she wore a scarlet cape and hood, and she was
+going on the stage by and by. I acknowledged that her sense of
+superiority was well-founded, and retired farther into my corner, for
+the first time conscious of my shabbiness and lowliness.
+
+I looked on at the dancing until I could endure it no longer. Overcome
+by a sense of isolation and unfitness, I slipped out of the room,
+avoiding the teacher's eye, and went home to write melancholy poetry.
+
+What had come over me? Why was I, the confident, the ambitious,
+suddenly grown so shy and meek? Why was the candidate for encyclopædic
+immortality overawed by a scarlet hood? Why did I, a very tomboy
+yesterday, suddenly find my playmates stupid, and hide-and-seek a
+bore? I did not know why. I only knew that I was lonely and troubled
+and sore; and I went home to write sad poetry.
+
+I shall never forget the pattern of the red carpet in our parlor,--we
+had achieved a carpet since Chelsea days,--because I lay for hours
+face down on the floor, writing poetry on a screechy slate. When I had
+perfected my verses, and copied them fair on the famous blue-lined
+note paper, and saw that I had made a very pathetic poem indeed, I
+felt better. And this happened over and over again. I gave up the
+dancing-club, I ceased to know the rowdy little boys, and I wrote
+melancholy poetry oftener, and felt better. The centre table became my
+study. I read much, and mooned between chapters, and wrote long
+letters to Miss Dillingham.
+
+For some time I wrote to her almost daily. That was when I found in my
+heart such depths of woe as I could not pack into rhyme. And finally
+there came a day when I could utter my trouble in neither verse nor
+prose, and I implored Miss Dillingham to come to me and hear my
+sorrowful revelations. But I did not want her to come to the house. In
+the house there was no privacy; I could not talk. Would she meet me on
+Boston Common at such and such a time?
+
+Would she? She was a devoted friend, and a wise woman. She met me on
+Boston Common. It was a gray autumn day--was it not actually
+drizzling?--and I was cold sitting on the bench; but I was thrilled
+through and through with the sense of the magnitude of my troubles,
+and of the romantic nature of the rendezvous. Who that was even half
+awake when he was growing up does not know what all these symptoms
+betokened? Miss Dillingham understood, and she wisely gave me no
+inkling of her diagnosis. She let me talk and kept a grave face. She
+did not belittle my troubles--I made specific charges against my home,
+members of my family, and life in general; she did not say that I
+would get over them, that every growing girl suffers from the blues;
+that I was, in brief, a little goose stretching my wings for flight.
+She told me rather that it would be noble to bear my sorrows bravely,
+to soothe those who irritated me, to live each day with all my might.
+She reminded me of great men and women who have suffered, and who
+overcame their troubles by living and working. And she sent me home
+amazingly comforted, my pettiness and self-consciousness routed by the
+quiet influence of her gray eyes searching mine. This, or something
+like this, had to be repeated many times, as anybody will know who was
+present at the slow birth of his manhood. From now on, for some years,
+of course, I must weep and laugh out of season, stand on tiptoe to
+pluck the stars in heaven, love and hate immoderately, propound
+theories of the destiny of man, and not know what is going on in my
+own heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TARNISHED LAURELS
+
+
+In the intervals of harkening to my growing-pains I was, of course,
+still a little girl. As a little girl, in many ways immature for my
+age, I finished my course in the grammar school, and was graduated
+with honors, four years after my landing in Boston.
+
+Wheeler Street recognizes five great events in a girl's life: namely,
+christening, confirmation, graduation, marriage, and burial. These
+occasions all require full dress for the heroine, and full dress is
+forthcoming, no matter if the family goes into debt for it. There was
+not a girl who came to school in rags all the year round that did not
+burst forth in sudden glory on Graduation Day. Fine muslin frocks,
+lace-trimmed petticoats, patent-leather shoes, perishable hats,
+gloves, parasols, fans--every girl had them. A mother who had scrubbed
+floors for years to keep her girl in school was not going to have her
+shamed in the end for want of a pretty dress. So she cut off the
+children's supply of butter and worked nights and borrowed and fell
+into arrears with the rent; and on Graduation Day she felt
+magnificently rewarded, seeing her Mamie as fine as any girl in the
+school. And in order to preserve for posterity this triumphant
+spectacle, she took Mamie, after the exercises, to be photographed,
+with her diploma in one hand, a bouquet in the other, and the gloves,
+fan, parasol, and patent-leather shoes in full sight around a fancy
+table. Truly, the follies of the poor are worth studying.
+
+It did not strike me as folly, but as the fulfilment of the portent of
+my natal star, when I saw myself, on Graduation Day, arrayed like unto
+a princess. Frills, lace, patent-leather shoes--I had everything. I
+even had a sash with silk fringes.
+
+Did I speak of folly? Listen, and I will tell you quite another tale.
+Perhaps when you have heard it you will not be too hasty to run and
+teach The Poor. Perhaps you will admit that The Poor may have
+something to teach you.
+
+Before we had been two years in America, my sister Frieda was engaged
+to be married. This was under the old dispensation: Frieda came to
+America too late to avail herself of the gifts of an American
+girlhood. Had she been two years younger she might have dodged her
+circumstances, evaded her Old-World fate. She would have gone to
+school and imbibed American ideas. She might have clung to her
+girlhood longer instead of marrying at seventeen. I am so fond of the
+American way that it has always seemed to me a pitiful accident that
+my sister should have come so near and missed by so little the
+fulfilment of my country's promise to women. A long girlhood, a free
+choice in marriage, and a brimful womanhood are the precious rights of
+an American woman.
+
+My father was too recently from the Old World to be entirely free from
+the influence of its social traditions. He had put Frieda to work out
+of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when she had an offer of
+marriage, but my father would not stand in the way of what he
+considered her welfare. Let her escape from the workshop, if she had a
+chance, while the roses were still in her cheeks. If she remained for
+ten years more bent over the needle, what would she gain? Not even
+her personal comfort; for Frieda never called her earnings her own,
+but spent everything on the family, denying herself all but
+necessities. The young man who sued for her was a good workman,
+earning fair wages, of irreproachable character, and refined manners.
+My father had known him for years.
+
+So Frieda was to be released from the workshop. The act was really in
+the nature of a sacrifice on my father's part, for he was still in the
+woods financially, and would sorely miss Frieda's wages. The greater
+the pity, therefore, that there was no one to counsel him to give
+America more time with my sister. She attended the night school; she
+was fond of reading. In books, in a slowly ripening experience, she
+might have found a better answer to the riddle of a girl's life than a
+premature marriage.
+
+My sister's engagement pleased me very well. Our confidences were not
+interrupted, and I understood that she was happy. I was very fond of
+Moses Rifkin myself. He was the nicest young man of my acquaintance,
+not at all like other workmen. He was very kind to us children,
+bringing us presents and taking us out for excursions. He had a sense
+of humor, and he was going to marry our Frieda. How could I help being
+pleased?
+
+The marriage was not to take place for some time, and in the interval
+Frieda remained in the shop. She continued to bring home all her
+wages. If she was going to desert the family, she would not let them
+feel it sooner than she must.
+
+Then all of a sudden she turned spendthrift. She appropriated I do not
+know what fabulous sums, to spend just as she pleased, for once. She
+attended bargain sales, and brought away such finery as had never
+graced our flat before. Home from work in the evening, after a hurried
+supper, she shut herself up in the parlor, and cut and snipped and
+measured and basted and stitched as if there were nothing else in the
+world to do. It was early summer, and the air had a wooing touch, even
+on Wheeler Street. Moses Rifkin came, and I suppose he also had a
+wooing touch. But Frieda only smiled and shook her head; and as her
+mouth was full of pins, it was physically impossible for Moses to
+argue. She remained all evening in a white disorder of tucked
+breadths, curled ruffles, dismembered sleeves, and swirls of fresh
+lace; her needle glancing in the lamplight, and poor Moses picking up
+her spools.
+
+Her trousseau, was it not? No, not her trousseau. It was my graduation
+dress on which she was so intent. And when it was finished, and was
+pronounced a most beautiful dress, and she ought to have been
+satisfied, Frieda went to the shops once more and bought the sash with
+the silk fringes.
+
+The improvidence of the poor is a most distressing spectacle to all
+right-minded students of sociology. But please spare me your homily
+this time. It does not apply. The poor are the poor in spirit. Those
+who are rich in spiritual endowment will never be found bankrupt.
+
+Graduation Day was nothing less than a triumph for me. It was not only
+that I had two pieces to speak, one of them an original composition;
+it was more because I was known in my school district as the
+"smartest" girl in the class, and all eyes were turned on the prodigy,
+and I was aware of it. I was aware of everything. That is why I am
+able to tell you everything now.
+
+The assembly hall was crowded to bursting, but my friends had no
+trouble in finding seats. They were ushered up to the platform, which
+was reserved for guests of honor. I was very proud to see my friends
+treated with such distinction. My parents were there, and Frieda, of
+course; Miss Dillingham, and some others of my Chelsea teachers. A
+dozen or so of my humbler friends and acquaintances were scattered
+among the crowd on the floor.
+
+When I stepped up on the stage to read my composition I was seized
+with stage fright. The floor under my feet and the air around me were
+oppressively present to my senses, while my own hand I could not have
+located. I did not know where my body began or ended, I was so
+conscious of my gloves, my shoes, my flowing sash. My wonderful dress,
+in which I had taken so much satisfaction, gave me the most trouble. I
+was suddenly paralyzed by a conviction that it was too short, and it
+seemed to me I stood on absurdly long legs. And ten thousand people
+were looking up at me. It was horrible!
+
+I suppose I no more than cleared my throat before I began to read, but
+to me it seemed that I stood petrified for an age, an awful silence
+booming in my ears. My voice, when at last I began, sounded far away.
+I thought that nobody could hear me. But I kept on, mechanically; for
+I had rehearsed many times. And as I read I gradually forgot myself,
+forgot the place and the occasion. The people looking up at me heard
+the story of a beautiful little boy, my cousin, whom I had loved very
+dearly, and who died in far-distant Russia some years after I came to
+America. My composition was not a masterpiece; it was merely good for
+a girl of fifteen. But I had written that I still loved the little
+cousin, and I made a thousand strangers feel it. And before the
+applause there was a moment of stillness in the great hall.
+
+After the singing and reading by the class, there were the customary
+addresses by distinguished guests. We girls were reminded that we were
+going to be women, and happiness was promised to those of us who would
+aim to be noble women. A great many trite and obvious things, a great
+deal of the rhetoric appropriate to the occasion, compliments,
+applause, general satisfaction; so went the programme. Much of the
+rhetoric, many of the fine sentiments did not penetrate to the
+thoughts of us for whom they were intended, because we were in such a
+flutter about our ruffles and ribbons, and could hardly refrain from
+openly prinking. But we applauded very heartily every speaker and
+every would-be speaker, understanding that by a consensus of opinion
+on the platform we were very fine young ladies, and much was to be
+expected of us.
+
+One of the last speakers was introduced as a member of the School
+Board. He began like all the rest of them, but he ended differently.
+Abandoning generalities, he went on to tell the story of a particular
+schoolgirl, a pupil in a Boston school, whose phenomenal career might
+serve as an illustration of what the American system of free education
+and the European immigrant could make of each other. He had not got
+very far when I realized, to my great surprise and no small delight,
+that he was telling my story. I saw my friends on the platform beaming
+behind the speaker, and I heard my name whispered in the audience. I
+had been so much of a celebrity, in a small local way, that
+identification of the speaker's heroine was inevitable. My classmates,
+of course, guessed the name, and they turned to look at me, and
+nudged me, and all but pointed at me; their new muslins rustling and
+silk ribbons hissing.
+
+One or two nearest me forgot etiquette so far as to whisper to me.
+"Mary Antin," they said, as the speaker sat down, amid a burst of the
+most enthusiastic applause,--"Mary Antin, why don't you get up and
+thank him?"
+
+I was dazed with all that had happened. Bursting with pride I was, but
+I was moved, too, by nobler feelings. I realized, in a vague, far-off
+way, what it meant to my father and mother to be sitting there and
+seeing me held up as a paragon, my history made the theme of an
+eloquent discourse; what it meant to my father to see his ambitious
+hopes thus gloriously fulfilled, his judgment of me verified; what it
+meant to Frieda to hear me all but named with such honor. With all
+these things choking my heart to overflowing, my wits forsook me, if I
+had had any at all that day. The audience was stirring and whispering
+so that I could hear: "Who is it?" "Is that so?" And again they
+prompted me:--
+
+"Mary Antin, get up. Get up and thank him, Mary."
+
+And I rose where I sat, and in a voice that sounded thin as a fly's
+after the oratorical bass of the last speaker, I began:--
+
+"I want to thank you--"
+
+That is as far as I got. Mr. Swan, the principal, waved his hand to
+silence me; and then, and only then, did I realize the enormity of
+what I had done.
+
+My eulogist had had the good taste not to mention names, and I had
+been brazenly forward, deliberately calling attention to myself when
+there was no need. Oh, it was sickening! I hated myself, I hated with
+all my heart the girls who had prompted me to such immodest conduct. I
+wished the ground would yawn and snap me up. I was ashamed to look up
+at my friends on the platform. What was Miss Dillingham thinking of
+me? Oh, what a fool I had been! I had ruined my own triumph. I had
+disgraced myself, and my friends, and poor Mr. Swan, and the Winthrop
+School. The monster vanity had sucked out my wits, and left me a
+staring idiot.
+
+It is easy to say that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill, a
+catastrophe out of a mere breach of good manners. It is easy to say
+that. But I know that I suffered agonies of shame. After the
+exercises, when the crowd pressed in all directions in search of
+friends, I tried in vain to get out of the hall. I was mobbed, I was
+lionized. Everybody wanted to shake hands with the prodigy of the day,
+and they knew who it was. I had made sure of that; I had exhibited
+myself. The people smiled on me, flattered me, passed me on from one
+to another. I smirked back, but I did not know what I said. I was wild
+to be clear of the building. I thought everybody mocked me. All my
+roses had turned to ashes, and all through my own brazen conduct.
+
+I would have given my diploma to have Miss Dillingham know how the
+thing had happened, but I could not bring myself to speak first. If
+she would ask me--But nobody asked. Nobody looked away from me.
+Everybody congratulated me, and my father and mother and my remotest
+relations. But the sting of shame smarted just the same; I could not
+be consoled. I had made a fool of myself: Mr. Swan had publicly put me
+down.
+
+Ah, so that was it! Vanity was the vital spot again. It was wounded
+vanity that writhed and squirmed. It was not because I had been bold,
+but because I had been pronounced bold, that I suffered so
+monstrously. If Mr. Swan, with an eloquent gesture, had not silenced
+me, I might have made my little speech--good heavens! what _did_ I
+mean to say?--and probably called it another feather in my bonnet. But
+he had stopped me promptly, disgusted with my forwardness, and he had
+shown before all those hundreds what he thought of me. Therein lay the
+sting.
+
+With all my talent for self-analysis, it took me a long time to
+realize the essential pettiness of my trouble. For years--actually for
+years--after that eventful day of mingled triumph and disgrace, I
+could not think of the unhappy incident without inward squirming. I
+remember distinctly how the little scene would suddenly flash upon me
+at night, as I lay awake in bed, and I would turn over impatiently, as
+if to shake off a nightmare; and this so long after the occurrence
+that I was myself amazed at the persistence of the nightmare. I had
+never been reproached by any one for my conduct on Graduation Day. Why
+could I not forgive myself? I studied the matter deeply--it wearies me
+to remember how deeply--till at last I understood that it was wounded
+vanity that hurt so, and no nobler remorse. Then, and only then, was
+the ghost laid. If it ever tried to get up again, after that, I only
+had to call it names to see it scurry back to its grave and pull the
+sod down after it.
+
+Before I had laid my ghost, a friend told me of a similar experience
+of his boyhood. He was present at a small private entertainment, and a
+violinist who should have played being absent, the host asked for a
+volunteer to take his place. My friend, then a boy in his teens,
+offered himself, and actually stood up with the violin in his hands,
+as if to play. But he could not even hold the instrument properly--he
+had never been taught the violin. He told me he never knew what
+possessed him to get up and make a fool of himself before a roomful of
+people; but he was certain that ten thousand imps possessed him and
+tormented him for years and years after if only he remembered the
+incident.
+
+My friend's confession was such a consolation to me that I could not
+help thinking I might do some other poor wretch a world of good by
+offering him my company and that of my friend in his misery. For if it
+took me a long time to find out that I was a vain fool, the corollary
+did not escape me: there must be other vain fools.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+DOVER STREET
+
+
+What happened next was Dover Street.
+
+And what was Dover Street?
+
+Ask rather, What was it not? Dover Street was my fairest garden of
+girlhood, a gate of paradise, a window facing on a broad avenue of
+life. Dover Street was a prison, a school of discipline, a battlefield
+of sordid strife. The air in Dover Street was heavy with evil odors of
+degradation, but a breath from the uppermost heavens rippled through,
+whispering of infinite things. In Dover Street the dragon poverty
+gripped me for a last fight, but I overthrew the hideous creature, and
+sat on his neck as on a throne. In Dover Street I was shackled with a
+hundred chains of disadvantage, but with one free hand I planted
+little seeds, right there in the mud of shame, that blossomed into the
+honeyed rose of widest freedom. In Dover Street there was often no
+loaf on the table, but the hand of some noble friend was ever in mine.
+The night in Dover Street was rent with the cries of wrong, but the
+thunders of truth crashed through the pitiful clamor and died out in
+prophetic silences.
+
+Outwardly, Dover Street is a noisy thoroughfare cut through a South
+End slum, in every essential the same as Wheeler Street. Turn down any
+street in the slums, at random, and call it by whatever name you
+please, you will observe there the same fashions of life, death, and
+endurance. Every one of those streets is a rubbish heap of damaged
+humanity, and it will take a powerful broom and an ocean of soapsuds
+to clean it out.
+
+Dover Street is intersected, near its eastern end, where we lived, by
+Harrison Avenue. That street is to the South End what Salem Street is
+to the North End. It is the heart of the South End ghetto, for the
+greater part of its length; although its northern end belongs to the
+realm of Chinatown. Its multifarious business bursts through the
+narrow shop doors, and overruns the basements, the sidewalk, the
+street itself, in pushcarts and open-air stands. Its multitudinous
+population bursts through the greasy tenement doors, and floods the
+corridors, the doorsteps, the gutters, the side streets, pushing in
+and out among the pushcarts, all day long and half the night besides.
+
+Rarely as Harrison Avenue is caught asleep, even more rarely is it
+found clean. Nothing less than a fire or flood would cleanse this
+street. Even Passover cannot quite accomplish this feat. For although
+the tenements may be scrubbed to their remotest corners, on this one
+occasion, the cleansing stops at the curbstone. A great deal of the
+filthy rubbish accumulated in a year is pitched into the street, often
+through the windows; and what the ashman on his daily round does not
+remove is left to be trampled to powder, in which form it steals back
+into the houses from which it was so lately removed.
+
+The City Fathers provide soap and water for the slums, in the form of
+excellent schools, kindergartens, and branch libraries. And there they
+stop: at the curbstone of the people's life. They cleanse and
+discipline the children's minds, but their bodies they pitch into the
+gutter. For there are no parks and almost no playgrounds in the
+Harrison Avenue district,--in my day there were none,--and such as
+there are have been wrenched from the city by public-spirited citizens
+who have no offices in City Hall. No wonder the ashman is not more
+thorough: he learns from his masters.
+
+It is a pity to have it so, in a queen of enlightened cities like
+Boston. If we of the twentieth century do not believe in baseball as
+much as in philosophy, we have not learned the lesson of modern
+science, which teaches, among other things, that the body is the
+nursery of the soul; the instrument of our moral development; the
+secret chart of our devious progress from worm to man. The great
+achievement of recent science, of which we are so proud, has been the
+deciphering of the hieroglyphic of organic nature. To worship the
+facts and neglect the implications of the message of science is to
+applaud the drama without taking the moral to heart. And we certainly
+are not taking the moral to heart when we try to make a hero out of
+the boy by such foreign appliances as grammar and algebra, while
+utterly despising the fittest instrument for his uplifting--the boy's
+own body.
+
+We had no particular reason for coming to Dover Street. It might just
+as well have been Applepie Alley. For my father had sold, with the
+goods, fixtures, and good-will of the Wheeler Street store, all his
+hopes of ever making a living in the grocery trade; and I doubt if he
+got a silver dollar the more for them. We had to live somewhere, even
+if we were not making a living, so we came to Dover Street, where
+tenements were cheap; by which I mean that rent was low. The ultimate
+cost of life in those tenements, in terms of human happiness, is high
+enough.
+
+Our new home consisted of five small rooms up two flights of
+stairs, with the right of way through the dark corridors. In the
+"parlor" the dingy paper hung in rags and the plaster fell in chunks.
+One of the bedrooms was absolutely dark and air-tight. The kitchen
+windows looked out on a dirty court, at the back of which was the rear
+tenement of the estate. To us belonged, along with the five rooms and
+the right of way aforesaid, a block of upper space the length of a
+pulley line across this court, and the width of an arc described by a
+windy Monday's wash in its remotest wanderings.
+
+   [Illustration: HARRISON AVENUE IS THE HEART OF THE SOUTH END
+   GHETTO]
+
+The little front bedroom was assigned to me, with only one partner, my
+sister Dora. A mouse could not have led a cat much of a chase across
+this room; still we found space for a narrow bed, a crazy bureau, and
+a small table. From the window there was an unobstructed view of a
+lumberyard, beyond which frowned the blackened walls of a factory. The
+fence of the lumberyard was gay with theatre posters and illustrated
+advertisements of tobacco, whiskey, and patent baby foods. When the
+window was open, there was a constant clang and whirr of electric
+cars, varied by the screech of machinery, the clatter of empty wagons,
+or the rumble of heavy trucks.
+
+There was nothing worse in all this than we had had before since our
+exile from Crescent Beach; but I did not take the same delight in the
+propinquity of electric cars and arc lights that I had till now. I
+suppose the tenement began to pall on me.
+
+It must not be supposed that I enjoyed any degree of privacy, because
+I had half a room to myself. We were six in the five rooms; we were
+bound to be always in each other's way. And as it was within our flat,
+so it was in the house as a whole. All doors, beginning with the
+street door, stood open most of the time; or if they were closed, the
+tenants did not wear out their knuckles knocking for admittance. I
+could stand at any time in the unswept entrance hall and tell, from an
+analysis of the medley of sounds and smells that issued from doors
+ajar, what was going on in the several flats from below up. That
+guttural, scolding voice, unremittent as the hissing of a steam pipe,
+is Mrs. Rasnosky. I make a guess that she is chastising the infant
+Isaac for taking a second lump of sugar in his tea. _Spam! Bam!_ Yes,
+and she is rubbing in her objections with the flat of her hand. That
+blubbering and moaning, accompanying an elephantine tread, is fat Mrs.
+Casey, second floor, home drunk from an afternoon out, in fear of the
+vengeance of Mr. Casey; to propitiate whom she is burning a pan of
+bacon, as the choking fumes and outrageous sizzling testify. I hear a
+feeble whining, interrupted by long silences. It is that scabby baby
+on the third floor, fallen out of bed again, with nobody home to pick
+him up.
+
+To escape from these various horrors I ascend to the roof, where bacon
+and babies and child-beating are not. But there I find two figures in
+calico wrappers, with bare red arms akimbo, a basket of wet clothes in
+front of each, and only one empty clothes-line between them. I do not
+want to be dragged in as a witness in a case of assault and battery,
+so I descend to the street again, grateful to note, as I pass, that
+the third-floor baby is still.
+
+In front of the door I squeeze through a group of children. They are
+going to play tag, and are counting to see who should be "it":--
+
+    "My-mother-and-your-mother-went-out-to-hang-clothes;
+    My-mother-gave-your-mother-a-punch-in-the-nose."
+
+If the children's couplet does not give a vivid picture of the life,
+manners, and customs of Dover Street, no description of mine can ever
+do so.
+
+Frieda was married before we came to Dover Street, and went to live in
+East Boston. This left me the eldest of the children at home. Whether
+on this account, or because I was outgrowing my childish carelessness,
+or because I began to believe, on the cumulative evidence of the
+Crescent Beach, Chelsea, and Wheeler Street adventures, that America,
+after all, was not going to provide for my father's family,--whether
+for any or all of these reasons, I began at this time to take
+bread-and-butter matters more to heart, and to ponder ways and means
+of getting rich. My father sought employment wherever work was going
+on. His health was poor; he aged very fast. Nevertheless he offered
+himself for every kind of labor; he offered himself for a boy's wages.
+Here he was found too weak, here too old; here his imperfect English
+was in the way, here his Jewish appearance. He had a few short terms
+of work at this or that; I do not know the name of the form of
+drudgery that my father did not practise. But all told, he did not
+earn enough to pay the rent in full and buy a bone for the soup. The
+only steady source of income, for I do not know what years, was my
+brother's earnings from his newspapers.
+
+Surely this was the time for me to take my sister's place in the
+workshop. I had had every fair chance until now: school, my time to
+myself, liberty to run and play and make friends. I had graduated from
+grammar school; I was of legal age to go to work. What was I doing,
+sitting at home and dreaming?
+
+I was minding my business, of course; with all my might I was minding
+my business. As I understood it, my business was to go to school, to
+learn everything there was to know, to write poetry, become famous,
+and make the family rich. Surely it was not shirking to lay out such a
+programme for myself. I had boundless faith in my future. I was
+certainly going to be a great poet; I was certainly going to take care
+of the family.
+
+Thus mused I, in my arrogance. And my family? They were as bad as I.
+My father had not lost a whit of his ambition for me. Since Graduation
+Day, and the school-committeeman's speech, and half a column about me
+in the paper, his ambition had soared even higher. He was going to
+keep me at school till I was prepared for college. By that time, he
+was sure, I would more than take care of myself. It never for a moment
+entered his head to doubt the wisdom or justice of this course. And my
+mother was just as loyal to my cause, and my brother, and my sister.
+
+It is no wonder if I got along rapidly: I was helped, encouraged, and
+upheld by every one. Even the baby cheered me on. When I asked her
+whether she believed in higher education, she answered, without a
+moment's hesitation, "Ducka-ducka-da!" Against her I remember only
+that one day, when I read her a verse out of a most pathetic piece I
+was composing, she laughed right out, a most disrespectful laugh; for
+which I revenged myself by washing her face at the faucet, and rubbing
+it red on the roller towel.
+
+It was just like me, when it was debated whether I would be best
+fitted for college at the High or the Latin School, to go in person to
+Mr. Tetlow, who was principal of both schools, and so get the most
+expert opinion on the subject. I never send a messenger, you may
+remember, where I can go myself. It was vacation time, and I had to
+find Mr. Tetlow at his home. Away out to the wilds of Roxbury I found
+my way--perhaps half an hour's ride on the electric car from Dover
+Street. I grew an inch taller and broader between the corner of Cedar
+Street and Mr. Tetlow's house, such was the charm of the clean, green
+suburb on a cramped waif from the slums. My faded calico dress, my
+rusty straw sailor hat, the color of my skin and all bespoke the waif.
+But never a bit daunted was I. I went up the steps to the porch, rang
+the bell, and asked for the great man with as much assurance as if I
+were a daily visitor on Cedar Street. I calmly awaited the appearance
+of Mr. Tetlow in the reception room, and stated my errand without
+trepidation.
+
+And why not? I was a solemn little person for the moment, earnestly
+seeking advice on a matter of great importance. That is what Mr.
+Tetlow saw, to judge by the gravity with which he discussed my
+business with me, and the courtesy with which he showed me to the
+door. He saw, too, I fancy, that I was not the least bit conscious of
+my shabby dress; and I am sure he did not smile at my appearance, even
+when my back was turned.
+
+A new life began for me when I entered the Latin School in September.
+Until then I had gone to school with my equals, and as a matter of
+course. Now it was distinctly a feat for me to keep in school, and my
+schoolmates were socially so far superior to me that my poverty became
+conspicuous. The pupils of the Latin School, from the nature of the
+institution, are an aristocratic set. They come from refined homes,
+dress well, and spend the recess hour talking about parties, beaux,
+and the matinée. As students they are either very quick or very
+hard-working; for the course of study, in the lingo of the school
+world, is considered "stiff." The girl with half her brain asleep, or
+with too many beaux, drops out by the end of the first year; or a one
+and only beau may be the fatal element. At the end of the course the
+weeding process has reduced the once numerous tribe of academic
+candidates to a cosey little family.
+
+By all these tokens I should have had serious business on my hands as
+a pupil in the Latin School, but I did not find it hard. To make
+myself letter-perfect in my lessons required long hours of study, but
+that was my delight. To make myself at home in an alien world was also
+within my talents; I had been practising it day and night for the past
+four years. To remain unconscious of my shabby and ill-fitting clothes
+when the rustle of silk petticoats in the schoolroom protested against
+them was a matter still within my moral reach. Half a dress a year had
+been my allowance for many seasons; even less, for as I did not grow
+much I could wear my dresses as long as they lasted. And I had stood
+before editors, and exchanged polite calls with school-teachers,
+untroubled by the detestable colors and archaic design of my garments.
+To stand up and recite Latin declensions without trembling from hunger
+was something more of a feat, because I sometimes went to school with
+little or no breakfast; but even that required no special heroism,--at
+most it was a matter of self-control. I had the advantage of a poor
+appetite, too; I really did not need much breakfast. Or if I was
+hungry it would hardly show; I coughed so much that my unsteadiness
+was self-explained.
+
+Everything helped, you see. My schoolmates helped. Aristocrats though
+they were, they did not hold themselves aloof from me. Some of the
+girls who came to school in carriages were especially cordial. They
+rated me by my scholarship, and not by my father's occupation. They
+teased and admired me by turns for learning the footnotes in the Latin
+grammar by heart; they never reproached me for my ignorance of the
+latest comic opera. And it was more than good breeding that made them
+seem unaware of the incongruity of my presence. It was a generous
+appreciation of what it meant for a girl from the slums to be in the
+Latin School, on the way to college. If our intimacy ended on the
+steps of the school-house, it was more my fault than theirs. Most of
+the girls were democratic enough to have invited me to their homes,
+although to some, of course, I was "impossible." But I had no time for
+visiting; school work and reading and family affairs occupied all the
+daytime, and much of the night time. I did not "go with" any of the
+girls, in the school-girl sense of the phrase. I admired some of them,
+either for good looks, or beautiful manners, or more subtle
+attributes; but always at a distance. I discovered something
+inimitable in the way the Back Bay girls carried themselves; and I
+should have been the first to perceive the incongruity of Commonwealth
+Avenue entwining arms with Dover Street. Some day, perhaps, when I
+should be famous and rich; but not just then. So my companions and I
+parted on the steps of the school-house, in mutual respect; they
+guiltless of snobbishness, I innocent of envy. It was a graciously
+American relation, and I am happy to this day to recall it.
+
+The one exception to this rule of friendly distance was my chum,
+Florence Connolly. But I should hardly have said "chum." Florence and
+I occupied adjacent seats for three years, but we did not walk arm in
+arm, nor call each other nicknames, nor share our lunch, nor
+correspond in vacation time. Florence was quiet as a mouse, and I was
+reserved as an oyster; and perhaps we two had no more in common
+fundamentally than those two creatures in their natural state. Still,
+as we were both very studious, and never strayed far from our desks at
+recess, we practised a sort of intimacy of propinquity. Although
+Florence was of my social order, her father presiding over a cheap
+lunch room, I did not on that account feel especially drawn to her. I
+spent more time studying Florence than loving her, I suppose. And yet
+I ought to have loved her; she was such a good girl. Always perfect in
+her lessons, she was so modest that she recited in a noticeable
+tremor, and had to be told frequently to raise her voice. Florence
+wore her light brown hair brushed flatly back and braided in a single
+plait, at a time when pompadours were six inches high and braids hung
+in pairs. Florence had a pocket in her dress for her handkerchief, in
+a day when pockets were repugnant to fashion. All these things ought
+to have made me feel the kinship of humble circumstances, the
+comradeship of intellectual earnestness; but they did not.
+
+The truth is that my relation to persons and things depended neither
+on social distinctions nor on intellectual or moral affinities. My
+attitude, at this time, was determined by my consciousness of the
+unique elements in my character and history. It seemed to me that I
+had been pursuing a single adventure since the beginning of the world.
+Through highways and byways, underground, overground, by land, by sea,
+ever the same star had guided me, I thought, ever the same purpose
+had divided my affairs from other men's. What that purpose was, where
+was the fixed horizon beyond which my star would not recede, was an
+absorbing mystery to me. But the current moment never puzzled me. What
+I chose instinctively to do I knew to be right and in accordance with
+my destiny. I never hesitated over great things, but answered promptly
+to the call of my genius. So what was it to me whether my neighbors
+spurned or embraced me, if my way was no man's way? Nor should any one
+ever reject me whom I chose to be my friend, because I would make sure
+of a kindred spirit by the coincidence of our guiding stars.
+
+When, where in the harum-scarum life of Dover Street was there time or
+place for such self-communing? In the night, when everybody slept; on
+a solitary walk, as far from home as I dared to go.
+
+I was not unhappy on Dover Street; quite the contrary. Everything of
+consequence was well with me. Poverty was a superficial, temporary
+matter; it vanished at the touch of money. Money in America was
+plentiful; it was only a matter of getting some of it, and I was on my
+way to the mint. If Dover Street was not a pleasant place to abide in,
+it was only a wayside house. And I was really happy, actively happy,
+in the exercise of my mind in Latin, mathematics, history, and the
+rest; the things that suffice a studious girl in the middle teens.
+
+Still I had moments of depression, when my whole being protested
+against the life of the slum. I resented the familiarity of my vulgar
+neighbors. I felt myself defiled by the indecencies I was compelled to
+witness. Then it was I took to running away from home. I went out in
+the twilight and walked for hours, my blind feet leading me. I did
+not care where I went. If I lost my way, so much the better; I never
+wanted to see Dover Street again.
+
+But behold, as I left the crowds behind, and the broader avenues were
+spanned by the open sky, my grievances melted away, and I fell to
+dreaming of things that neither hurt nor pleased. A fringe of trees
+against the sunset became suddenly the symbol of the whole world, and
+I stood and gazed and asked questions of it. The sunset faded; the
+trees withdrew. The wind went by, but dropped no hint in my ear. The
+evening star leaped out between the clouds, and sealed the secret with
+a seal of splendor.
+
+A favorite resort of mine, after dark, was the South Boston Bridge,
+across South Bay and the Old Colony Railroad. This was so near home
+that I could go there at any time when the confusion in the house
+drove me out, or I felt the need of fresh air. I liked to stand
+leaning on the bridge railing, and look down on the dim tangle of
+railroad tracks below. I could barely see them branching out,
+elbowing, winding, and sliding out into the night in pairs. I was
+fascinated by the dotted lights, the significant red and green of
+signal lamps. These simple things stood for a complexity that it made
+me dizzy to think of. Then the blackness below me was split by the
+fiery eye of a monster engine, his breath enveloped me in blinding
+clouds, his long body shot by, rattling a hundred claws of steel; and
+he was gone, with an imperative shriek that shook me where I stood.
+
+So would I be, swift on my rightful business, picking out my proper
+track from the million that cross it, pausing for no obstacles, sure
+of my goal.
+
+   [Illustration: I LIKED TO STAND AND LOOK DOWN ON THE DIM TANGLE
+   OF RAILROAD TRACKS BELOW]
+
+After my watches on the bridge I often stayed up to write or study. It
+is late before Dover Street begins to go to bed. It is past midnight
+before I feel that I am alone. Seated in my stiff little chair before
+my narrow table, I gather in the night sounds through the open window,
+curious to assort and define them. As, little by little, the city
+settles down to sleep, the volume of sound diminishes, and the
+qualities of particular sounds stand out. The electric car lurches by
+with silent gong, taking the empty track by leaps, humming to itself
+in the invisible distance. A benighted team swings recklessly around
+the corner, sharp under my rattling window panes, the staccato pelting
+of hoofs on the cobblestones changed suddenly to an even pounding on
+the bridge. A few pedestrians hurry by, their heavy boots all out of
+step. The distant thoroughfares have long ago ceased their murmur, and
+I know that a million lamps shine idly in the idle streets.
+
+My sister sleeps quietly in the little bed. The rhythmic dripping of a
+faucet is audible through the flat. It is so still that I can hear the
+paper crackling on the wall. Silence upon silence is added to the
+night; only the kitchen clock is the voice of my brooding
+thoughts,--ticking, ticking, ticking.
+
+Suddenly the distant whistle of a locomotive breaks the stillness with
+a long-drawn wail. Like a threatened trouble, the sound comes nearer,
+piercingly near; then it dies out in a mangled silence, complaining to
+the last.
+
+The sleepers stir in their beds. Somebody sighs, and the burden of all
+his trouble falls upon my heart. A homeless cat cries in the alley, in
+the voice of a human child. And the ticking of the kitchen clock is
+the voice of my troubled thoughts.
+
+Many things are revealed to me as I sit and watch the world asleep.
+But the silence asks me many questions that I cannot answer; and I am
+glad when the tide of sound begins to return, by little and little,
+and I welcome the clatter of tin cans that announces the milkman. I
+cannot see him in the dusk, but I know his wholesome face has no
+problem in it.
+
+It is one flight up to the roof; it is a leap of the soul to the
+sunrise. The morning mist rests lightly on chimneys and roofs and
+walls, wreathes the lamp-posts, and floats in gauzy streamers down the
+streets. Distant buildings are massed like palace walls, with turrets
+and spires lost in the rosy clouds. I love my beautiful city spreading
+all about me. I love the world. I love my place in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE LANDLADY
+
+
+From sunrise to sunset the day was long enough for many things besides
+school, which occupied five hours. There was time for me to try to
+earn my living; or at least the rent of our tenement. Rent was a
+standing trouble. We were always behind, and the landlady was very
+angry; so I was particularly ambitious to earn the rent. I had had one
+or two poems published since the celebrated eulogy of George
+Washington, but nobody had paid for my poems--yet. I was coming to
+that, of course, but in the mean time I could not pay the rent with my
+writing. To be sure, my acquaintance with men of letters gave me an
+opening. A friend of mine introduced me to a slightly literary lady
+who introduced me to the editor of the "Boston Searchlight," who
+offered me a generous commission for subscriptions to his paper.
+
+If our rent was three and one-half dollars per week, payable on strong
+demand, and the annual subscription to the "Searchlight" was one
+dollar, and my commission was fifty per cent, how many subscribers did
+I need? How easy! Seven subscribers a week--one a day! Anybody could
+do that. Mr. James, the editor, said so. He said I could get two or
+three any afternoon between the end of school and supper. If I worked
+all Saturday--my head went dizzy computing the amount of my
+commissions. It would be rent and shoes and bonnets and everything for
+everybody.
+
+Bright and early one Saturday morning in the fall I started out
+canvassing, in my hand a neatly folded copy of the "Searchlight," in
+my heart, faith in my lucky star and good-will towards all the world.
+I began with one of the great office buildings on Tremont Street, as
+Mr. James had advised. The first half-hour I lost, wandering through
+the corridors, reading the names on the doors. There were so many
+people in the same office, how should I know, when I entered, which
+was Wilson & Reed, Solicitors, and which C. Jenkins Smith, Mortgages
+and Bonds? I decided that it did not matter: I would call them all
+"Sir."
+
+I selected a door and knocked. After waiting some time, I knocked a
+little louder. The building buzzed with noise,--swift footsteps echoed
+on the stone floors, snappy talk broke out with the opening of every
+door, bells tinkled, elevators hummed,--no wonder they did not hear me
+knock. But I noticed that other people went in without knocking, so
+after a while I did the same.
+
+There were several men and two women in the small, brightly lighted
+room. They were all busy. It was very confusing. Should I say "Sir" to
+the roomful?
+
+"Excuse me, sir," I began. That was a very good beginning, I felt
+sure, but I must speak louder. Lately my voice had been poor in
+school--gave out, sometimes, in the middle of a recitation. I cleared
+my throat, but I did not repeat myself. The back of the bald head that
+I had addressed revolved and presented its complement, a bald front.
+
+"Will you--would you like--I'd like--"
+
+I stared in dismay at the bald gentleman, unable to recall a word of
+what I meant to say; and he stared in impatience at me.
+
+"Well, well!" he snapped, "What is it? What is it?"
+
+That reminded me.
+
+"It's the 'Boston Searchlight,' sir. I take sub--"
+
+"Take it away--take it away. We're busy here." He waved me away over
+his shoulder, the back of his head once more presented to me.
+
+I stole out of the room in great confusion. Was that the way I was
+going to be received? Why, Mr. James had said nobody would hesitate to
+subscribe. It was the best paper in Boston, the "Searchlight," and no
+business man could afford to be without it. I must have made some
+blunder. _Was_ "Mortgages and Bonds" a business? I'd never heard of
+it, and very likely I had spoken to C. Jenkins Smith. I must try
+again--of course I must try again.
+
+I selected a real estate office next. A real estate broker, I knew for
+certain, was a business man. Mr. George A. Hooker must be just waiting
+for the "Boston Searchlight."
+
+Mr. Hooker was indeed waiting, and he was telling "Central" about it.
+
+"Yes, Central; waiting, waiting--What?--Yes, yes; ring _four_--What's
+that?--Since when?--Why didn't you say so at first, then, instead of
+keeping me on the line--What?--Oh, is that so? Well, never mind this
+time, Central.--I see, I see.--All right."
+
+I had become so absorbed in this monologue that when Mr. Hooker swung
+around on me in his revolving chair I was startled, feeling that I had
+been caught eavesdropping. I thought he was going to rebuke me, but he
+only said, "What can I do for you, Miss?"
+
+Encouraged by his forbearance, I said:--
+
+"Would you like to subscribe to the 'Boston Searchlight,' sir?"--"Sir"
+was safer, after all.--"It's a dollar a year."
+
+I was supposed to say that it was the best paper in Boston, etc., but
+Mr. Hooker did not look interested, though he was not cross.
+
+"No, thank you, Miss; no new papers for me. Excuse me, I am very
+busy." And he began to dictate to a stenographer.
+
+Well, that was not so bad. Mr. Hooker was at least polite. I must try
+to make a better speech next time. I stuck to real estate now. O'Lair
+& Kennedy were both in, in my next office, and both apparently
+enjoying a minute of relaxation, tilted back in their chairs behind a
+low railing. Said I, determined to be businesslike at last, and
+addressing myself to the whole firm:--
+
+"Would you like to subscribe to the 'Boston Searchlight?' It's a very
+good paper. No business man can afford it--afford to be without it, I
+mean. It's only a dollar a year."
+
+Both men smiled at my break, and I smiled, too. I wondered would they
+subscribe separately, or would they take one copy for the firm.
+
+"The 'Boston Searchlight,'" repeated one of the partners. "Never heard
+of it. Is that the paper you have there?"
+
+He unfolded the paper I gave him, looked over it, and handed it to his
+partner.
+
+"Ever heard of the 'Searchlight,' O'Lair? What do you think--can we
+afford to be without it?"
+
+"I guess we'll make out somehow," replied Mr. O'Lair, handing me back
+my paper. "But I'll buy this copy of you, Miss," he added, from second
+thoughts.
+
+"And I'll go partner on the bargain," said Mr. Kennedy.
+
+But I objected.
+
+"This is a sample," I said; "I don't sell single papers. I take
+subscriptions for the year. It's one dollar."
+
+"And no business man can afford it, you know." Mr. Kennedy winked as
+he said it, and we all smiled again. It would have been stupid not to
+see the joke.
+
+"I'm sorry I can't sell my sample," I said, with my hand on the
+doorknob.
+
+"That's all right, my dear," said Mr. Kennedy, with a gracious wave of
+the hand. And his partner called after me, "Better luck next door!"
+
+Well, I was getting on! The people grew friendlier all the time. But I
+skipped "next door"; it was "Mortgages and Bonds." I tried
+"Insurance."
+
+"The best paper in Boston, is it?" remarked Mr. Thomas F. Dix, turning
+over my sample. "And who told you that, young lady?"
+
+"Mr. James," was my prompt reply.
+
+"Who is Mr. James?--The _editor_! Oh, I see. And do you also think the
+'Searchlight' the best paper in Boston?"
+
+"I don't know, sir. I like the 'Herald' much better, and the
+'Transcript.'"
+
+At that Mr. Dix laughed. "That's right," he said. "Business is
+business, but you tell the truth. One dollar, is it? Here you are. My
+name is on the door. Good-day."
+
+I think I spent twenty minutes copying the name and room number from
+the door. I did not trust myself to read plain English. What if I made
+a mistake, and the "Searchlight" went astray, and good Mr. Dix
+remained unilluminated? He had paid for the year--it would be
+dreadful to make a mistake.
+
+Emboldened by my one success, I went into the next office without
+considering the kind of business announced on the door. I tried
+brokers, lawyers, contractors, and all, just as they came around the
+corridor; but I copied no more addresses. Most of the people were
+polite. Some men waved me away, like C. Jenkins Smith. Some looked
+impatient at first, but excused themselves politely in the end. Almost
+everybody said, "We're busy here," as if they suspected I wanted them
+to read a whole year's issue of the "Searchlight" at once. At last one
+man told me he did not think it was a nice business for a girl, going
+through the offices like that.
+
+This took me aback. I had not thought anything about the nature of the
+business. I only wanted the money to pay the rent. I wandered through
+miles of stone corridors, unable to see why it was not a nice
+business, and yet reluctant to go on with it, with the doubt in my
+mind. Intent on my new problem, I walked into a messenger boy; and
+looking back to apologize to him, I collided softly with a
+cushion-shaped gentleman getting out of an elevator. I was making up
+my mind to leave the building forever, when I saw an office door
+standing open. It was the first open door I had come across since
+morning--it was past noon now--and it was a sign to me to keep on. I
+must not give up so easily.
+
+Mr. Frederick A. Strong was alone in the office, surreptitiously
+picking his teeth. He had been to lunch. He heard me out
+good-naturedly.
+
+"How much is your commission, if I may ask?" It was the first thing he
+had said.
+
+"Fifty cents, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what I will do. I don't care to subscribe, but
+here's a quarter for you."
+
+If I did not blush, it was because it is not my habit, but all of a
+sudden I choked. A lump jumped into my throat; almost the tears were
+in my eyes. That man was right who said it was not nice to go through
+the offices. I was taken for a beggar: a stranger offered me money for
+nothing.
+
+I could not say a word. I started to go out. But Mr. Strong jumped up
+and prevented me.
+
+"Oh, don't go like that!" he cried. "I didn't mean to offend you; upon
+my word, I didn't. I beg your pardon. I didn't know--you see--Won't
+you sit down a minute to rest? That's kind of you."
+
+Mr. Strong was so genuinely repentant that I could not refuse him.
+Besides, I felt a little weak. I had been on my feet since morning,
+and had had no lunch. I sat down, and Mr. Strong talked. He showed me
+a picture of his wife and little girl, and said I must go and see them
+some time. Pretty soon I was chatting, too, and I told Mr. Strong
+about the Latin School; and of course he asked me if I was French, the
+way people always did when they wanted to say that I had a foreign
+accent. So we got started on Russia, and had such an interesting time
+that we both jumped up, surprised, when a fine young lady in a
+beautiful hat came in to take possession of the idle typewriter.
+
+Mr. Strong introduced me very formally, thanked me for an interesting
+hour, and shook hands with me at the door. I did not add his name to
+my short subscription list, but I counted it a greater triumph that I
+had made a friend.
+
+It would have been seeking an anticlimax to solicit any more in the
+building. I went out, into the roar of Tremont Street, and across the
+Common, still green and leafy. I rested a while on a bench, debating
+where to go next. It was past two by the clock on Park Street Church.
+I had had a long day already, but it was too early to quit work, with
+only one half dollar of my own in my pocket. It was Saturday--in the
+evening the landlady would come. I must try a little longer.
+
+I went out along Columbus Avenue, a popular route for bicyclists at
+that time. The bicycle stores all along the way looked promising to
+me. The people did not look so busy as in the office building: they
+would at least be polite.
+
+They were not particularly rude, but they did not subscribe. Nobody
+wanted the "Searchlight." They had never heard of it--they made jokes
+about it--they did not want it at any price.
+
+I began to lose faith in the paper myself. I got tired of its name. I
+began to feel dizzy. I stopped going into the stores. I walked
+straight along, looking at nothing. I wanted to go back, go home, but
+I wouldn't. I felt like doing myself spite. I walked right along,
+straight as the avenue ran. I did not know where it would lead me. I
+did not care. Everything was horrid. I would go right on until night.
+I would get lost. I would fall in a faint on a strange doorstep, and
+be found dead in the morning, and be pitied.
+
+Wouldn't that be interesting! The adventure might even end happily. I
+might faint at the door of a rich old man's house, who would take me
+in, and order his housekeeper to nurse me, just like in the story
+books. In my delirium--of course I would have a fever--I would talk
+about the landlady, and how I had tried to earn the rent; and the old
+gentleman would wipe his spectacles for pity. Then I would wake up,
+and ask plaintively, "Where am I?" And when I got strong, after a
+delightfully long convalescence, the old gentleman would take me to
+Dover Street--in a carriage!--and we would all be reunited, and laugh
+and cry together. The old gentleman, of course, would engage my father
+as his steward, on the spot, and we would all go to live in one of his
+houses, with a garden around it.
+
+I walked on and on, gleefully aware that I had not eaten since
+morning. Wasn't I beginning to feel shaky? Yes; I should certainly
+faint before long. But I didn't like the houses I passed. They did not
+look fit for my adventure. I must keep up till I reached a better
+neighborhood.
+
+Anybody who knows Boston knows how cheaply my adventure ended.
+Columbus Avenue leads out to Roxbury Crossing. When I saw that the
+houses were getting shabbier, instead of finer, my heart sank. When I
+came out on the noisy, thrice-commonplace street-car centre, my spirit
+collapsed utterly.
+
+I did not swoon. I woke up from my foolish, childish dream with a
+shock. I was disgusted with myself, and frightened besides. It was
+evening now, and I was faint and sick in good earnest, and I did not
+know where I was. I asked a starter at the transfer station the way to
+Dover Street, and he told me to get on a car that was just coming in.
+
+"I'll walk," I said, "if you will please tell me the shortest way."
+How could I spend five cents out of the little I had made?
+
+But the starter discouraged me.
+
+"You can't walk it before midnight--the way you look, my girl. Better
+hop on that car before it goes."
+
+I could not resist the temptation. I rode home in the car, and felt
+like a thief when I paid the fare. Five cents gone to pay for my
+folly!
+
+I was grateful for a cold supper; thrice grateful to hear that Mrs.
+Hutch, the landlady, had been and gone, content with two dollars that
+my father had brought home.
+
+Mrs. Hutch seldom succeeded in collecting the full amount of the rents
+from her tenants. I suppose that made the bookkeeping complicated,
+which must have been wearing on her nerves; and hence her temper. We
+lived, on Dover Street, in fear of her temper. Saturday had a distinct
+quality about it, derived from the imminence of Mrs. Hutch's visit. Of
+course I awoke on Saturday morning with the no-school feeling; but the
+grim thing that leaped to its feet and glowered down on me, while the
+rest of my consciousness was still yawning on its back, was the
+Mrs.-Hutch-is-coming-and-there's-no-rent feeling.
+
+It is hard, if you are a young girl, full of life and inclined to be
+glad, to go to sleep in anxiety and awake in fear. It is apt to
+interfere with the circulation of the vital ether of happiness in the
+young, which is damaging to the complexion of the soul. It is bitter,
+when you are middle-aged and unsuccessful, to go to sleep in
+self-reproach and awake unexonerated. It is likely to cause
+fermentation in the sweetest nature; it is certain to breed gray hairs
+and a premature longing for death. It is pitiful, if you are the
+home-keeping mother of an impoverished family, to drop in your traces
+helpless at night, and awake unstrengthened in the early morning. The
+haunting consciousness of rooted poverty is an improper bedfellow for
+a woman who still bears. It has been known to induce physical and
+spiritual malformations in the babies she nurses.
+
+It did require strength to lift the burden of life, in the gray
+morning, on Dover Street; especially on Saturday morning. Perhaps my
+mother's pack was the heaviest to lift. To the man of the house,
+poverty is a bulky dragon with gripping talons and a poisonous breath;
+but he bellows in the open, and it is possible to give him knightly
+battle, with the full swing of the angry arm that cuts to the enemy's
+vitals. To the housewife, want is an insidious myriapod creature that
+crawls in the dark, mates with its own offspring, breeds all the year
+round, persists like leprosy. The woman has an endless, inglorious
+struggle with the pest; her triumphs are too petty for applause, her
+failures too mean for notice. Care, to the man, is a hound to be kept
+in leash and mastered. To the woman, care is a secret parasite that
+infects the blood.
+
+Mrs. Hutch, of course, was only one symptom of the disease of poverty,
+but there were times when she seemed to me the sharpest tooth of the
+gnawing canker. Surely as sorrow trails behind sin, Saturday evening
+brought Mrs. Hutch. The landlady did not trail. Her movements were
+anything but impassive. She climbed the stairs with determination and
+landed at the top with emphasis. Her knock on the door was clear
+sharp, unfaltering; it was impossible to pretend not to hear it. Her
+"Good-evening" announced business; her manner of taking a chair
+suggested the throwing-down of the gauntlet. Invariably she asked for
+my father, calling him Mr. Anton, and refusing to be corrected; almost
+invariably he was not at home--was out looking for work. Had he left
+her the rent? My mother's gentle "No, ma'am" was the signal for the
+storm. I do not want to repeat what Mrs. Hutch said. It would be hard
+on her, and hard on me. She grew red in the face; her voice grew
+shriller with every word. My poor mother hung her head where she
+stood; the children stared from their corners; the frightened baby
+cried. The angry landlady rehearsed our sins like a prophet
+foretelling doom. We owed so many weeks' rent; we were too lazy to
+work; we never intended to pay; we lived on others; we deserved to be
+put out without warning. She reproached my mother for having too many
+children; she blamed us all for coming to America. She enumerated her
+losses through nonpayment of her rents; told us that she did not
+collect the amount of her taxes; showed us how our irregularities were
+driving a poor widow to ruin.
+
+My mother did not attempt to excuse herself, but when Mrs. Hutch began
+to rail against my absent father, she tried to put in a word in his
+defence. The landlady grew all the shriller at that, and silenced my
+mother impatiently. Sometimes she addressed herself to me. I always
+stood by, if I was at home, to give my mother the moral support of my
+dumb sympathy. I understood that Mrs. Hutch had a special grudge
+against me, because I did not go to work as a cash girl and earn three
+dollars a week. I wanted to explain to her how I was preparing myself
+for a great career, and I was ready to promise her the payment of the
+arrears as soon as I began to get rich. But the landlady would not let
+me put in a word. And I was sorry for her, because she seemed to be
+having such a bad time.
+
+At last Mrs. Hutch got up to leave, marching out as determinedly as
+she had marched in. At the door she turned, in undiminished wrath, to
+shoot her parting dart:--
+
+"And if Mr. Anton does not bring me the rent on Monday, I will serve
+notice of eviction on Tuesday, without fail."
+
+We breathed when she was gone. My mother wiped away a few tears, and
+went to the baby, crying in the windowless, air-tight room.
+
+I was the first to speak.
+
+"Isn't she queer, mamma!" I said. "She never remembers how to say our
+name. She insists on saying _Anton--Anton_. Celia, say _Anton_." And I
+made the baby laugh by imitating the landlady, who had made her cry.
+
+But when I went to my little room I did not mock Mrs. Hutch. I thought
+about her, thought long and hard, and to a purpose. I decided that she
+must hear me out once. She must understand about my plans, my future,
+my good intentions. It was too irrational to go on like this, we
+living in fear of her, she in distrust of us. If Mrs. Hutch would only
+trust me, and the tax collectors would trust her, we could all live
+happily forever.
+
+I was the more certain that my argument would prevail with the
+landlady, if only I could make her listen, because I understood her
+point of view. I even sympathized with her. What she said about the
+babies, for instance, was not all unreasonable to me. There was this
+last baby, my mother's sixth, born on Mrs. Hutch's premises--yes, in
+the windowless, air-tight bedroom. Was there any need of this baby?
+When May was born, two years earlier, on Wheeler Street, I had
+accepted her; after a while I even welcomed her. She was born an
+American, and it was something to me to have one genuine American
+relative. I had to sit up with her the whole of her first night on
+earth, and I questioned her about the place she came from, and so we
+got acquainted. As my mother was so ill that my sister Frieda, who was
+nurse, and the doctor from the dispensary had all they could do to
+take care of her, the baby remained in my charge a good deal, and so I
+got used to her. But when Celia came I was two years older, and my
+outlook was broader; I could see around a baby's charms, and discern
+the disadvantages of possessing the baby. I was supplied with all
+kinds of relatives now--I had a brother-in-law, and an American-born
+nephew, who might become a President. Moreover, I knew there was not
+enough to eat before the baby's advent, and she did not bring any
+supplies with her that I could see. The baby was one too many. There
+was no need of her. I resented her existence. I recorded my resentment
+in my journal.
+
+I was pleased with my broad-mindedness, that enabled me to see all
+sides of the baby question. I could regard even the rent question
+disinterestedly, like a philosopher reviewing natural phenomena. It
+seemed not unreasonable that Mrs. Hutch should have a craving for the
+rent as such. A school-girl dotes on her books, a baby cries for its
+rattle, and a landlady yearns for her rents. I could easily believe
+that it was doing Mrs. Hutch spiritual violence to withhold the rent
+from her; and hence the vehemence with which she pursued the arrears.
+
+Yes, I could analyze the landlady very nicely. I was certainly
+qualified to act as peacemaker between her and my family. But I must
+go to her own house, and _not_ on a rent day. Saturday evening, when
+she was embittered by many disappointments, was no time to approach
+her with diplomatic negotiations. I must go to her house on a day of
+good omen.
+
+And I went, as soon as my father could give me a week's rent to take
+along. I found Mrs. Hutch in the gloom of a long, faded parlor.
+Divested of the ample black coat and widow's bonnet in which I had
+always seen her, her presence would have been less formidable had I
+not been conscious that I was a mere rumpled sparrow fallen into the
+lion's den. When I had delivered the money, I should have begun my
+speech; but I did not know what came first of all there was to say.
+While I hesitated, Mrs. Hutch observed me. She noticed my books, and
+asked about them. I thought this was my opening, and I showed her
+eagerly my Latin grammar, my geometry, my Virgil. I began to tell her
+how I was to go to college, to fit myself to write poetry, and get
+rich, and pay the arrears. But Mrs. Hutch cut me short at the mention
+of college. She broke out with her old reproaches, and worked herself
+into a worse fury than I had ever witnessed before. I was all alone in
+the tempest, and a very old lady was sitting on a sofa, drinking tea;
+and the tidy on the back of the sofa was sliding down.
+
+I was so bewildered by the suddenness of the onslaught, I felt so
+helpless to defend myself, that I could only stand and stare at Mrs.
+Hutch. She kept on railing without stopping for breath, repeating
+herself over and over. At last I ceased to hear what she said; I
+became hypnotized by the rapid motions of her mouth. Then the moving
+tidy caught my eye and the spell was broken. I went over to the sofa
+with a decided step and carefully replaced the tidy.
+
+It was now the landlady's turn to stare, and I stared back, surprised
+at my own action. The old lady also stared, her teacup suspended under
+her nose. The whole thing was so ridiculous! I had come on such a
+grand mission, ready to dictate the terms of a noble peace. I was met
+with anger and contumely; the dignity of the ambassador of peace
+rubbed off at a touch, like the golden dust from the butterfly's wing.
+I took my scolding like a meek child; and then, when she was in the
+middle of a trenchant phrase, her eye fixed daggerlike on mine, I
+calmly went to put the enemy's house in order! It was ridiculous, and
+I laughed.
+
+Immediately I was sorry. I wanted to apologize, but Mrs. Hutch didn't
+give me a chance. If she had been harsh before, she was terrific now.
+Did I come there to insult her?--she wanted to know. Wasn't it enough
+that I and my family lived on her, that I must come to her on purpose
+to rile her with my talk about college--_college!_ these beggars!--and
+laugh in her face? "What did you come for? Who sent you? Why do you
+stand there staring? Say something! _College!_ these beggars! And do
+you think I'll keep you till you go to college? _You_, learning
+geometry! Did you ever figure out how much rent your father owes me?
+You are all too lazy--Don't say a word! Don't speak to me! Coming here
+to laugh in my face! I don't believe you can say one sensible word.
+_Latin_--and _French_! Oh, these beggars! You ought to go to work, if
+you know enough to do one sensible thing. _College!_ Go home and tell
+your father never to send you again. Laughing in my face--and staring!
+Why don't you say something? How old are you?"
+
+Mrs. Hutch actually stopped, and I jumped into the pause.
+
+"I'm seventeen," I said quickly, "and I feel like seventy."
+
+This was too much, even for me who had spoken. I had not meant to say
+the last. It broke out, like my wicked laugh. I was afraid, if I
+stayed any longer, Mrs. Hutch would have the apoplexy; and I felt that
+I was going to cry. I moved towards the door, but the landlady got in
+another speech before I had escaped.
+
+"Seventeen--seventy! And looks like twelve! The child is silly. Can't
+even tell her own age. No wonder, with her Latin, and French, and--"
+
+I did cry when I got outside, and I didn't care if I was noticed. What
+was the use of anything? Everything I did was wrong. Everything I
+tried to do for Mrs. Hutch turned out bad. I tried to sell papers, for
+the sake of the rent, and nobody wanted the "Searchlight," and I was
+told it was not a nice business. I wanted to take her into my
+confidence, and she wouldn't hear a word, but scolded and called me
+names. She was an unreasonable, ungrateful landlady. I wished she
+_would_ put us out, then we should be rid of her.--But wasn't it funny
+about that tidy? What made me do that? I never meant to. Curious, the
+way we sometimes do things we don't want to at all.--The old lady must
+be deaf; she didn't say anything all that time.--Oh, I have a whole
+book of the "Æneid" to review, and it's getting late. I must hurry
+home.
+
+It was impossible to remain despondent long. The landlady came only
+once a week, I reflected, as I walked, and the rest of the time I was
+surrounded by friends. Everybody was good to me, at home, of course,
+and at school; and there was Miss Dillingham, and her friend who took
+me out in the country to see the autumn leaves, and her friend's
+friend who lent me books, and Mr. Hurd, who put my poems in the
+"Transcript," and gave me books almost every time I came, and a dozen
+others who did something good for me all the time, besides the several
+dozen who wrote me such nice letters. Friends? If I named one for
+every block I passed I should not get through before I reached home.
+There was Mr. Strong, too, and he wanted me to meet his wife and
+little girl. And Mr. Pastor! I had almost forgotten Mr. Pastor. I
+arrived at the corner of Washington and Dover Streets, on my way home,
+and looked into Mr. Pastor's showy drug store as I passed, and that
+reminded me of the history of my latest friendship.
+
+My cough had been pretty bad--kept me awake nights. My voice gave out
+frequently. The teachers had spoken to me several times, suggesting
+that I ought to see a doctor. Of course the teachers did not know that
+I could not afford a doctor, but I could go to the free dispensary,
+and I did. They told me to come again, and again, and I lost precious
+hours sitting in the waiting-room, watching for my turn. I was
+examined, thumped, studied, and sent out with prescriptions and
+innumerable directions. All that was said about food, fresh air, sunny
+rooms, etc., was, of course, impossible; but I would try the medicine.
+A bottle of medicine was a definite thing with a fixed price. You
+either could or could not afford it, on a given day. Once you began
+with milk and eggs and such things, there was no end of it. You were
+always going around the corner for more, till the grocer said he could
+give no more credit. No; the medicine bottle was the only safe thing.
+
+I had taken several bottles, and was told that I was looking better,
+when I went, one day, to have my prescription renewed. It was just
+after a hard rain, and the pools on the broken pavements were full of
+blue sky. I was delighted with the beautiful reflections; there were
+even the white clouds moving across the blue, there, at my feet, on
+the pavement! I walked with my head down all the way to the drug
+store, which was all right; but I should not have done it going back,
+with the new bottle of medicine in my hand.
+
+In front of a cigar store, halfway between Washington Street and
+Harrison Avenue, stood a wooden Indian with a package of wooden cigars
+in his hand. My eyes on the shining rain pools, I walked plump into
+the Indian, and the bottle was knocked out of my hand and broke with a
+crash.
+
+I was horrified at the catastrophe. The medicine cost fifty cents. My
+mother had given me the last money in the house. I must not be without
+my medicine; the dispensary doctor was very emphatic about that. It
+would be dreadful to get sick and have to stay out of school. What was
+to be done?
+
+I made up my mind in less than five minutes. I went back to the drug
+store and asked for Mr. Pastor himself. He knew me; he often sold me
+postage stamps, and joked about my large correspondence, and heard a
+good deal about my friends. He came out, on this occasion, from his
+little office in the back of the store; and I told him of my accident,
+and that there was no more money at home, and asked him to give me
+another bottle, to be paid for as soon as possible. My father had a
+job as night watchman in a store. I should be able to pay very soon.
+
+"Certainly, my dear, certainly," said Mr. Pastor; "very glad to oblige
+you. It's doing you good, isn't it?--That's right. You're such a
+studious young lady, with all those books, and so many letters to
+write--you need something to build you up. There you are.--Oh, don't
+mention it! Any time at all. And lookout for wild Indians!"
+
+Of course we were great friends after that, and this is the way my
+troubles often ended on Dover Street. To bump into a wooden Indian was
+to bump into good luck, a hundred times a week. No wonder I was happy
+most of the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE BURNING BUSH
+
+
+Just when Mrs. Hutch was most worried about the error of my ways, I
+entered on a new chapter of adventures, even more remote from the cash
+girl's career than Latin and geometry. But I ought not to name such
+harsh things as landladies at the opening of the fairy story of my
+girlhood. I have reached what was the second transformation of my
+life, as truly as my coming to America was the first great
+transformation.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his delightful essays, credits the
+lover with a feeling of remorse and shame at the contemplation of that
+part of his life which he lived without his beloved, content with his
+barren existence. It is with just such a feeling of remorse that I
+look back to my bookworm days, before I began the study of natural
+history outdoors; and with a feeling of shame akin to the lover's I
+confess how late in my life nature took the first place in my
+affections.
+
+The subject of nature study is better developed in the public schools
+to-day than it was in my time. I remember my teacher in the Chelsea
+grammar school who encouraged us to look for different kinds of
+grasses in the empty lots near home, and to bring to school samples of
+the cereals we found in our mothers' pantries. I brought the grasses
+and cereals, as I did everything the teacher ordered, but I was
+content when nature study was over and the arithmetic lesson began. I
+was not interested, and the teacher did not make it interesting.
+
+In the boys' books I was fond of reading I came across all sorts of
+heroes, and I sympathized with them all. The boy who ran away to sea;
+the boy who delighted in the society of ranchmen and cowboys; the
+stage-struck boy, whose ambition was to drive a pasteboard chariot in
+a circus; the boy who gave up his holidays in order to earn money for
+books; the bad boy who played tricks on people; the clever boy who
+invented amusing toys for his blind little sister--all these boys I
+admired. I could put myself in the place of any one of these heroes,
+and delight in their delights. But there was one sort of hero I never
+could understand, and that was the boy whose favorite reading was
+natural history, who kept an aquarium, collected beetles, and knew all
+about a man by the name of Agassiz. This style of boy always had a
+seafaring uncle, or a missionary aunt, who sent him all sorts of queer
+things from China and the South Sea Islands; and the conversation
+between this boy and the seafaring uncle home on a visit, I was
+perfectly willing to skip. The impossible hero usually kept snakes in
+a box in the barn, where his little sister was fond of playing with
+her little friends. The snakes escaped at least once before the end of
+the story; and the things the boy said to the frightened little girls,
+about the harmless and fascinating qualities of snakes, was something
+I had no patience to read.
+
+No, I did not care for natural history. I would read about travels,
+about deserts, and nameless islands, and strange peoples; but snakes
+and birds and minerals and butterflies did not interest me in the
+least. I visited the Natural History Museum once or twice, because it
+was my way to enter every open door, so as to miss nothing that was
+free to the public; but the curious monsters that filled the glass
+cases and adorned the walls and ceilings failed to stir my
+imagination, and the slimy things that floated in glass vessels were
+too horrid for a second glance.
+
+Of all the horrid things that ever passed under my eyes when I lifted
+my nose from my book, spiders were the worst. Mice were bad enough,
+and so were flies and worms and June bugs; but spiders were absolutely
+the most loathsome creatures I knew. And yet it was the spider that
+opened my eyes to the wonders of nature, and touched my girlish
+happiness with the hues of the infinite.
+
+And it happened at Hale House.
+
+It was not Dr. Hale, though it might have been, who showed me the way
+to the settlement house on Garland Street which bears his name. Hale
+House is situated in the midst of the labyrinth of narrow streets and
+alleys that constitutes the slum of which Harrison Avenue is the
+backbone, and of which Dover Street is a member.
+
+Bearing in mind the fact that there are almost no playgrounds in all
+this congested district, you will understand that Hale House has
+plenty of work on its hands to carry a little sunshine into the grimy
+tenement homes. The beautiful story of how that is done cannot be told
+here, but what Hale House did for me I may not omit to mention.
+
+It was my brother Joseph who discovered Hale House. He started a
+debating club, and invited his chums to help him settle the problems
+of the Republic on Sunday afternoon. The club held its first session
+in our empty parlor on Dover Street, and the United States Government
+was in a fair way to be put on a sound basis at last, when the
+numerous babies belonging to our establishment broke up the meeting,
+leaving the Administration in suspense as to its future course.
+
+The next meeting was held in Isaac Maslinsky's parlor, and the orators
+were beginning to jump to their feet and shake their fists at each
+other, in excellent parliamentary form, when Mrs. Maslinsky sallied
+in, to smile at the boys' excitement. But at the sight of seven pairs
+of boys' boots scuffling on her cherished parlor carpet, the fringed
+cover of the centre table hanging by one corner, and the plush
+photograph album unceremoniously laid aside, indignation took the
+place of good humor in Mrs. Maslinsky's ample bosom, and she ordered
+the boys to clear out, threatening "Ike" with dire vengeance if ever
+again he ventured to enter the parlor with ungentle purpose.
+
+On the following Sunday Harry Rubinstein offered the club the
+hospitality of _his_ parlor, and the meeting began satisfactorily. The
+subject on the table was the Tariff, and the pros and antis were about
+evenly divided. Congress might safely have taken a nap, with the Hub
+Debating Club to handle its affairs, if Harry Rubinstein's big brother
+Jake had not interfered. He came out of the kitchen, where he had been
+stuffing the baby with peanuts, and stood in the doorway of the parlor
+and winked at the dignified chairman. The chairman turned his back on
+him, whereupon Jake pelted him with peanut shells. He mocked the
+speakers, and called them "kids," and wanted to know how they could
+tell the Tariff from a sunstroke, anyhow. "We've got to have free
+trade," he mocked. "Pa, listen to the kids! 'In the interests of the
+American laborer.' Hoo-ray! Listen to the kids, pa!"
+
+Flesh and blood could not bear this. The political reformers
+adjourned indefinitely, and the club was in danger of extinction for
+want of a sheltering roof, when one of the members discovered that
+Hale House, on Garland Street, was waiting to welcome the club.
+
+How the debating-club prospered in the genial atmosphere of the
+settlement house; how from a little club it grew to be a big club, as
+the little boys became young men; how Joseph and Isaac and Harry and
+the rest won prizes in public debates; how they came to be a part of
+the multiple influence for good that issues from Garland Street--all
+this is a piece of the history of Hale House, whose business in the
+slums is to mould the restless children on the street corners into
+noble men and women. I brought the debating-club into my story just to
+show how naturally the children of the slums drift toward their
+salvation, if only some island of safety lies in the course of their
+innocent activities. Not a child in the slums is born to be lost. They
+are all born to be saved, and the raft that carries them unharmed
+through the perilous torrent of tenement life is the child's
+unconscious aspiration for the best. But there must be lighthouses to
+guide him midstream.
+
+Dora followed Joseph to Hale House, joining a club for little girls
+which has since become famous in the Hale House district. The leader
+of this club, under pretence of teaching the little girls the proper
+way to sweep and make beds, artfully teaches them how to beautify a
+tenement home by means of noble living.
+
+Joseph and Dora were so enthusiastic about Hale House that I had to go
+over and see what it was all about. And I found the Natural History
+Club.
+
+I do not know how Mrs. Black, who was then the resident, persuaded me
+to try the Natural History Club, in spite of my aversion for bugs. I
+suppose she tried me in various girls' clubs, and found that I did not
+fit, any more than I fitted in the dancing-club that I attempted years
+before. I dare say she decided that I was an old maid, and urged me to
+come to the meetings of the Natural History Club, which was composed
+of adults. The members of this club were not people from the
+neighborhood, I understood, but workers at Hale House and their
+friends; and they often had eminent naturalists, travellers, and other
+notables lecture before them. My curiosity to see a real live
+naturalist probably induced me to accept Mrs. Black's invitation in
+the end; for up to that time I had never met any one who enjoyed the
+creepy society of snakes and worms, except in books.
+
+The Natural History Club sat in a ring around the reception room,
+facing the broad doorway of the adjoining room. Mrs. Black introduced
+me, and I said "Glad to meet you" all around the circle, and sat down
+in a kindergarten chair beside the piano. It was Friday evening, and I
+had the sense of leisure which pervades the school-girl's
+consciousness when there is to be no school on the morrow. I liked the
+pleasant room, pleasanter than any at home. I liked the faces of the
+company I was in. I was prepared to have an agreeable evening, even if
+I was a little bored.
+
+The tall, lean gentleman with the frank blue eyes got up to read the
+minutes of the last meeting. I did not understand what he read, but I
+noticed that it gave him great satisfaction. This man had greeted me
+as if he had been waiting for my coming all his life. What did Mrs.
+Black call him? He looked and spoke as if he was happy to be alive. I
+liked him. Oh, yes! this was Mr. Winthrop.
+
+I let my thoughts wander, with my eyes, all around the circle, trying
+to read the characters of my new friends in their faces. But suddenly
+my attention was arrested by a word. Mr. Winthrop had finished reading
+the minutes, and was introducing the speaker of the evening. "We are
+very fortunate in having with us Mr. Emerson, whom we all know as an
+authority on spiders."
+
+_Spiders!_ What hard luck! Mr. Winthrop pronounced the word "spiders"
+with unmistakable relish, as if he doted on the horrid creatures; but
+I--My nerves contracted into a tight knot. I gripped the arms of my
+little chair, determined _not_ to run, with all those strangers
+looking on. I watched Mr. Emerson, to see when he would open a box of
+spiders. I recalled a hideous experience of long ago, when, putting on
+a dress that had hung on the wall for weeks, I felt a thing with a
+hundred legs crawling down my bare arm, and shook a spider out of my
+sleeve. I watched the lecturer, but I was _not_ going to run. It was
+too bad that Mrs. Black had not warned me.
+
+After a while I realized that the lecturer had no menagerie in his
+pockets. He talked, in a familiar way, about different kinds of
+spiders and their ways; and as he talked, he wove across the doorway,
+where he stood, a gigantic spider's web, unwinding a ball of twine in
+his hand, and looping various lengths on invisible tacks he had ready
+in the door frame.
+
+I was fascinated by the progress of the web. I forgot my terrors; I
+began to follow Mr. Emerson's discourse. I was surprised to hear how
+much there was to know about a dusty little spider, besides that he
+could spin his webs as fast as my broom could sweep them away. The
+drama of the spider's daily life became very real to me as the
+lecturer went on. His struggle for existence; his wars with his
+enemies; his wiles, his traps, his patient labors; the intricate
+safeguards of his simple existence; the fitness of his body for his
+surroundings, of his instincts for his vital needs--the whole picture
+of the spider's pursuit of life under the direction of definite laws
+filled me with a great wonder and left no room in my mind for
+repugnance or fear. It was the first time the natural history of a
+living creature had been presented to me under such circumstances that
+I could not avoid hearing and seeing, and I was surprised at my
+dulness in the past when I had rejected books on natural history.
+
+I did not become an enthusiastic amateur naturalist at once; I did not
+at once begin to collect worms and bugs. But on the next sweeping-day
+I stood on a chair, craning my neck, to study the spider webs I
+discovered in the corners of the ceiling; and one or two webs of more
+than ordinary perfection I suffered to remain undisturbed for weeks,
+although it was my duty, as a house-cleaner, to sweep the ceiling
+clean. I began to watch for the mice that were wont to scurry across
+the floor when the house slept and I alone waked. I even placed a
+crust for them on the threshold of my room, and cultivated a
+breathless intimacy with them, when the little gray beasts
+acknowledged my hospitality by nibbling my crust in full sight. And so
+by degrees I came to a better understanding of my animal neighbors on
+all sides, and I began to look forward to the meetings of the Natural
+History Club.
+
+The club had frequent field excursions, in addition to the regular
+meetings. At the seashore, in the woods, in the fields; at high
+tide and low tide, in summer and winter, by sunlight and by moonlight,
+the marvellous story of orderly nature was revealed to me, in
+fragments that allured the imagination and made me beg for more. Some
+of the members of the club were school-teachers, accustomed to
+answering questions. All of them were patient; some of them took
+special pains with me. But nobody took me seriously as a member of the
+club. They called me the club mascot, and appointed me curator of the
+club museum, which was not in existence, at a salary of ten cents a
+year, which was never paid. And I was well pleased with my unique
+position in the club, delighted with my new friends, enraptured with
+my new study.
+
+   [Illustration: THE NATURAL HISTORY CLUB HAD FREQUENT FIELD
+   EXCURSIONS]
+
+More and more, as the seasons rolled by, and page after page of the
+book of nature was turned before my eager eyes, did I feel the wonder
+and thrill of the revelations of science, till all my thoughts became
+colored with the tints of infinite truths. My days arranged themselves
+around the meetings of the club as a centre. The whole structure of my
+life was transfigured by my novel experiences outdoors. I realized,
+with a shock at first, but afterwards with complacency, that books
+were taking a secondary place in my life, my irregular studies in
+natural history holding the first place. I began to enjoy the Natural
+History rooms; and I was obliged to admit to myself that my heart hung
+with a more thrilling suspense over the fate of some beans I had
+planted in a window box than over the fortunes of the classic hero
+about whom we were reading at school.
+
+But for all my enthusiasm about animals, plants, and rocks,--for all
+my devotion to the Natural History Club,--I did not become a thorough
+naturalist. My scientific friends were right not to take me
+seriously. Mr. Winthrop, in his delightfully frank way, called me a
+fraud; and I did not resent it. I dipped into zoölogy, botany,
+geology, ornithology, and an infinite number of other ologies, as the
+activities of the club or of particular members of it gave me
+opportunity, but I made no systematic study of any branch of science;
+at least not until I went to college. For what enthralled my
+imagination in the whole subject of natural history was not the
+orderly array of facts, but the glimpse I caught, through this or that
+fragment of science, of the grand principles underlying the facts. By
+asking questions, by listening when my wise friends talked, by
+reading, by pondering and dreaming, I slowly gathered together the
+kaleidoscopic bits of the stupendous panorama which is painted in the
+literature of Darwinism. Everything I had ever learned at school was
+illumined by this new knowledge; the world lay newly made under my
+eyes. Vastly as my mind had stretched to embrace the idea of a great
+country, when I exchanged Polotzk for America, it was no such
+enlargement as I now experienced, when in place of the measurable
+earth, with its paltry tale of historic centuries, I was given the
+illimitable universe to contemplate, with the numberless æons of
+infinite time.
+
+As the meaning of nature was deepened for me, so was its aspect
+beautified. Hitherto I had loved in nature the spectacular,--the
+blazing sunset, the whirling tempest, the flush of summer, the
+snow-wonder of winter. Now, for the first time, my heart was satisfied
+with the microscopic perfection of a solitary blossom. The harmonious
+murmur of autumn woods broke up into a hundred separate melodies, as
+the pelting acorn, the scurrying squirrel, the infrequent chirp of
+the lingering cricket, and the soft speed of ripe pine cones through
+dense-grown branches, each struck its discriminate chord in the
+scented air. The outdoor world was magnified in every dimension;
+inanimate things were vivified; living things were dignified.
+
+No two persons set the same value on any given thing, and so it may
+very well be that I am boasting of the enrichment of my life through
+the study of natural history to ears that hear not. I need only recall
+my own obtuseness to the subject, before the story of the spider
+sharpened my senses, to realize that these confessions of a nature
+lover may bore every other person who reads them. But I do not pretend
+to be concerned about the reader at this point. I never hope to
+explain to my neighbor the exact value of a winter sunrise in my
+spiritual economy, but I know that my life has grown better since I
+learned to distinguish between a butterfly and a moth; that my faith
+in man is the greater because I have watched for the coming of the
+song sparrow in the spring; and my thoughts of immortality are the
+less wavering because I have cherished the winter duckweed on my lawn.
+
+Those who find their greatest intellectual and emotional satisfaction
+in the study of nature are apt to refer their spiritual problems also
+to science. That is how it went with me. Long before my introduction
+to natural history I had realized, with an uneasy sense of the
+breaking of peace, that the questions which I thought to have been
+settled years before were beginning to tease me anew. In Russia I had
+practised a prescribed religion, with little faith in what I
+professed, and a restless questioning of the universe. When I came to
+America I lightly dropped the religious forms that I had half mocked
+before, and contented myself with a few novel phrases employed by my
+father in his attempt to explain the riddle of existence. The busy
+years flew by, when from morning till night I was preoccupied with the
+process of becoming an American; and no question arose in my mind that
+my books or my teachers could not fully answer. Then came a time when
+the ordinary business of my girl's life discharged itself
+automatically, and I had leisure once more to look over and around
+things. This period coinciding with my moody adolescence, I rapidly
+entangled myself in a net of doubts and questions, after the
+well-known manner of a growing girl. I asked once more, How did I come
+to be?--and I found that I was no whit wiser than poor Reb' Lebe, whom
+I had despised for his ignorance. For all my years of America and
+schooling, I could give no better answer to my clamoring questions
+than the teacher of my childhood. Whence came the fair world? Was
+there a God, after all? And if so, what did He intend when He made me?
+
+It was always my way, if I wanted anything, to turn my daily life into
+a pursuit of that thing. "Have you seen the treasure I seek?" I asked
+of every man I met. And if it was God that I desired, I made all my
+friends search their hearts for evidence of His being. I asked all the
+wise people I knew what they were going to do with themselves after
+death; and if the wise failed to satisfy me, I questioned the simple,
+and listened to the babies talking in their sleep.
+
+Still the imperative clamor of my mind remained unallayed. Was all my
+life to be a hunger and a questioning? I complained of my teachers,
+who stuffed my head with facts and gave my soul no crumb to feed on.
+I blamed the stars for their silence. I sat up nights brooding over
+the emptiness of knowledge, and praying for revelations.
+
+Sometimes I lived for days in a chimera of doubts, feeling that it was
+hardly worth while living at all if I was never to know why I was born
+and why I could not live forever. It was in one of these prolonged
+moods that I heard that a friend of mine, a distinguished man of
+letters whom I greatly admired, was coming to Boston for a short
+visit. A terrific New England blizzard arrived some hours in advance
+of my friend's train, but so intent was I on questioning him that I
+disregarded the weather, and struggled through towering snowdrifts, in
+the teeth of the wild wind, to the railroad station. There I nearly
+perished of weariness while waiting for the train, which was delayed
+by the storm. But when my friend emerged from one of the snow-crusted
+cars I was rewarded; for the blizzard had kept the reporters away, and
+the great man could give me his undivided attention.
+
+No doubt he understood the pressing importance of the matter to me,
+from the trouble I had taken to secure an early interview with him. He
+heard me out very soberly, and answered my questions as honestly as a
+thinking man could. Not a word of what he said remains in my mind, but
+I remember going away with the impression that it was possible to live
+without knowing everything, after all, and that I might even try to be
+happy in a world full of riddles.
+
+In such ways as this I sought peace of mind, but I never achieved more
+than a brief truce. I was coming to believe that only the stupid could
+be happy, and that life was pretty hard on the philosophical, when
+the great new interest of science came into my life, and scattered my
+blue devils as the sun scatters the night damps.
+
+Some of my friends in the Natural History Club were deeply versed in
+the principles of evolutionary science, and were able to guide me in
+my impetuous rush to learn everything in a day. I was in a hurry to
+deduce, from the conglomeration of isolated facts that I picked up in
+the lectures, the final solution of all my problems. It took both
+patience and wisdom to check me and at the same time satisfy me, I
+have no doubt; but then I was always fortunate in my friends. Wisdom
+and patience in plenty were spent on me, and I was instructed and
+inspired and comforted. Of course my wisest teacher was not able to
+tell me how the original spark of life was kindled, nor to point out,
+on the starry map of heaven, my future abode. The bread of absolute
+knowledge I do not hope to taste in this life. But all creation was
+remodelled on a grander scale by the utterances of my teachers; and my
+problems, though they deepened with the expansion of all nameable
+phenomena, were carried up to the heights of the impersonal, and
+ceased to torment me. Seeing how life and death, beginning and end,
+were all parts of the process of being, it mattered less in what
+particular ripple of the flux of existence I found myself. If past
+time was a trooping of similar yesterdays, back over the unbroken
+millenniums, to the first moment, it was simple to think of future
+time as a trooping of knowable to-days, on and on, to infinity.
+Possibly, also, the spark of life that had persisted through the
+geological ages, under a million million disguises, was vital enough
+to continue for another earth-age, in some shape as potent as the
+first or last. Thinking in æons and in races, instead of in years and
+individuals, somehow lightened the burden of intelligence, and filled
+me anew with a sense of youth and well-being, that I had almost lost
+in the pit of my narrow personal doubts.
+
+No one who understands the nature of youth will be misled, by this
+summary of my intellectual history, into thinking that I actually
+arranged my newly acquired scientific knowledge into any such orderly
+philosophy as, for the sake of clearness, I have outlined above. I had
+long passed my teens, and had seen something of life that is not
+revealed to poetizing girls, before I could give any logical account
+of what I read in the book of cosmogony. But the high peaks of the
+promised land of evolution did flash on my vision in the earlier days,
+and with these to guide me I rebuilt the world, and found it much
+nobler than it had ever been before, and took great comfort in it.
+
+I did not become a finished philosopher from hearing a couple of
+hundred lectures on scientific subjects. I did not even become a
+finished woman. If anything, I grew rather more girlish. I remember
+myself as very merry in the midst of my serious scientific friends,
+and I can think of no time when I was more inclined to play the tomboy
+than when off for a day in the woods, in quest of botanical and
+zoological specimens. The freedom of outdoors, the society of
+congenial friends, the delight of my occupation--all acted as a strong
+wine on my mood, and sent my spirits soaring to immoderate heights I
+am very much afraid I made myself a nuisance, at times, to some of the
+more sedate of my grown-up companions. I wish they could know that I
+have truly repented. I wish they had known at the time that it was
+the exuberance of my happiness that played tricks, and no wicked
+desire to annoy kind friends. But I am sure that those who were
+offended have long since forgotten or forgiven, and I need remember
+nothing of those wonderful days other than that a new sun rose above a
+new earth for me, and that my happiness was like unto the iridescent
+dews.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS
+
+
+I did not always wait for the Natural History Club to guide me to
+delectable lands. Some of the happiest days of that happy time I spent
+with my sister in East Boston. We had a merry time at supper, Moses
+making clever jokes, without cracking a smile himself; and the baby
+romping in his high chair, eating what wasn't good for him. But the
+best of the evening came later, when father and baby had gone to bed,
+and the dishes were put away, and there was not a crumb left on the
+red-and-white checked tablecloth. Frieda took out her sewing, and I
+took a book; and the lamp was between us, shining on the table, on the
+large brown roses on the wall, on the green and brown diamonds of the
+oil cloth on the floor, on the baby's rattle on a shelf, and on the
+shining stove in the corner. It was such a pleasant kitchen--such a
+cosey, friendly room--that when Frieda and I were left alone I was
+perfectly happy just to sit there. Frieda had a beautiful parlor, with
+plush chairs and a velvet carpet and gilt picture frames; but we
+preferred the homely, homelike kitchen.
+
+I read aloud from Longfellow, or Whittier, or Tennyson; and it was as
+great a treat to me as it was to Frieda. Her attention alone was
+inspiring. Her delight, her eager questions doubled the meaning of the
+lines I read. Poor Frieda had little enough time for reading, unless
+she stole it from the sewing or the baking or the mending. But she was
+hungry for books, and so grateful when I came to read to her that it
+made me ashamed to remember all the beautiful things I had and did not
+share with her.
+
+It is true I shared what could be shared. I brought my friends to her.
+At her wedding were some of the friends of whom I was most proud. Miss
+Dillingham came, and Mr. Hurd; and the humbler guests stared in
+admiration at our school-teachers and editors. But I had so many
+delightful things that I could not bring to Frieda--my walks, my
+dreams, my adventures of all sorts. And yet when I told her about
+them, I found that she partook of everything. For she had her talent
+for vicarious enjoyment, by means of which she entered as an actor
+into my adventures, was present as a witness at the frolic of my
+younger life. Or if I narrated things that were beyond her, on account
+of her narrower experience, she listened with an eager longing to
+understand that was better than some people's easy comprehension. My
+world ever rang with good tidings, and she was grateful if I brought
+her the echo of them, to ring again within the four walls of the
+kitchen that bounded her life. And I, who lived on the heights, and
+walked with the learned, and bathed in the crystal fountains of youth,
+sometimes climbed the sublimest peak in my sister's humble kitchen,
+there caught the unfaltering accents of inspiration, and rejoiced in
+silver pools of untried happiness.
+
+The way she reached out for everything fine was shown by her interest
+in the incomprehensible Latin and French books that I brought. She
+liked to hear me read my Cicero, pleased by the movement of the
+sonorous periods. I translated Ovid and Virgil for her; and her
+pleasure illumined the difficult passages, so that I seldom needed to
+have recourse to the dictionary. I shall never forget the evening I
+read to her, from the "Æneid," the passage in the fourth book
+describing the death of Dido. I read the Latin first, and then my own
+version in English hexameters, that I had prepared for a recitation at
+school. Frieda forgot her sewing in her lap, and leaned forward in
+rapt attention. When I was through, there were tears of delight in her
+eyes; and I was surprised myself at the beauty of the words I had just
+pronounced.
+
+I do not dare to confess how much of my Latin I have forgotten, lest
+any of the devoted teachers who taught me should learn the sad truth;
+but I shall always boast of some acquaintance with Virgil, through
+that scrap of the "Æneid" made memorable by my sister's enjoyment of
+it.
+
+Truly my education was not entirely in the hands of persons who had
+licenses to teach. My sister's fat baby taught me things about the
+origin and ultimate destiny of dimples that were not in any of my
+school-books. Mr. Casey, of the second floor, who was drunk whenever
+his wife was sober, gave me an insight into the psychology of the beer
+mug that would have added to the mental furniture of my most scholarly
+teacher. The bold-faced girls who passed the evening on the corner, in
+promiscuous flirtation with the cock-eyed youths of the neighborhood,
+unconsciously revealed to me the eternal secrets of adolescence. My
+neighbor of the third floor, who sat on the curbstone with the scabby
+baby in her bedraggled lap, had things to say about the fine ladies
+who came in carriages to inspect the public bathhouse across the
+street that ought to be repeated in the lecture halls of every school
+of philanthropy. Instruction poured into my brain at such a rate that
+I could not digest it all at the time; but in later years, when my
+destiny had led me far from Dover Street, the emphatic moral of those
+lessons became clear. The memory of my experience on Dover Street
+became the strength of my convictions, the illumined index of my
+purpose, the aureola of my happiness. And if I paid for those lessons
+with days of privation and dread, with nights of tormenting anxiety, I
+count the price cheap. Who would not go to a little trouble to find
+out what life is made of? Life in the slums spins busily as a
+schoolboy's top, and one who has heard its humming never forgets. I
+look forward to telling, when I get to be a master of language, what I
+read in the crooked cobblestones when I revisited Dover Street the
+other day.
+
+Dover Street was never really my residence--at least, not the whole of
+it. It happened to be the nook where my bed was made, but I inhabited
+the City of Boston. In the pearl-misty morning, in the ruby-red
+evening, I was empress of all I surveyed from the roof of the tenement
+house. I could point in any direction and name a friend who would
+welcome me there. Off towards the northwest, in the direction of
+Harvard Bridge, which some day I should cross on my way to Radcliffe
+College, was one of my favorite palaces, whither I resorted every day
+after school.
+
+A low, wide-spreading building with a dignified granite front it was,
+flanked on all sides by noble old churches, museums, and
+school-houses, harmoniously disposed around a spacious triangle,
+called Copley Square. Two thoroughfares that came straight from the
+green suburbs swept by my palace, one on either side, converged at the
+apex of the triangle, and pointed off, past the Public Garden, across
+the historic Common, to the domed State House sitting on a height.
+
+It was my habit to go very slowly up the low, broad steps to the
+palace entrance, pleasing my eyes with the majestic lines of the
+building, and lingering to read again the carved inscriptions: _Public
+Library_--_Built by the People_--_Free to All_.
+
+Did I not say it was my palace? Mine, because I was a citizen; mine,
+though I was born an alien; mine, though I lived on Dover Street. My
+palace--_mine_!
+
+I loved to lean against a pillar in the entrance hall, watching the
+people go in and out. Groups of children hushed their chatter at the
+entrance, and skipped, whispering and giggling in their fists, up the
+grand stairway, patting the great stone lions at the top, with an eye
+on the aged policemen down below. Spectacled scholars came slowly down
+the stairs, loaded with books, heedless of the lofty arches that
+echoed their steps. Visitors from out of town lingered long in the
+entrance hall, studying the inscriptions and symbols on the marble
+floor. And I loved to stand in the midst of all this, and remind
+myself that I was there, that I had a right to be there, that I was at
+home there. All these eager children, all these fine-browed women, all
+these scholars going home to write learned books--I and they had this
+glorious thing in common, this noble treasure house of learning. It
+was wonderful to say, _This is mine_; it was thrilling to say, _This
+is ours_.
+
+I visited every part of the building that was open to the public. I
+spent rapt hours studying the Abbey pictures. I repeated to myself
+lines from Tennyson's poem before the glowing scenes of the Holy
+Grail. Before the "Prophets" in the gallery above I was mute, but
+echoes of the Hebrew Psalms I had long forgotten throbbed somewhere in
+the depths of my consciousness. The Chavannes series around the main
+staircase I did not enjoy for years. I thought the pictures looked
+faded, and their symbolism somehow failed to move me at first.
+
+Bates Hall was the place where I spent my longest hours in the
+library. I chose a seat far at one end, so that looking up from my
+books I would get the full effect of the vast reading-room. I felt the
+grand spaces under the soaring arches as a personal attribute of my
+being.
+
+The courtyard was my sky-roofed chamber of dreams. Slowly strolling
+past the endless pillars of the colonnade, the fountain murmured in my
+ear of all the beautiful things in all the beautiful world. I imagined
+that I was a Greek of the classic days, treading on sandalled feet
+through the glistening marble porticoes of Athens. I expected to see,
+if I looked over my shoulder, a bearded philosopher in a drooping
+mantle, surrounded by beautiful youths with wreathed locks. Everything
+I read in school, in Latin or Greek, everything in my history books,
+was real to me here, in this courtyard set about with stately columns.
+
+Here is where I liked to remind myself of Polotzk, the better to bring
+out the wonder of my life. That I who was born in the prison of the
+Pale should roam at will in the land of freedom was a marvel that it
+did me good to realize. That I who was brought up to my teens almost
+without a book should be set down in the midst of all the books that
+ever were written was a miracle as great as any on record. That an
+outcast should become a privileged citizen, that a beggar should dwell
+in a palace--this was a romance more thrilling than poet ever sung.
+Surely I was rocked in an enchanted cradle.
+
+   [Illustration: BATES HALL, WHERE I SPENT MY LONGEST HOURS IN THE
+   LIBRARY]
+
+From the Public Library to the State House is only a step, and I found
+my way there without a guide. The State House was one of the places I
+could point to and say that I had a friend there to welcome me. I do
+not mean the representative of my district, though I hope he was a
+worthy man. My friend was no less a man than the Honorable Senator
+Roe, from Worcester, whose letters to me, written under the embossed
+letter head of the Senate Chamber, I could not help exhibiting to
+Florence Connolly.
+
+How did I come by a Senator? Through being a citizen of Boston, of
+course. To be a citizen of the smallest village in the United States
+which maintains a free school and a public library is to stand in the
+path of the splendid processions of opportunity. And as Boston has
+rather better schools and a rather finer library than some other
+villages, it comes natural there for children in the slums to summon
+gentlemen from the State House to be their personal friends.
+
+It is so simple, in Boston! You are a school-girl, and your teacher
+gives you a ticket for the annual historical lecture in the Old South
+Church, on Washington's Birthday. You hear a stirring discourse on
+some subject in your country's history, and you go home with a heart
+bursting with patriotism. You sit down and write a letter to the
+speaker who so moved you, telling him how glad you are to be an
+American, explaining to him, if you happen to be a recently made
+American, why you love your adopted country so much better than your
+native land. Perhaps the patriotic lecturer happens to be a Senator,
+and he reads your letter under the vast dome of the State House; and
+it occurs to him that he and his eminent colleagues and the stately
+capitol and the glorious flag that floats above it, all gathered on
+the hill above the Common, do his country no greater honor than the
+outspoken admiration of an ardent young alien. The Senator replies to
+your letter, inviting you to visit him at the State House; and in the
+renowned chamber where the august business of the State is conducted,
+you, an obscure child from the slums, and he, a chosen leader of the
+people, seal a democratic friendship based on the love of a common
+flag.
+
+Even simpler than to meet a Senator was it to become acquainted with a
+man like Edward Everett Hale. "The Grand Old Man of Boston," the
+people called him, from the manner of his life among them. He kept
+open house in every public building in the city. Wherever two citizens
+met to devise a measure for the public weal, he was a third. Wherever
+a worthy cause needed a champion, Dr. Hale lifted his mighty voice. At
+some time or another his colossal figure towered above an eager
+multitude from every pulpit in the city, from every lecture platform.
+And where is the map of Boston that gives the names of the lost alleys
+and back ways where the great man went in search of the lame in body,
+who could not join the public assembly, in quest of the maimed in
+spirit, who feared to show their faces in the open? If all the little
+children who have sat on Dr. Hale's knee were started in a procession
+on the State House steps, standing four abreast, there would be a lane
+of merry faces across the Common, out to the Public Library, over
+Harvard Bridge, and away beyond to remoter landmarks.
+
+That I met Dr. Hale is no wonder. It was as inevitable as that I
+should be a year older every twelvemonth. He was a part of Boston, as
+the salt wave is a part of the sea. I can hardly say whether he came
+to me or I came to him. We met, and my adopted country took me closer
+to her breast.
+
+A day or two after our first meeting I called on Dr. Hale, at his
+invitation. It was only eight o'clock in the morning, you may be sure,
+because he had risen early to attend to a hundred great affairs, and I
+had risen early so as to talk with a great man before I went to
+school. I think we liked each other a little the more for the fact
+that when so many people were still asleep, we were already busy in
+the interests of citizenship and friendship. We certainly liked each
+other.
+
+I am sure I did not stay more than fifteen minutes, and all that I
+recall of our conversation was that Dr. Hale asked me a great many
+questions about Russia, in a manner that made me feel that I was an
+authority on the subject; and with his great hand in good-bye he gave
+me a bit of homely advice, namely, that I should never study before
+breakfast!
+
+That was all, but for the rest of the day I moved against a background
+of grandeur. There was a noble ring to Virgil that day that even my
+teacher's firm translation had never brought out before. Obscure
+points in the history lesson were clear to me alone, of the thirty
+girls in the class. And it happened that the tulips in Copley Square
+opened that day, and shone in the sun like lighted lamps.
+
+Any one could be happy a year on Dover Street, after spending half an
+hour on Highland Street. I enjoyed so many half-hours in the great
+man's house that I do not know how to convey the sense of my
+remembered happiness. My friend used to keep me in conversation a few
+minutes, in the famous study that was fit to have been preserved as a
+shrine; after which he sent me to roam about the house, and explore
+his library, and take away what books I pleased. Who would feel
+cramped in a tenement, with such royal privileges as these?
+
+Once I brought Dr. Hale a present, a copy of a story of mine that had
+been printed in a journal; and from his manner of accepting it you
+might have thought that I was a princess dispensing gifts from a
+throne. I wish I had asked him, that last time I talked with him, how
+it was that he who was so modest made those who walked with him so
+great.
+
+Modest as the man was the house in which he lived. A gray old house of
+a style that New England no longer builds, with a pillared porch
+curtained by vines, set back in the yard behind the old trees.
+Whatever cherished flowers glowed in the garden behind the house, the
+common daisy was encouraged to bloom in front. And was there sun or
+snow on the ground, the most timid hand could open the gate, the most
+humble visitor was sure of a welcome. Out of that modest house the
+troubled came comforted, the fallen came uplifted, the noble came
+inspired.
+
+My explorations of Dr. Hale's house might not have brought me to the
+gables, but for my friend's daughter, the artist, who had a studio at
+the top of the house. She asked me one day if I would sit for a
+portrait, and I consented with the greatest alacrity. It would be an
+interesting experience, and interesting experiences were the bread of
+life to me. I agreed to come every Saturday morning, and felt that
+something was going to happen to Dover Street.
+
+   [Illustration: THE FAMOUS STUDY, THAT WAS FIT TO HAVE BEEN
+   PRESERVED AS A SHRINE]
+
+When I came home from my talk with Miss Hale, I studied myself long in
+my blotched looking-glass. I saw just what I expected. My face was too
+thin, my nose too large, my complexion too dull. My hair, which was
+curly enough, was too short to be described as luxurious tresses; and
+the color was neither brown nor black. My hands were neither white nor
+velvety; the fingers ended decidedly, instead of tapering off like
+rosy dreams. I was disgusted with my wrists; they showed too far below
+the tight sleeves of my dress of the year before last, and they looked
+consumptive.
+
+No, it was not for my beauty that Miss Hale wanted to paint me. It was
+because I was a girl, a person, a piece of creation. I understood
+perfectly. If I could write an interesting composition about a broom,
+why should not an artist be able to make an interesting picture of me?
+I had done it with the broom, and the milk wagon, and the rain spout.
+It was not what a thing was that made it interesting, but what I was
+able to draw out of it. It was exciting to speculate as to what Miss
+Hale was going to draw out of me.
+
+The first sitting was indeed exciting. There was hardly any sitting to
+it. We did nothing but move around the studio, and move the easel
+around, and try on ever so many backgrounds, and ever so many poses.
+In the end, of course, we left everything just as it had been at the
+start, because Miss Hale had had the right idea from the beginning;
+but I understood that a preliminary tempest in the studio was the
+proper way to test that idea.
+
+I was surprised to find that I should not be obliged to hold my
+breath, and should be allowed to wink all I wanted. Posing was just
+sitting with my hands in my lap, and enjoying the most interesting
+conversation with the artist. We hit upon such out-of-the-way
+topics--once, I remember, we talked about the marriage laws of
+different states! I had a glorious time, and I believe Miss Hale did
+too. I watched the progress of the portrait with utter lack of
+comprehension, and with perfect faith in the ultimate result. The
+morning flew so fast that I could have sat right on into the afternoon
+without tiring.
+
+Once or twice I stayed to lunch, and sat opposite the artist's mother
+at table. It was like sitting face to face with Martha Washington, I
+thought. Everything was wonderful in that wonderful old house.
+
+One thing disturbed my enjoyment of those Saturday mornings. It was a
+small thing, hardly as big as a pen-wiper. It was a silver coin which
+Miss Hale gave me regularly when I was going. I knew that models were
+paid for sitting, but I was not a professional model. When people sat
+for their portraits they usually paid the artist, instead of the
+artist paying them. Of course I had not ordered this portrait, but I
+had such a good time sitting that it did not seem to me I could be
+earning money. But what troubled me was not the suspicion that I did
+not earn the money, but that I did not know what was in my friend's
+mind when she gave it to me. Was it possible that Miss Hale had asked
+me to sit on purpose to be able to pay me, so that I could help pay
+the rent? Everybody knew about the rent sooner or later, because I was
+always asking my friends what a girl could do to make the landlady
+happy. Very possibly Miss Hale had my landlady in mind when she asked
+me to pose. I might have asked her--I dearly loved explanations, which
+cleared up hidden motives--but her answer would not have made any
+real difference. I should have accepted the money just the same. Miss
+Hale was not a stranger, like Mr. Strong when he offered me a quarter.
+She knew me, she believed in my cause, and she wanted to contribute to
+it. Thus I, in my hair-splitting analyses of persons and motives;
+while the portrait went steadily on.
+
+It was Miss Hale who first found a use for our superfluous baby. She
+came to Dover Street several times to study our tiny Celia, in
+swaddling clothes improvised by my mother, after the fashion of the
+old country. Miss Hale wanted a baby for a picture of the Nativity
+which she was doing for her father's church; and of all the babies in
+Boston, our Celia, our little Jewish Celia, was posing for the Christ
+Child! It does not matter in this connection that the Infant that lies
+in the lantern light, brooded over by the Mother's divine sorrow of
+love, in the beautiful altar piece in Dr. Hale's church, was not
+actually painted from my mother's baby, in the end. The point is that
+my mother, in less than half a dozen years of America, had so far
+shaken off her ancient superstitions that she feared no evil
+consequence from letting her child pose for a Christian picture.
+
+A busy life I led, on Dover Street; a happy, busy life. When I was not
+reciting lessons, nor writing midnight poetry, nor selling papers, nor
+posing, nor studying sociology, nor pickling bugs, nor interviewing
+statesmen, nor running away from home, I made long entries in nay
+journal, or wrote forty-page letters to my friends. It was a happy
+thing that poor Mrs. Hutch did not know what sums I spent for
+stationery and postage stamps. She would have gone into consumption, I
+do believe, from inexpressible indignation; and she would have been
+in the right--to be indignant, not to go into consumption. I admit it;
+she would have been justified--from her point of view. From my point
+of view I was also in the right; of course I was. To make friends
+among the great was an important part of my education, and was not to
+be accomplished without a liberal expenditure of paper and postage
+stamps. If Mrs. Hutch had not repulsed my offer of confidences, I
+could have shown her long letters written to me by people whose mere
+signature was prized by autograph hunters. It is true that I could not
+turn those letters directly into rent-money,--or if I could, I would
+not,--but indirectly my interesting letters did pay a week's rent now
+and then. Through the influence of my friends my father sometimes
+found work that he could not have got in any other way. These
+practical results of my costly pursuit of friendships might have given
+Mrs. Hutch confidence in my ultimate solvency, had she not remained
+obstinately deaf to my plea for time, her heart being set on direct,
+immediate, convertible cash payment.
+
+That was very narrow-minded, even though I say it who should not. The
+grocer on Harrison Avenue who supplied our table could have taught her
+to take a more liberal view. We were all anxious to teach her, if she
+only would have listened. Here was this poor grocer, conducting his
+business on the same perilous credit system which had driven my father
+out of Chelsea and Wheeler Street, supplying us with tea and sugar and
+strong butter, milk freely splashed from rusty cans, potent yeast, and
+bananas done to a turn,--with everything, in short, that keeps a poor
+man's family hearty in spite of what they eat,--and all this for the
+consideration of part payment, with the faintest prospect of a future
+settlement in full. Mr. Rosenblum had an intimate knowledge of the
+financial situation of every family that traded with him, from the
+gossip of his customers around his herring barrel. He knew without
+asking that my father had no regular employment, and that,
+consequently, it was risky to give us credit. Nevertheless he gave us
+credit by the week, by the month, accepted partial payment with
+thanks, and let the balance stand by the year.
+
+We owed him as much as the landlady, I suppose, every time he balanced
+our account. But he never complained; nay, he even insisted on my
+mother's taking almonds and raisins for a cake for the holidays. He
+knew, as well as Mrs. Hutch, that my father kept a daughter at school
+who was of age to be put to work; but so far was he from reproaching
+him for it that he detained my father by the half-hour, inquiring
+about my progress and discussing my future. He knew very well, did the
+poor grocer, who it was that burned so much oil in my family; but when
+I came in to have my kerosene can filled, he did not fall upon me with
+harsh words of blame. Instead, he wanted to hear about my latest
+triumph at school, and about the great people who wrote me letters and
+even came to see me; and he called his wife from the kitchen behind
+the store to come and hear of these grand doings. Mrs. Rosenblum, who
+could not sign her name, came out in her faded calico wrapper, and
+stood with her hands folded under her apron, shy and respectful before
+the embryo scholar; and she nodded her head sideways in approval,
+drinking in with envious pleasure her husband's Yiddish version of my
+tale. If her black-eyed Goldie happened to be playing jackstones on
+the curb, Mrs. Rosenblum pulled her into the store, to hear what
+distinction Mr. Antin's daughter had won at school, bidding her take
+example from Mary, if she would also go far in education.
+
+"Hear you, Goldie? She has the best marks, in everything, Goldie, all
+the time. She is only five years in the country, and she'll be in
+college soon. She beats them all in school, Goldie--her father says
+she beats them all. She studies all the time--all night--and she
+writes, it is a pleasure to hear. She writes in the paper, Goldie. You
+ought to hear Mr. Antin read what she writes in the paper. Long
+pieces--"
+
+"You don't understand what he reads, ma," Goldie interrupts
+mischievously; and I want to laugh, but I refrain. Mr. Rosenblum does
+not fill my can; I am forced to stand and hear myself eulogized.
+
+"Not understand? Of course I don't understand. How should I
+understand? I was not sent to school to learn. Of course I don't
+understand. But _you_ don't understand, Goldie, and that's a shame. If
+you would put your mind on it, and study hard, like Mary Antin, you
+would also stand high, and you would go to high school, and be
+somebody."
+
+"Would you send me to high school, pa?" Goldie asks, to test her
+mother's promises. "Would you really?"
+
+"Sure as I am a Jew," Mr. Rosenblum promptly replies, a look of
+aspiration in his deep eyes. "Only show yourself worthy, Goldie, and
+I'll keep you in school till you get to something. In America
+everybody can get to something, if he only wants to. I would even send
+you farther than high school--to be a teacher, maybe. Why not? In
+America everything is possible. But you have to work hard, Goldie,
+like Mary Antin--study hard, put your mind on it."
+
+"Oh, I know it, pa!" Goldie exclaims, her momentary enthusiasm
+extinguished at the thought of long lessons indefinitely prolonged.
+Goldie was a restless little thing who could not sit long over her
+geography book. She wriggled out of her mother's grasp now, and made
+for the door, throwing a "back-hand" as she went, without losing a
+single jackstone. "I hate long lessons," she said. "When I graduate
+grammar school next year I'm going to work in Jordan-Marsh's big
+store, and get three dollars a week, and have lots of fun with the
+girls. I can't write pieces in the paper, anyhow.--Beckie! Beckie
+Hurvich! Where you going? Wait a minute, I'll go along." And she was
+off, leaving her ambitious parents to shake their heads over her
+flightiness.
+
+Mr. Rosenblum gave me my oil. If he had had postage stamps in stock,
+he would have given me all I needed, and felt proud to think that he
+was assisting in my important correspondences. And he was a poor man,
+and had a large family, and many customers who paid as irregularly as
+we. He ran the risk of ruin, of course, but he did not scold--not us,
+at any rate. For he _understood_. He was himself an immigrant Jew of
+the type that values education, and sets a great price on the higher
+development of the child. He would have done in my father's place just
+what my father was doing: borrow, beg, go without, run in
+debt--anything to secure for a promising child the fulfilment of the
+promise. That is what America was for. The land of opportunity it was,
+but opportunities must be used, must be grasped, held, squeezed dry.
+To keep a child of working age in school was to invest the meagre
+present for the sake of the opulent future. If there was but one
+child in a family of twelve who promised to achieve an intellectual
+career, the other eleven, and father, and mother, and neighbors must
+devote themselves to that one child's welfare, and feed and clothe and
+cheer it on, and be rewarded in the end by hearing its name mentioned
+with the names of the great.
+
+So the poor grocer helped to keep me in school for I do not know how
+many years. And this is one of the things that is done on Harrison
+Avenue, by the people who pitch rubbish through their windows. Let the
+City Fathers strike the balance.
+
+Of course this is wretched economics. If I had a son who wanted to go
+into the grocery business, I should take care that he was well
+grounded in the principles of sound bookkeeping and prudence. But I
+should not fail to tell him the story of the Harrison Avenue grocer,
+hoping that he would puzzle out the moral.
+
+Mr. Rosenblum himself would be astonished to hear that any one was
+drawing morals from his manner of conducting his little store, and yet
+it is from men like him that I learn the true values of things. The
+grocer weighed me out a quarter of a pound of butter, and when the
+scales were even he threw in another scrap. "_Na!_" he said, smiling
+across the counter, "you can carry that much around the corner!"
+Plainly he was showing me that if I have not as many houses as my
+neighbor, that should not prevent me from cultivating as many graces.
+If I made some shame-faced reference to the unpaid balance, Mr.
+Rosenblum replied, "I guess you're not thinking of running away from
+Boston yet. You haven't finished turning the libraries inside out,
+have you?" In this way he reminded me that there were things more
+important than conventional respectability. The world belongs to those
+who can use it to the best advantage, the grocer seemed to argue; and
+I found that I had the courage to test this philosophy.
+
+From my little room on Dover Street I reached out for the world, and
+the world came to me. Through books, through the conversation of noble
+men and women, through communion with the stars in the depth of night,
+I entered into every noble chamber of the palace of life. I employed
+no charm to win admittance. The doors opened to me because I had a
+right to be within. My patent of nobility was the longing for the
+abundance of life with which I was endowed at birth; and from the time
+I could toddle unaided I had been gathering into my hand everything
+that was fine in the world around me. Given health and standing-room,
+I should have worked out my salvation even on a desert island. Being
+set down in the garden of America, where opportunity waits on
+ambition, I was bound to make my days a triumphal march toward my
+goal. The most unfriendly witness of my life will not venture to deny
+that I have been successful. For aside from subordinate desires for
+greatness or wealth or specific achievement, my chief ambition in life
+has been _to live_, and I have lived. A glowing life has been mine,
+and the fires that blazed highest in all my days were kindled on Dover
+Street.
+
+I have never had a dull hour in my life; I have never had a livelier
+time than in the slums. In all my troubles I was thrilled through and
+through with a prophetic sense of how they were to end. A halo of
+romance floated before every to-morrow; the wings of future
+adventures rustled in the dead of night. Nothing could be quite common
+that touched my life, because I had a power for attracting uncommon
+things. And when my noblest dreams shall have been realized I shall
+meet with nothing finer, nothing more remote from the commonplace,
+than some of the things that came into my life on Dover Street.
+
+Friends came to me bearing noble gifts of service, inspiration, and
+love. There came one, to talk with whom was to double the volume of
+life. She left roses on my pillow when I lay ill, and in my heart she
+planted a longing for greatness that I have yet to satisfy. Another
+came whose soul was steeped in sunshine, whose eyes saw through every
+pretence, whose lips mocked nothing holy. And one came who carried the
+golden key that unlocked the last secret chamber of life for me.
+Friends came trooping from everywhere, and some were poor, and some
+were rich, but all were devoted and true; and they left no niche in my
+heart unfilled, and no want unsatisfied.
+
+To be alive in America, I found out long ago, is to ride on the
+central current of the river of modern life; and to have a conscious
+purpose is to hold the rudder that steers the ship of fate. I was
+alive to my finger tips, back there on Dover Street, and all my
+girlish purposes served one main purpose. It would have been amazing
+if I had stuck in the mire of the slum. By every law of my nature I
+was bound to soar above it, to attain the fairer places that wait for
+every emancipated immigrant.
+
+A characteristic thing about the aspiring immigrant is the fact that
+he is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect
+success in his eyes. He must take his family with him as he rises. So
+when I refused to be adopted by a rich old man, and clung to my
+family in the slums, I was only following the rule; and I can tell it
+without boasting, because it is no more to my credit than that I wake
+refreshed after a night's sleep.
+
+This suggests to me a summary of my virtues, through the exercise of
+which I may be said to have attracted my good fortune. I find that I
+have always given nature a chance, I have used my opportunities, and
+have practised self-expression. So much my enemies will grant me; more
+than this my friends cannot claim for me.
+
+In the Dover Street days I did not philosophize about my private
+character, nor about the immigrant and his ways. I lived the life, and
+the moral took care of itself. And after Dover Street came Applepie
+Alley, Letterbox Lane, and other evil corners of the slums of Boston,
+till it must have looked to our neighbors as if we meant to go on
+forever exploring the underworld. But we found a short-cut--we found a
+short-cut! And the route we took from the tenements of the stifling
+alleys to a darling cottage of our own, where the sun shines in at
+every window, and the green grass runs up to our very doorstep, was
+surveyed by the Pilgrim Fathers, who trans-scribed their field notes
+on a very fine parchment and called it the Constitution of the United
+States.
+
+It was good to get out of Dover Street--it was better for the growing
+children, better for my weary parents, better for all of us, as the
+clean grass is better than the dusty pavement. But I must never forget
+that I came away from Dover Street with my hands full of riches. I
+must not fail to testify that in America a child of the slums owns the
+land and all that is good in it. All the beautiful things I saw
+belonged to me, if I wanted to use them; all the beautiful things I
+desired approached me. I did not need to seek my kingdom. I had only
+to be worthy, and it came to me, even on Dover Street. Everything that
+was ever to happen to me in the future had its germ or impulse in the
+conditions of my life on Dover Street. My friendships, my advantages
+and disadvantages, my gifts, my habits, my ambitions--these were the
+materials out of which I built my after life, in the open workshop of
+America. My days in the slums were pregnant with possibilities; it
+only needed the ripeness of events to make them fruit forth in
+realities. Steadily as I worked to win America, America advanced to
+lie at my feet. I was an heir, on Dover Street, awaiting maturity. I
+was a princess waiting to be led to the throne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE HERITAGE
+
+
+One of the inherent disadvantages of premature biography is that it
+cannot go to the natural end of the story. This difficulty threatened
+me in the beginning, but now I find I do not need to tax my judgment
+to fix the proper stopping-place. Sudden qualms of reluctance warn me
+where the past and present meet. I have reached a point where my
+yesterdays lie in a quick heap, and I cannot bear to prod and turn
+them and set them up to be looked at. For that matter, I am not sure
+that I should add anything really new, even if I could force myself to
+cross the line of discretion. I have already shown what a real thing
+is this American freedom that we talk about, and in what manner a
+certain class of aliens make use of it. Anything that I might add of
+my later adventures would be a repetition, in substance, of what I
+have already described. Having traced the way an immigrant child may
+take from the ship through the public schools, passed on from hand to
+hand by the ready teachers; through free libraries and lecture halls,
+inspired by every occasion of civic consciousness; dragging through
+the slums the weight of private disadvantage, but heartened for the
+effort by public opportunity; welcomed at a hundred open doors of
+instruction, initiated with pomp and splendor and flags unfurled
+seeking, in American minds, the American way, and finding it in the
+thoughts of the noble,--striving against the odds of foreign birth and
+poverty, and winning, through the use of abundant opportunity, a
+place as enviable as that of any native child,--having traced the
+footsteps of the young immigrant almost to the college gate, the rest
+of the course may be left to the imagination. Let us say that from the
+Latin School on I lived very much as my American schoolmates lived,
+having overcome my foreign idiosyncrasies, and the rest of my outward
+adventures you may read in any volume of American feminine statistics.
+
+But lest I be reproached for a sudden affectation of reserve, after
+having trained my reader to expect the fullest particulars, I am
+willing to add a few details. I went to college, as I proposed, though
+not to Radcliffe. Receiving an invitation to live in New York that I
+did not like to refuse, I went to Barnard College instead. There I
+took all the honors that I deserved; and if I did not learn to write
+poetry, as I once supposed I should, I learned at least to think in
+English without an accent. Did I get rich? you may want to know,
+remembering my ambition to provide for the family. I can reply that I
+have earned enough to pay Mrs. Hutch the arrears, and satisfy all my
+wants. And where have I lived since I left the slums? My favorite
+abode is a tent in the wilderness, where I shall be happy to serve you
+a cup of tea out of a tin kettle, and answer further questions.
+
+And is this really to be the last word? Yes, though a long chapter of
+the romance of Dover Street is left untold. I could fill another book
+with anecdotes, telling how I took possession of Beacon Street, and
+learned to distinguish the lord of the manor from the butler in full
+dress. I might trace my steps from my bare room overlooking the
+lumber-yard to the satin drawing-rooms of the Back Bay, where I drank
+afternoon tea with gentle ladies whose hands were as delicate as
+their porcelain cups. My journal of those days is full of comments on
+the contrasts of life, that I copied from my busy thoughts in the
+evening, after a visit to my aristocratic friends. Coming straight
+from the cushioned refinement of Beacon Street, where the maid who
+brought my hostess her slippers spoke in softer accents than the
+finest people on Dover Street, I sometimes stumbled over poor Mr.
+Casey lying asleep in the corridor; and the shock of the contrast was
+like a searchlight turned suddenly on my life, and I pondered over the
+revelation, and wrote touching poems, in which I figured as a heroine
+of two worlds.
+
+I might quote from my journals and poems, and build up the picture of
+that double life. I might rehearse the names of the gracious friends
+who admitted me to their tables, although I came direct from the
+reeking slums. I might enumerate the priceless gifts they showered on
+me; gifts bought not with gold but with love. It would be a pleasant
+task to recall the high things that passed in the gilded drawing-rooms
+over the afternoon tea. It would add a splendor to my simple narrative
+to weave in the portraits of the distinguished men and women who
+busied themselves with the humble fortunes of a school-girl. And
+finally, it would relieve my heart of a burden of gratitude to
+publish, once for all, the amount of my indebtedness to the devoted
+friends who took me by the hand when I walked in the paths of
+obscurity, and led me, by a pleasanter lane than I could have found by
+myself, to the open fields where obstacles thinned and opportunities
+crowded to meet me. Outside America I should hardly be believed if I
+told how simply, in my experience, Dover Street merged into the Back
+Bay. These are matters to which I long to testify, but I must wait
+till they recede into the past.
+
+I can conjure up no better symbol of the genuine, practical equality
+of all our citizens than the Hale House Natural History Club, which
+played an important part in my final emancipation from the slums. For
+all I was regarded as a plaything by the serious members of the club,
+the attention and kindness they lavished on me had a deep
+significance. Every one of those earnest men and women unconsciously
+taught me my place in the Commonwealth, as the potential equal of the
+best of them. Few of my friends in the club, it is true, could have
+rightly defined their benevolence toward me. Perhaps some of them
+thought they befriended me for charity's sake, because I was a starved
+waif from the slums. Some of them imagined they enjoyed my society,
+because I had much to say for myself, and a gay manner of meeting
+life. But all these were only secondary motives. I myself, in my
+unclouded perception of the true relation of things that concerned me,
+could have told them all why they spent their friendship on me. They
+made way for me because I was their foster sister. They opened their
+homes to me that I might learn how good Americans lived. In the least
+of their attentions to me, they cherished the citizen in the making.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Natural History Club had spent the day at Nahant, studying marine
+life in the tide pools, scrambling up and down the cliffs with no
+thought for decorum, bent only on securing the starfish, limpets,
+sea-urchins, and other trophies of the chase. There had been a merry
+luncheon on the rocks, with talk and laughter between sandwiches, and
+strange jokes, intelligible only to the practising naturalist. The
+tide had rushed in at its proper time, stealing away our seaweed
+cushions, drowning our transparent pools, spouting in the crevices,
+booming and hissing, and tossing high the snowy foam.
+
+   [Illustration: THE TIDE HAD RUSHED IN, STEALING AWAY OUR SEAWEED
+   CUSHIONS]
+
+From the deck of the jolly excursion steamer which was carrying us
+home, we had watched the rosy sun dip down below the sea. The members
+of the club, grouped in twos and threes, discussed the day's
+successes, compared specimens, exchanged field notes, or watched the
+western horizon in sympathetic silence.
+
+It had been a great day for me. I had seen a dozen new forms of life,
+had caught a hundred fragments of the song of nature by the sea; and
+my mind was seething with meanings that crowded in. I do not remember
+to which of my learned friends I addressed my questions on this
+occasion, but he surely was one of the most learned. For he took up
+all my fragments of dawning knowledge in his discourse, and welded
+them into a solid structure of wisdom, with windows looking far down
+the past and a tower overlooking the future. I was so absorbed in my
+private review of creation that I hardly realized when we landed, or
+how we got into the electric cars, till we were a good way into the
+city.
+
+At the Public Library I parted from my friends, and stood on the broad
+stone steps, my jar of specimens in my hand, watching the car that
+carried them glide out of sight. My heart was full of a stirring
+wonder. I was hardly conscious of the place where I stood, or of the
+day, or the hour. I was in a dream, and the familiar world around me
+was transfigured. My hair was damp with sea spray; the roar of the
+tide was still in my ears. Mighty thoughts surged through my dreams,
+and I trembled with understanding.
+
+I sank down on the granite ledge beside the entrance to the Library,
+and for a mere moment I covered my eyes with my hand. In that moment I
+had a vision of myself, the human creature, emerging from the dim
+places where the torch of history has never been, creeping slowly into
+the light of civilized existence, pushing more steadily forward to the
+broad plateau of modern life, and leaping, at last, strong and glad,
+to the intellectual summit of the latest century.
+
+What an awful stretch of years to contemplate! What a weighty past to
+carry in memory! How shall I number the days of my life, except by the
+stars of the night, except by the salt drops of the sea?
+
+But hark to the clamor of the city all about! This is my latest home,
+and it invites me to a glad new life. The endless ages have indeed
+throbbed through my blood, but a new rhythm dances in my veins. My
+spirit is not tied to the monumental past, any more than my feet were
+bound to my grandfather's house below the hill. The past was only my
+cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am grown too big; just as
+the little house in Polotzk, once my home, has now become a toy of
+memory, as I move about at will in the wide spaces of this splendid
+palace, whose shadow covers acres. No! it is not I that belong to the
+past, but the past that belongs to me. America is the youngest of the
+nations, and inherits all that went before in history. And I am the
+youngest of America's children, and into my hands is given all her
+priceless heritage, to the last white star espied through the
+telescope, to the last great thought of the philosopher. Mine is the
+whole majestic past, and mine is the shining future.
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
+
+
+    _To my mother who bore me; to my father who endowed me; to my
+    brothers and sisters who believed in me; to my friends who loved
+    me; to my teachers who inspired me; to my neighbors who
+    befriended me; to my daughter who enlarged me; to my husband who
+    opened the door of the greater life for me;--to all these who
+    helped to make this book, I give my thanks._
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+KEY TO PRONUNCIATION
+
+
+     a as in man
+     ä as in far
+     e as in met
+     Ä“ as in meet
+     ë as long e in German Leder
+     i as in pin
+     Ä« as in file
+     o as in not
+     � as in note
+     ö as in German König
+     u as in circus
+     Å« as in mute
+     u̇ as in pull
+    ai as in aisle
+    oi as in joint
+    ch as in German ach, Scotch loch
+     ḥ as in German ach, Scotch loch
+     l̂ as in failure
+     ñ as in cañon
+    zh as z in seizure.
+
+
+_Explanations_
+
+The abbreviations _Germ._ (= German), _Hebr._ (= Hebrew), _Russ._
+(= Russian), and _Yid._ (= Yiddish) indicate the origin of a word.
+Most of the names marked _Yiddish_ are such in form only, the roots
+being for the most part Hebrew.
+
+Prop. n = proper name.
+
+The endings _ke_ and _le_ of Yiddish proper names (Mashke, Perele)
+have a diminutive or endearing value, like the German _chen_
+(Helenchen).
+
+Double names are given under the first name.
+
+The religious customs described prevail among the Orthodox Jews of
+European countries. In the United States they have been considerably
+modified, especially among the Reformed Jews.
+
+ =Ab= (äb) _Hebr._ The fifth month of the Hebrew calendar. The
+    ninth of Ab is a day of fasting and mourning, in commemoration
+    of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
+
+ =Adonai= (ä-do-nai´), _Hebr._ An appellation of God.
+
+ =Aleph= (ä'-lef), _Hebr._ The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
+
+ =Atonement, Day of= (Hebrew, _Yom Kippur_). The most solemn of the
+    Hebrew festivals, observed by fasting and an elaborate
+    ceremonial.
+
+
+ =Bahur= (bä´-hur), _Hebr._ A young unmarried man, particularly a
+    student of the Talmud. (See _Yeshibah bahur_.)
+
+ =Berl= (berl). _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Cabala= (käb-ä´-lä), _Hebr._ A system of Hebrew mystic philosophy
+    which flourished in the Middle Ages.
+
+ =Candle Prayer= (Yiddish, _licht bentschen_). Prayer pronounced
+    over lighted candles by the women and older girls of the
+    household at the commencement of the Sabbath.
+
+ =Canopy, wedding= (Hebrew _huppah_). A portable canopy under which
+    the marriage ceremony is performed, usually outdoors.
+
+ =Cossaks= (kos´-aks), _Russ._ A name given to certain Russian
+    tribes, formerly distinguished for their freebooting habits, now
+    best known for their position in the army.
+
+
+ =Dayyan= (dai´-an), _Hebr._ A judge to whom are submitted civil
+    disputes, as distinguished from purely religious questions,
+    which are decided by the Rav.
+
+ =Dinke= (din´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Dvina= (dvē´-nä), _Russ._ Name of a river.
+
+ =Dvornik= (dvor´-nik), _Russ._ An outdoor man; a choreman.
+
+ =Dvoshe= (dvo´-she), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Earlocks= (Hebrew _peath_). Two locks of hair allowed to grow long
+    and hang in front of the ears. Among the fanatical Hasidim, a
+    mark of piety.
+
+ =Eidtkuhnen= (eit-koo´-ñen), _Germ._ Name of a Russo-German
+    frontier town.
+
+
+ =Fetchke= (fëtch´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Fringes, sacred= (Hebrew _zizit_). Specially prepared fringes
+    fastened to the four corners of the _arba kanfot_ (literally,
+    "four-corners"), a garment worn by all pious males underneath
+    the jacket or frock coat, usually with the fringes showing. The
+    latter play a part in the daily ritual.
+
+
+ =Goluth= (gol´-ut), _Hebr._ Banishment; exile.
+
+ =Good Jew= (Yiddish _guter id_). Among the Hasidim, a title
+    popularly accorded to more or less learned individuals
+    distinguished for their piety, and credited with supernatural
+    powers of healing, divination, etc. Pilgrimages to some renowned
+    "Good Jew" were often undertaken by the very pious, on occasions
+    of perplexity or trouble, for the purpose of obtaining his
+    advice or help.
+
+ =Groschen= (gro´-shen), _Germ._ A popular name for various coins of
+    small denomination, especially the half-kopeck.
+
+ =Gutke= (gut´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Hannah Hayye= (ḥän´-a ḥai´-e), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hasid=, pl. =Hasidim= (ḥäs´-id, ḥas-id´-im), _Hebr._ A
+    numerous sect of Jews distinguished for their enthusiasm in
+    religious observance, a fanatical worship of their rabbis and
+    many superstitious practices.
+
+ =Haven Mirel= (ḥa´-ve mirl), _Hebr._ and _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hayye Dvoshe= (ḥai´-e dvo´-she), _Hebr._ and _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hayyim= (ḥai´-im), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hazzan= (ḥäz-an), _Hebr._ Cantor in a synagogue.
+
+ =Heder= (ḥë´-der), _Hebr._ Elementary Hebrew school, usually
+    held at the teacher's residence.
+
+ =Henne Rösel= (he´-ñe rözl), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hirshel= (hir´-shl), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hode= (ho´-de), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Horn, ram's= (Hebrew _shofar_). Ritual horn, used in the synagogue
+    during the great festivals.
+
+ =Hossen= (ḥo´-ssn), _Hebr._ Bridegroom; prospective bridegroom;
+    betrothed.
+
+ =Humesh= (ḥu̇´-mesh), _Hebr._ The Pentateuch.
+
+
+ =Icon= (ī´-kon) _Russ._ A representation of Christ or some
+    saint, usually in an elaborate frame, found in every orthodox
+    Russian house.
+
+ =Itke= (it´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Jew, Good.= See under =Good=.
+
+
+ =Kibart= (ki-bärt´), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+ =Kiddush= (kid´-ush), _Hebr._ Benediction pronounced over a cup of
+    wine before the Sabbath evening meal.
+
+ =Kimanye= (ki-mä´-ñe), _Russ._ Name of a village.
+
+ =Kimanyer= (ki-mä´-ñer), _Yid._ Belonging to or hailing from the
+    village of Kimanye.
+
+ =Knupf= (knupf), _Yid._ A sort of turban.
+
+ =Kopeck= (ko´-pek), _Russ._ A copper coin, the 1/100 part of a
+    ruble, worth about half a cent.
+
+ =Kopistch= (ko´-pistch), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+ =Kosher= (ko´-sher), _Hebr._ Clean, according to Jewish ritual law;
+    opposed to =tref=, unclean. Applied chiefly to articles of diet
+    and cooking and eating vessels.
+
+
+ =Lamden= (läm´-den), _Hebr._ Scholar; one versed in Hebrew
+    learning.
+
+ =Law, the= (specifically used). The Mosaic Law; the Torah.
+
+ =Lebe= (lë´-be), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Loaf, Sabbath.= See under Sabbath.
+
+ =Lozhe= (lo´-zhe), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Lubavitch= (lu̇-bäv´-itch), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+
+ =Maryashe= (mär-yä´-she), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mashinke= (mä´-shin-ke), _Yid._ A diminutive of Mashke.
+
+ =Mashke= (mäsh´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mendele= (men´-del-e), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mezuzah= (me-zu´-zä), _Hebr._ A piece of parchment inscribed with
+    a passage of Scripture, rolled in a case and tacked to the
+    doorpost. The pious touch or kiss this when leaving or entering
+    a house.
+
+ =Mikweh= (mik´-we), _Hebr._ Ritual bath, constructed and used
+    according to minute directions.
+
+ =Mirele= (mir´-e-le), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mishka= (mish´-kä), _Russ._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Moon, blessing of.= Benediction pronounced at the appearance of
+    the new moon.
+
+ =Moshe= (mo´-she), _Yid._ Prop, n., a form of Moses.
+
+ =Möshele= (mo´-she-le), _Yid._ Prop, n., diminutive of Moshe.
+
+ =Mulke= (ṁu̇l̂´-ke), _Yid._ Prop, n., diminutive of Mulye.
+
+ =Mulye= (mu̇l̂´-e), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Na!= (nä), _Yid._ Here you are! Take it!
+
+ =Nohem= (no´-ḥem), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Nu, nu!= (nu̇, nu̇), _Yid._ Well, well.
+
+
+ =Oi, weh!= (oi, vë), _Yid._ Woe is me!
+
+ =Oven, sealing of.= As no fire is kindled on the Sabbath, the
+    Sabbath dinner is cooked on Friday afternoon and left in the
+    brick oven overnight. The oven is tightly closed with a board or
+    sheet of metal, wet rags being stuffed into the interstices.
+
+
+ =Passover= (Hebrew, _pesech_). The feast of Unleavened Bread,
+    commemorating the escape of the Israelites from Egypt.
+
+ =Passport, foreign.= A special passport required of any Russian
+    subject wishing to go to a foreign country. To avoid the
+    necessity of procuring such a passport, travellers often cross
+    the border by stealth.
+
+ =Perele= (per´-e-le), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Phylacteries= (fi-lak´-ter-is; Hebrew _tefillin_). Two small
+    leathern boxes containing parchments inscribed with certain
+    passages of Scripture, worn during morning prayer, one on the
+    forehead and one on the left arm, where they are fastened by
+    means of straps, in a manner carefully prescribed. The wearing
+    of the _tefillin_ is obligatory on all males over thirteen years
+    of age (the age of confirmation).
+
+ =Pinchus= (pin´-chus), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Pogrom= (po-grom´), _Russ._ An organized massacre of Jews.
+
+ =Poll= (pol), _Yid._ A series of steps in the bathing-room, where
+    cupping, etc., is done under a high temperature.
+
+ =Polota= (Po-lo-tä´), _Russ._ Name of a river.
+
+ =Polotzk= (po´-lotzk), _Russ._, also spelled Polotsk. A town in the
+    government of Vitebsk, Russia, since early times a stronghold of
+    Jewish orthodoxy. _N.B._ Polotzk must not be confused with
+    Plotzk (also spelled Plock), the capital of the government of
+    Plotzk, in Russian Poland, about 400 miles southwest of Polotzk.
+
+ =Praying Shawl= (Hebrew, _tallit_). A fine white woollen shawl with
+    sacred fringes (_zizit_), in the four corners, worn by males
+    after marriage, during certain devotional exercises.
+
+ =Purim= (pu̇´-rim), _Hebr._ A feast in commemoration of the
+    deliverance of the Persian Jews, through the intervention of
+    Esther, from the massacre planned by Haman. Masquerading,
+    feasting, exchange of presents, and general license make this
+    celebration the jolliest of the Jewish year.
+
+
+ =Questions, the Four.= At the Passover feast, the youngest son (or,
+    in the absence of a son of suitable age, a daughter) asks four
+    questions as to the significance of various symbolic articles
+    used in the ceremonial, in reply to which the family read the
+    story of Exodus.
+
+
+ =Rabbi= (rab´-ī), _Hebr._ A title accorded to men distinguished
+    for learning and authorized to teach the Law. As used in the
+    present work, _rabbi_ is identical with the official title of
+    _rav_, which see.
+
+ =Rabbonim= (räb-on´-im), _Hebr._ Plural of _rabbi_.
+
+ =Rav= (räv), _Hebr._ The spiritual head of a Jewish community,
+    whose duties include the settlement of ritualistic questions.
+
+ =Reb'= (reb), _Yid._ An abbreviation of _rebbe_, used as a title of
+    respect, equivalent to the old-fashioned English "master."
+
+ =Rebbe= (reb´-e), _Yid._ Colloquial form of _rabbi_. A Hebrew
+    teacher. Applied usually to teachers of lesser rank; also used
+    as a title for a "Good Jew"; as, the Rebbe of Kopistch.
+
+ =Rebbetzin= (reb´-e-tzin), _Yid._ Female Hebrew teacher.
+
+ =Riga= (ri´-gä), _Russ._ Name of a city.
+
+ =Ruble= (ru̇´-bl), _Russ._ The monetary unit of Russia. A silver
+    coin (or, more commonly, a paper bill) worth a little over fifty
+    cents.
+
+
+ =Sabbath Loaf= (Hebrew, _hallah_). A wheaten loaf of peculiar shape
+    used in the Sabbath ceremonial.
+
+ =Sacred Fringes.= See under =Fringes=.
+
+ =Shadchan= (shäd´-chan), _Hebr._ Professional match-maker; marriage
+    broker.
+
+ =Shawl, Praying.= See under =Praying=.
+
+ =Shema= (shmä), _Hebr._ The verse recited as the Jewish confession
+    of faith ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One");
+    so called from the initial word. The "Shema" recurs constantly
+    in the daily ritual, and is informally repeated on every
+    occasion of distress, or as a charm to ward off evil
+    influences.
+
+ =Shohat= (sho´-ḥat), _Hebr._ Slaughterer of cattle according to
+    ritual law.
+
+ =Succoth= (su̇´-kot), _Hebr._ The feast of Tabernacles,
+    celebrated with many symbolic rites, among these being the
+    eating of the festive meals outdoors, in a booth or bower of
+    lattice work covered with evergreens.
+
+
+ =Talakno= (täl-äk-no´), _Russ._ Meal made of ground oats, often
+    mixed with other grains or with weeds. An important article of
+    diet among the peasants, generally moistened with cold water and
+    eaten raw.
+
+ =Talmudists= (tal´-mu̇d-ists; from Hebrew _talmud_). The
+    compilers of the Talmud (the body of Jewish traditional lore);
+    scholars versed in the teachings of the Talmud.
+
+ =Tav= (täv), _Hebr._ The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
+
+ =Torah= (t�´-rä), _Hebr._ The Mosaic Law; the book or scroll of
+    the Law; sacred learning.
+
+ =Trefah= (trëf´-a), _Hebr._ Unclean, according to ritual law;
+    opposed to kosher, clean. Chiefly applied to articles of food
+    and eating and cooking vessels.
+
+
+ =Versbolovo= (vers-bo-lo´-vä), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+ =Verst= (vyerst), _Russ._ A measure of length, about two-thirds of
+    an English mile.
+
+ =Vilna= (vil´-nä), _Russ._ Name of a city.
+
+ =Vitebsk= (vi´-tebsk), _Russ._ Name of a city.
+
+ =Vodka= (vod´-kä), _Russ._ A kind of whiskey distilled from barley
+    or from potatoes, constantly indulged in by the lower classes in
+    Russia, especially by the peasants.
+
+
+ =Wedding Canopy.= See under =Canopy=.
+
+
+ =Yachne= (Yäch´-ne), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yakub= (yä-ku̇b´), _Russ._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yankel= (yän´-kl), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yeshibah= (ye-shib´-ä), _Hebr._ Rabbinical school or seminary.
+
+ =Yeshibah Bachur=, a student in a _yeshibah_.
+
+ =Yiddish= (yid´-ish), _Yid._ Judeo-German, the language of the Jews
+    of Eastern Europe. The basis is an archaic form of German, on
+    which are grafted many words of Hebrew origin, and words from
+    the vernacular of the country.
+
+ =Yochem= (yo´-chem), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yuchovitch= (yu̇-chov-itch´), _Russ._ Name of a village.
+
+
+ =Zaddik= (tzä´-dik), _Hebr._ A man of piety; a holy man.
+
+ =Zalmen= (zäl´-men), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Zimbler= (tzim´-bler), _Yid._ A performer on the _zimble_, an
+    instrument constructed like a wooden tray, with several wires
+    stretched across lengthwise, and played by means of two short
+    rods.
+
+
+The Riverside Press
+CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
+U.S.A.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page 168: Moshele replaced with Möshele                   |
+    | Page 334: namable replaced with nameable                  |
+    | Page 344: Whereever replaced with Wherever                |
+    | Page 368: expecially replaced with especially             |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promised Land, by Mary Antin
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promised Land, by Mary Antin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Promised Land
+
+Author: Mary Antin
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2007 [EBook #20885]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROMISED LAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original     |
+    | document have been preserved.                             |
+    |                                                           |
+    | The Glossary at the end of the document includes an       |
+    | explanatory note on special characters and diacritics.    |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this  |
+    | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this     |
+    | document.                                                 |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+   [Illustration: MASHKE AND FETCHKE]
+
+
+
+
+                             THE
+                        PROMISED LAND
+
+                        BY MARY ANTIN
+
+
+                      WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+                       FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
+
+
+                        [Illustration]
+
+
+                     BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+                   HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+                The Riverside Press Cambridge
+                             1912
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1911 AND 1912, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
+         COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+                    _Published April 1912_
+
+
+
+
+                       To the Memory of
+                      JOSEPHINE LAZARUS
+                 Who lives in the fulfilment
+                      of her prophecies
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       INTRODUCTION                                       xi
+
+    I. WITHIN THE PALE                                     1
+
+   II. CHILDREN OF THE LAW                                29
+
+  III. BOTH THEIR HOUSES                                  42
+
+   IV. DAILY BREAD                                        60
+
+    V. I REMEMBER                                         79
+
+   VI. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE                             111
+
+  VII. THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH                            137
+
+ VIII. THE EXODUS                                        163
+
+   IX. THE PROMISED LAND                                 180
+
+    X. INITIATION                                        206
+
+   XI. "MY COUNTRY"                                      222
+
+  XII. MIRACLES                                          241
+
+ XIII. A CHILD'S PARADISE                                252
+
+  XIV. MANNA                                             264
+
+   XV. TARNISHED LAURELS                                 276
+
+  XVI. DOVER STREET                                      286
+
+ XVII. THE LANDLADY                                      301
+
+XVIII. THE BURNING BUSH                                  321
+
+  XIX. A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS                            337
+
+   XX. THE HERITAGE                                      359
+
+       ACKNOWLEDGMENTS                                   365
+
+       GLOSSARY                                          367
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+MASHKE AND FETCHKE                                 _Frontispiece_
+
+THE GRAVE-DIGGER OF POLOTZK                                    24
+
+HEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL) FOR BOYS IN POLOTZK                      34
+
+THE WOOD MARKET, POLOTZK                                       52
+
+MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT                                           70
+
+MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, WHERE I WAS BORN                       80
+
+THE MEAT MARKET, POLOTZK                                       98
+
+SABBATH LOAVES FOR SALE (BREAD MARKET, POLOTZK)               124
+
+WINTER SCENE ON THE DVINA                                     144
+
+UNION PLACE (BOSTON) WHERE MY NEW HOME WAITED FOR ME          184
+
+TWOSCORE OF MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--PUBLIC SCHOOL, CHELSEA        230
+
+WHEELER STREET, IN THE LOWER SOUTH END OF BOSTON              264
+
+HARRISON AVENUE IS THE HEART OF THE SOUTH END GHETTO          288
+
+I LIKED TO STAND AND LOOK DOWN ON THE DIM TANGLE OF
+  RAILROAD TRACKS BELOW                                       298
+
+THE NATURAL HISTORY CLUB HAD FREQUENT FIELD EXCURSIONS        328
+
+BATES HALL, WHERE I SPENT MY LONGEST HOURS IN THE
+  LIBRARY                                                     342
+
+THE FAMOUS STUDY, THAT WAS FIT TO HAVE BEEN PRESERVED AS A
+  SHRINE                                                      346
+
+THE TIDE HAD RUSHED IN, STEALING AWAY OUR SEAWEED
+  CUSHIONS                                                    362
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I was born, I have lived, and I have been made over. Is it not time to
+write my life's story? I am just as much out of the way as if I were
+dead, for I am absolutely other than the person whose story I have to
+tell. Physical continuity with my earlier self is no disadvantage. I
+could speak in the third person and not feel that I was masquerading.
+I can analyze my subject, I can reveal everything; for _she_, and not
+_I_, is my real heroine. My life I have still to live; her life ended
+when mine began.
+
+A generation is sometimes a more satisfactory unit for the study of
+humanity than a lifetime; and spiritual generations are as easy to
+demark as physical ones. Now I am the spiritual offspring of the
+marriage within my conscious experience of the Past and the Present.
+My second birth was no less a birth because there was no distinct
+incarnation. Surely it has happened before that one body served more
+than one spiritual organization. Nor am I disowning my father and
+mother of the flesh, for they were also partners in the generation of
+my second self; copartners with my entire line of ancestors. They gave
+me body, so that I have eyes like my father's and hair like my
+mother's. The spirit also they gave me, so that I reason like my
+father and endure like my mother. But did they set me down in a
+sheltered garden, where the sun should warm me, and no winter should
+hurt, while they fed me from their hands? No; they early let me run in
+the fields--perhaps because I would not be held--and eat of the wild
+fruits and drink of the dew. Did they teach me from books, and tell me
+what to believe? I soon chose my own books, and built me a world of my
+own.
+
+In these discriminations _I_ emerged, a new being, something that had
+not been before. And when I discovered my own friends, and ran home
+with them to convert my parents to a belief in their excellence, did I
+not begin to make my father and mother, as truly as they had ever made
+me? Did I not become the parent and they the children, in those
+relations of teacher and learner? And so I can say that there has been
+more than one birth of myself, and I can regard my earlier self as a
+separate being, and make it a subject of study.
+
+A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so
+much work to do that he has no time to contemplate his yesterdays; for
+to-day and to-morrow are here, with their impatient tasks. The world
+is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man's unfinished
+work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs
+masterpieces. Still there are circumstances by which a man is
+justified in pausing in the middle of his life to contemplate the
+years already passed. One who has completed early in life a distinct
+task may stop to give an account of it. One who has encountered
+unusual adventures under vanishing conditions may pause to describe
+them before passing into the stable world. And perhaps he also might
+be given an early hearing, who, without having ventured out of the
+familiar paths, without having achieved any signal triumph, has lived
+his simple life so intensely, so thoughtfully, as to have discovered
+in his own experience an interpretation of the universal life.
+
+I am not yet thirty, counting in years, and I am writing my life
+history. Under which of the above categories do I find my
+justification? I have not accomplished anything, I have not discovered
+anything, not even by accident, as Columbus discovered America. My
+life has been unusual, but by no means unique. And this is the very
+core of the matter. It is because I understand my history, in its
+larger outlines, to be typical of many, that I consider it worth
+recording. My life is a concrete illustration of a multitude of
+statistical facts. Although I have written a genuine personal memoir,
+I believe that its chief interest lies in the fact that it is
+illustrative of scores of unwritten lives. I am only one of many whose
+fate it has been to live a page of modern history. We are the strands
+of the cable that binds the Old World to the New. As the ships that
+brought us link the shores of Europe and America, so our lives span
+the bitter sea of racial differences and misunderstandings. Before we
+came, the New World knew not the Old; but since we have begun to come,
+the Young World has taken the Old by the hand, and the two are
+learning to march side by side, seeking a common destiny.
+
+Perhaps I have taken needless trouble to furnish an excuse for my
+autobiography. My age alone, my true age, would be reason enough for
+my writing. I began life in the Middle Ages, as I shall prove, and
+here am I still, your contemporary in the twentieth century, thrilling
+with your latest thought.
+
+Had I no better excuse for writing, I still might be driven to it by
+my private needs. It is in one sense a matter of my personal
+salvation. I was at a most impressionable age when I was transplanted
+to the new soil. I was in that period when even normal children,
+undisturbed in their customary environment, begin to explore their own
+hearts, and endeavor to account for themselves and their world. And my
+zest for self-exploration seems not to have been distracted by the
+necessity of exploring a new outer universe. I embarked on a double
+voyage of discovery, and an exciting life it was! I took note of
+everything. I could no more keep my mind from the shifting, changing
+landscape than an infant can keep his eyes from the shining candle
+moved across his field of vision. Thus everything impressed itself on
+my memory, and with double associations; for I was constantly
+referring my new world to the old for comparison, and the old to the
+new for elucidation. I became a student and philosopher by force of
+circumstances.
+
+Had I been brought to America a few years earlier, I might have
+written that in such and such a year my father emigrated, just as I
+would state what he did for a living, as a matter of family history.
+Happening when it did, the emigration became of the most vital
+importance to me personally. All the processes of uprooting,
+transportation, replanting, acclimatization, and development took
+place in my own soul. I felt the pang, the fear, the wonder, and the
+joy of it. I can never forget, for I bear the scars. But I want to
+forget--sometimes I long to forget. I think I have thoroughly
+assimilated my past--I have done its bidding--I want now to be of
+to-day. It is painful to be consciously of two worlds. The Wandering
+Jew in me seeks forgetfulness. I am not afraid to live on and on, if
+only I do not have to remember too much. A long past vividly
+remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you
+would run. And I have thought of a charm that should release me from
+the folds of my clinging past. I take the hint from the Ancient
+Mariner, who told his tale in order to be rid of it. I, too, will tell
+my tale, for once, and never hark back any more. I will write a bold
+"Finis" at the end, and shut the book with a bang!
+
+
+
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WITHIN THE PALE
+
+
+When I was a little girl, the world was divided into two parts;
+namely, Polotzk, the place where I lived, and a strange land called
+Russia. All the little girls I knew lived in Polotzk, with their
+fathers and mothers and friends. Russia was the place where one's
+father went on business. It was so far off, and so many bad things
+happened there, that one's mother and grandmother and grown-up aunts
+cried at the railroad station, and one was expected to be sad and
+quiet for the rest of the day, when the father departed for Russia.
+
+After a while there came to my knowledge the existence of another
+division, a region intermediate between Polotzk and Russia. It seemed
+there was a place called Vitebsk, and one called Vilna, and Riga, and
+some others. From those places came photographs of uncles and cousins
+one had never seen, and letters, and sometimes the uncles themselves.
+These uncles were just like people in Polotzk; the people in Russia,
+one understood, were very different. In answer to one's questions, the
+visiting uncles said all sorts of silly things, to make everybody
+laugh; and so one never found out why Vitebsk and Vilna, since they
+were not Polotzk, were not as sad as Russia. Mother hardly cried at
+all when the uncles went away.
+
+One time, when I was about eight years old, one of my grown-up
+cousins went to Vitebsk. Everybody went to see her off, but I didn't.
+I went with her. I was put on the train, with my best dress tied up in
+a bandana, and I stayed on the train for hours and hours, and came to
+Vitebsk. I could not tell, as we rushed along, where the end of
+Polotzk was. There were a great many places on the way, with strange
+names, but it was very plain when we got to Vitebsk.
+
+The railroad station was a big place, much bigger than the one in
+Polotzk. Several trains came in at once, instead of only one. There
+was an immense buffet, with fruits and confections, and a place where
+books were sold. My cousin never let go my hand, on account of the
+crowd. Then we rode in a cab for ever so long, and I saw the most
+beautiful streets and shops and houses, much bigger and finer than any
+in Polotzk.
+
+We remained in Vitebsk several days, and I saw many wonderful things,
+but what gave me my one great surprise was something that wasn't new
+at all. It was the river--the river Dvina. Now the Dvina is in
+Polotzk. All my life I had seen the Dvina. How, then, could the Dvina
+be in Vitebsk? My cousin and I had come on the train, but everybody
+knew that a train could go everywhere, even to Russia. It became clear
+to me that the Dvina went on and on, like a railroad track, whereas I
+had always supposed that it stopped where Polotzk stopped. I had never
+seen the end of Polotzk; I meant to, when I was bigger. But how could
+there be an end to Polotzk now? Polotzk was everything on both sides
+of the Dvina, as all my life I had known; and the Dvina, it now turned
+out, never broke off at all. It was very curious that the Dvina should
+remain the same, while Polotzk changed into Vitebsk!
+
+The mystery of this transmutation led to much fruitful thinking. The
+boundary between Polotzk and the rest of the world was not, as I had
+supposed, a physical barrier, like the fence which divided our garden
+from the street. The world went like this now: Polotzk--more
+Polotzk--more Polotzk--Vitebsk! And Vitebsk was not so different, only
+bigger and brighter and more crowded. And Vitebsk was not the end. The
+Dvina, and the railroad, went on beyond Vitebsk,--went on to Russia.
+Then was Russia more Polotzk? Was here also no dividing fence? How I
+wanted to see Russia! But very few people went there. When people went
+to Russia it was a sign of trouble; either they could not make a
+living at home, or they were drafted for the army, or they had a
+lawsuit. No, nobody went to Russia for pleasure. Why, in Russia lived
+the Czar, and a great many cruel people; and in Russia were the
+dreadful prisons from which people never came back.
+
+Polotzk and Vitebsk were now bound together by the continuity of the
+earth, but between them and Russia a formidable barrier still
+interposed. I learned, as I grew older, that much as Polotzk disliked
+to go to Russia, even more did Russia object to letting Polotzk come.
+People from Polotzk were sometimes turned back before they had
+finished their business, and often they were cruelly treated on the
+way. It seemed there were certain places in Russia--St. Petersburg,
+and Moscow, and Kiev--where my father or my uncle or my neighbor must
+never come at all, no matter what important things invited them. The
+police would seize them and send them back to Polotzk, like wicked
+criminals, although they had never done any wrong.
+
+It was strange enough that my relatives should be treated like this,
+but at least there was this excuse for sending them back to Polotzk,
+that they belonged there. For what reason were people driven out of
+St. Petersburg and Moscow who had their homes in those cities, and had
+no other place to go to? Ever so many people, men and women and even
+children, came to Polotzk, where they had no friends, with stories of
+cruel treatment in Russia; and although they were nobody's relatives,
+they were taken in, and helped, and set up in business, like
+unfortunates after a fire.
+
+It was very strange that the Czar and the police should want all
+Russia for themselves. It was a very big country; it took many days
+for a letter to reach one's father in Russia. Why might not everybody
+be there who wanted to?
+
+I do not know when I became old enough to understand. The truth was
+borne in on me a dozen times a day, from the time I began to
+distinguish words from empty noises. My grandmother told me about it,
+when she put me to bed at night. My parents told me about it, when
+they gave me presents on holidays. My playmates told me, when they
+drew me back into a corner of the gateway, to let a policeman pass.
+Vanka, the little white-haired boy, told me all about it, when he ran
+out of his mother's laundry on purpose to throw mud after me when I
+happened to pass. I heard about it during prayers, and when women
+quarrelled in the market place; and sometimes, waking in the night, I
+heard my parents whisper it in the dark. There was no time in my life
+when I did not hear and see and feel the truth--the reason why Polotzk
+was cut off from the rest of Russia. It was the first lesson a little
+girl in Polotzk had to learn. But for a long while I did not
+understand. Then there came a time when I knew that Polotzk and
+Vitebsk and Vilna and some other places were grouped together as the
+"Pale of Settlement," and within this area the Czar commanded me to
+stay, with my father and mother and friends, and all other people like
+us. We must not be found outside the Pale, because we were Jews.
+
+So there was a fence around Polotzk, after all. The world was divided
+into Jews and Gentiles. This knowledge came so gradually that it could
+not shock me. It trickled into my consciousness drop by drop. By the
+time I fully understood that I was a prisoner, the shackles had grown
+familiar to my flesh.
+
+The first time Vanka threw mud at me, I ran home and complained to my
+mother, who brushed off my dress and said, quite resignedly, "How can
+I help you, my poor child? Vanka is a Gentile. The Gentiles do as they
+like with us Jews." The next time Vanka abused me, I did not cry, but
+ran for shelter, saying to myself, "Vanka is a Gentile." The third
+time, when Vanka spat on me, I wiped my face and thought nothing at
+all. I accepted ill-usage from the Gentiles as one accepts the
+weather. The world was made in a certain way, and I had to live in it.
+
+Not quite all the Gentiles were like Vanka. Next door to us lived a
+Gentile family which was very friendly. There was a girl as big as I,
+who never called me names, and gave me flowers from her father's
+garden. And there were the Parphens, of whom my grandfather rented his
+store. They treated us as if we were not Jews at all. On our festival
+days they visited our house and brought us presents, carefully
+choosing such things as Jewish children might accept; and they liked
+to have everything explained to them, about the wine and the fruit and
+the candles, and they even tried to say the appropriate greetings and
+blessings in Hebrew. My father used to say that if all the Russians
+were like the Parphens, there would be no trouble between Gentiles and
+Jews; and Fedora Pavlovna, the landlady, would reply that the Russian
+_people_ were not to blame. It was the priests, she said, who taught
+the people to hate the Jews. Of course she knew best, as she was a
+very pious Christian. She never passed a church without crossing
+herself.
+
+The Gentiles were always crossing themselves; when they went into a
+church, and when they came out, when they met a priest, or passed an
+image in the street. The dirty beggars on the church steps never
+stopped crossing themselves; and even when they stood on the corner of
+a Jewish street, and received alms from Jewish people, they crossed
+themselves and mumbled Christian prayers. In every Gentile house there
+was what they called an "icon," which was an image or picture of the
+Christian god, hung up in a corner, with a light always burning before
+it. In front of the icon the Gentiles said their prayers, on their
+knees, crossing themselves all the time.
+
+I tried not to look in the corner where the icon was, when I came into
+a Gentile house. I was afraid of the cross. Everybody was, in
+Polotzk--all the Jews, I mean. For it was the cross that made the
+priests, and the priests made our troubles, as even some Christians
+admitted. The Gentiles said that we had killed their God, which was
+absurd, as they never had a God--nothing but images. Besides, what
+they accused us of had happened so long ago; the Gentiles themselves
+said it was long ago. Everybody had been dead for ages who could have
+had anything to do with it. Yet they put up crosses everywhere, and
+wore them on their necks, on purpose to remind themselves of these
+false things; and they considered it pious to hate and abuse us,
+insisting that we had killed their God. To worship the cross and to
+torment a Jew was the same thing to them. That is why we feared the
+cross.
+
+Another thing the Gentiles said about us was that we used the blood of
+murdered Christian children at the Passover festival. Of course that
+was a wicked lie. It made me sick to think of such a thing. I knew
+everything that was done for Passover, from the time I was a very
+little girl. The house was made clean and shining and holy, even in
+the corners where nobody ever looked. Vessels and dishes that were
+used all the year round were put away in the garret, and special
+vessels were brought out for the Passover week. I used to help unpack
+the new dishes, and find my own blue mug. When the fresh curtains were
+put up, and the white floors were uncovered, and everybody in the
+house put on new clothes, and I sat down to the feast in my new dress,
+I felt clean inside and out. And when I asked the Four Questions,
+about the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs and the other things,
+and the family, reading from their books, answered me, did I not know
+all about Passover, and what was on the table, and why? It was wicked
+of the Gentiles to tell lies about us. The youngest child in the house
+knew how Passover was kept.
+
+The Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from the land
+of Egypt, and felt so glad and thankful, as if it had only just
+happened, was the time our Gentile neighbors chose to remind us that
+Russia was another Egypt. That is what I heard people say, and it was
+true. It was not so bad in Polotzk, within the Pale; but in Russian
+cities, and even more in the country districts, where Jewish families
+lived scattered, by special permission of the police, who were always
+changing their minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the
+Passover a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that
+lie about murdering Christian children, and the stupid peasants would
+get mad about it, and fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill
+the Jews. They attacked them with knives and clubs and scythes and
+axes, killed them or tortured them, and burned their houses. This was
+called a "pogrom." Jews who escaped the pogroms came to Polotzk with
+wounds on them, and horrible, horrible stories, of little babies torn
+limb from limb before their mothers' eyes. Only to hear these things
+made one sob and sob and choke with pain. People who saw such things
+never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived; and sometimes
+their hair turned white in a day, and some people became insane on the
+spot.
+
+Often we heard that the pogrom was led by a priest carrying a cross
+before the mob. Our enemies always held up the cross as the excuse of
+their cruelty to us. I never was in an actual pogrom, but there were
+times when it threatened us, even in Polotzk; and in all my fearful
+imaginings, as I hid in dark corners, thinking of the horrible things
+the Gentiles were going to do to me, I saw the cross, the cruel cross.
+
+I remember a time when I thought a pogrom had broken out in our
+street, and I wonder that I did not die of fear. It was some Christian
+holiday, and we had been warned by the police to keep indoors. Gates
+were locked; shutters were barred. If a child cried, the nurse
+threatened to give it to the priest, who would soon be passing by.
+Fearful and yet curious, we looked through the cracks in the
+shutters. We saw a procession of peasants and townspeople, led by a
+number of priests, carrying crosses and banners and images. In the
+place of honor was carried a casket, containing a relic from the
+monastery in the outskirts of Polotzk. Once a year the Gentiles
+paraded with this relic, and on that occasion the streets were
+considered too holy for Jews to be about; and we lived in fear till
+the end of the day, knowing that the least disturbance might start a
+riot, and a riot lead to a pogrom.
+
+On the day when I saw the procession through a crack in the shutter,
+there were soldiers and police in the street. This was as usual, but I
+did not know it. I asked the nurse, who was pressing to the crack over
+my head, what the soldiers were for. Thoughtlessly she answered me,
+"In case of a pogrom." Yes, there were the crosses and the priests and
+the mob. The church bells were pealing their loudest. Everything was
+ready. The Gentiles were going to tear me in pieces, with axes and
+knives and ropes. They were going to burn me alive. The cross--the
+cross! What would they do to me first?
+
+There was one thing the Gentiles might do to me worse than burning or
+rending. It was what was done to unprotected Jewish children who fell
+into the hands of priests or nuns. They might baptize me. That would
+be worse than death by torture. Rather would I drown in the Dvina than
+a drop of the baptismal water should touch my forehead. To be forced
+to kneel before the hideous images, to kiss the cross,--sooner would I
+rush out to the mob that was passing, and let them tear my vitals out.
+To forswear the One God, to bow before idols,--rather would I be
+seized with the plague, and be eaten up by vermin. I was only a little
+girl, and not very brave; little pains made me ill, and I cried. But
+there was no pain that I would not bear--no, none--rather than submit
+to baptism.
+
+Every Jewish child had that feeling. There were stories by the dozen
+of Jewish boys who were kidnapped by the Czar's agents and brought up
+in Gentile families, till they were old enough to enter the army,
+where they served till forty years of age; and all those years the
+priests tried, by bribes and daily tortures, to force them to accept
+baptism, but in vain. This was in the time of Nicholas I, but men who
+had been through this service were no older than my grandfather, when
+I was a little girl; and they told their experiences with their own
+lips, and one knew it was true, and it broke one's heart with pain and
+pride.
+
+Some of these soldiers of Nicholas, as they were called, were taken as
+little boys of seven or eight--snatched from their mothers' laps. They
+were carried to distant villages, where their friends could never
+trace them, and turned over to some dirty, brutal peasant, who used
+them like slaves and kept them with the pigs. No two were ever left
+together; and they were given false names, so that they were entirely
+cut off from their own world. And then the lonely child was turned
+over to the priests, and he was flogged and starved and terrified--a
+little helpless boy who cried for his mother; but still he refused to
+be baptized. The priests promised him good things to eat, and fine
+clothes, and freedom from labor; but the boy turned away, and said his
+prayers secretly--the Hebrew prayers.
+
+As he grew older, severer tortures were invented for him; still he
+refused baptism. By this time he had forgotten his mother's face, and
+of his prayers perhaps only the "Shema" remained in his memory; but
+he was a Jew, and nothing would make him change. After he entered the
+army, he was bribed with promises of promotions and honors. He
+remained a private, and endured the cruellest discipline. When he was
+discharged, at the age of forty, he was a broken man, without a home,
+without a clue to his origin, and he spent the rest of his life
+wandering among Jewish settlements, searching for his family; hiding
+the scars of torture under his rags, begging his way from door to
+door. If he were one who had broken down under the cruel torments, and
+allowed himself to be baptized, for the sake of a respite, the Church
+never let him go again, no matter how loudly he protested that he was
+still a Jew. If he was caught practicing Jewish rites, he was
+subjected to the severest punishment.
+
+My father knew of one who was taken as a small boy, who never yielded
+to the priests under the most hideous tortures. As he was a very
+bright boy, the priests were particularly eager to convert him. They
+tried him with bribes that would appeal to his ambition. They promised
+to make a great man of him--a general, a noble. The boy turned away
+and said his prayers. Then they tortured him, and threw him into a
+cell; and when he lay asleep from exhaustion, the priest came and
+baptized him. When he awoke, they told him he was a Christian, and
+brought him the crucifix to kiss. He protested, threw the crucifix
+from him, but they held him to it that he was a baptized Jew, and
+belonged to the Church; and the rest of his life he spent between the
+prison and the hospital, always clinging to his faith, saying the
+Hebrew prayers in defiance of his tormentors, and paying for it with
+his flesh.
+
+There were men in Polotzk whose faces made you old in a minute. They
+had served Nicholas I, and come back unbaptized. The white church in
+the square--how did it look to them? I knew. I cursed the church in my
+heart every time I had to pass it; and I was afraid--afraid.
+
+On market days, when the peasants came to church, and the bells kept
+ringing by the hour, my heart was heavy in me, and I could find no
+rest. Even in my father's house I did not feel safe. The church bell
+boomed over the roofs of the houses, calling, calling, calling. I
+closed my eyes, and saw the people passing into the church: peasant
+women with bright embroidered aprons and glass beads; barefoot little
+girls with colored kerchiefs on their heads; boys with caps pulled too
+far down over their flaxen hair; rough men with plaited bast sandals,
+and a rope around the waist,--crowds of them, moving slowly up the
+steps, crossing themselves again and again, till they were swallowed
+by the black doorway, and only the beggars were left squatting on the
+steps. _Boom, boom!_ What are the people doing in the dark, with the
+waxen images and the horrid crucifixes? _Boom, boom, boom!_ They are
+ringing the bell for me. Is it in the church they will torture me,
+when I refuse to kiss the cross?
+
+They ought not to have told me those dreadful stories. They were long
+past; we were living under the blessed "New Régime." Alexander III was
+no friend of the Jews; still he did not order little boys to be taken
+from their mothers, to be made into soldiers and Christians. Every man
+had to serve in the army for four years, and a Jewish recruit was
+likely to be treated with severity, no matter if his behavior were
+perfect; but that was little compared to the dreadful conditions of
+the old régime.
+
+The thing that really mattered was the necessity of breaking the
+Jewish laws of daily life while in the service. A soldier often had to
+eat trefah and work on Sabbath. He had to shave his beard and do
+reverence to Christian things. He could not attend daily services at
+the synagogue; his private devotions were disturbed by the jeers and
+insults of his coarse Gentile comrades. He might resort to all sorts
+of tricks and shams, still he was obliged to violate Jewish law. When
+he returned home, at the end of his term of service, he could not rid
+himself of the stigma of those enforced sins. For four years he had
+led the life of a Gentile.
+
+Piety alone was enough to make the Jews dread military service, but
+there were other things that made it a serious burden. Most men of
+twenty-one--the age of conscription--were already married and had
+children. During their absence their families suffered, their business
+often was ruined. At the end of their term they were beggars. As
+beggars, too, they were sent home from their military post. If they
+happened to have a good uniform at the time of their dismissal, it was
+stripped from them, and replaced by a shabby one. They received a free
+ticket for the return journey, and a few kopecks a day for expenses.
+In this fashion they were hurried back into the Pale, like escaped
+prisoners. The Czar was done with them. If within a limited time they
+were found outside the Pale, they would be seized and sent home in
+chains.
+
+There were certain exceptions to the rule of compulsory service. The
+only son of a family was exempt, and certain others. In the physical
+examination preceding conscription, many were rejected on account of
+various faults. This gave the people the idea of inflicting injuries
+on themselves, so as to produce temporary deformities on account of
+which they might be rejected at the examination. Men would submit to
+operations on their eyes, ears, or limbs, which caused them horrible
+sufferings, in the hope of escaping the service. If the operation was
+successful, the patient was rejected by the examining officers, and in
+a short time he was well, and a free man. Often, however, the
+deformity intended to be temporary proved incurable, so that there
+were many men in Polotzk blind of one eye, or hard of hearing, or
+lame, as a result of these secret practices; but these things were
+easier to bear than the memory of four years in the Czar's service.
+
+Sons of rich fathers could escape service without leaving any marks on
+their persons. It was always possible to bribe conscription officers.
+This was a dangerous practice,--it was not the officers who suffered
+most in case the negotiations leaked out,--but no respectable family
+would let a son be taken as a recruit till it had made every effort to
+save him. My grandfather nearly ruined himself to buy his sons out of
+service; and my mother tells thrilling anecdotes of her younger
+brother's life, who for years lived in hiding, under assumed names and
+in various disguises, till he had passed the age of liability for
+service.
+
+If it were cowardice that made the Jews shrink from military service
+they would not inflict on themselves physical tortures greater than
+any that threatened them in the army, and which often left them maimed
+for life. If it were avarice--the fear of losing the gains from their
+business for four years--they would not empty their pockets and sell
+their houses and sink into debt, on the chance of successfully bribing
+the Czar's agents. The Jewish recruit dreaded, indeed, brutality and
+injustice at the hands of officers and comrades; he feared for his
+family, which he left, often enough, as dependents on the charity of
+relatives; but the fear of an unholy life was greater than all other
+fears. I know, for I remember my cousin who was taken as a soldier.
+Everything had been done to save him. Money had been spent freely--my
+uncle did not stop at his unmarried daughter's portion, when
+everything else was gone. My cousin had also submitted to some secret
+treatment,--some devastating drug administered for months before the
+examination,--but the effects were not pronounced enough, and he was
+passed. For the first few weeks his company was stationed in Polotzk.
+I saw my cousin drill on the square, carrying a gun, _on a Sabbath_. I
+felt unholy, as if I had sinned the sin in my own person. It was easy
+to understand why mothers of conscript sons fasted and wept and prayed
+and worried themselves to their graves.
+
+There was a man in our town called David the Substitute, because he
+had gone as a soldier in another's stead, he himself being exempt. He
+did it for a sum of money. I suppose his family was starving, and he
+saw a chance to provide for them for a few years. But it was a sinful
+thing to do, to go as a soldier and be obliged to live like a Gentile,
+of his own free will. And David knew how wicked it was, for he was a
+pious man at heart. When he returned from service, he was aged and
+broken, bowed down with the sense of his sins. And he set himself a
+penance, which was to go through the streets every Sabbath morning,
+calling the people to prayer. Now this was a hard thing to do,
+because David labored bitterly all the week, exposed to the weather,
+summer or winter; and on Sabbath morning there was nobody so tired and
+lame and sore as David. Yet he forced himself to leave his bed before
+it was yet daylight, and go from street to street, all over Polotzk,
+calling on the people to wake and go to prayer. Many a Sabbath morning
+I awoke when David called, and lay listening to his voice as it passed
+and died out; and it was so sad that it hurt, as beautiful music
+hurts. I was glad to feel my sister lying beside me, for it was lonely
+in the gray dawn, with only David and me awake, and God waiting for
+the people's prayers.
+
+The Gentiles used to wonder at us because we cared so much about
+religious things,--about food, and Sabbath, and teaching the children
+Hebrew. They were angry with us for our obstinacy, as they called it,
+and mocked us and ridiculed the most sacred things. There were wise
+Gentiles who understood. These were educated people, like Fedora
+Pavlovna, who made friends with their Jewish neighbors. They were
+always respectful, and openly admired some of our ways. But most of
+the Gentiles were ignorant and distrustful and spiteful. They would
+not believe that there was any good in our religion, and of course we
+dared not teach them, because we should be accused of trying to
+convert them, and that would be the end of us.
+
+Oh, if they could only understand! Vanka caught me on the street one
+day, and pulled my hair, and called me names; and all of a sudden I
+asked myself _why_--_why?_--a thing I had stopped asking years before.
+I was so angry that I could have punished him; for one moment I was
+not afraid to hit back. But this _why_--_why?_ broke out in my heart,
+and I forgot to revenge myself. It was so wonderful--Well, there were
+no words in my head to say it, but it meant that Vanka abused me only
+because _he did not understand_. If he could feel with my heart, if he
+could be a little Jewish boy for one day, I thought, he would know--he
+would know. If he could understand about David the Substitute, now,
+without being told, as I understood. If he could wake in my place on
+Sabbath morning, and feel his heart break in him with a strange pain,
+because a Jew had dishonored the law of Moses, and God was bending
+down to pardon him. Oh, why could I not make Vanka understand? I was
+so sorry that my heart hurt me, worse than Vanka's blows. My anger and
+my courage were gone. Vanka was throwing stones at me now from his
+mother's doorway, and I continued on my errand, but I did not hurry.
+The thing that hurt me most I could not run away from.
+
+There was one thing the Gentiles always understood, and that was
+money. They would take any kind of bribe at any time. Peace cost so
+much a year in Polotzk. If you did not keep on good terms with your
+Gentile neighbors, they had a hundred ways of molesting you. If you
+chased their pigs when they came rooting up your garden, or objected
+to their children maltreating your children, they might complain
+against you to the police, stuffing their case with false accusations
+and false witnesses. If you had not made friends with the police, the
+case might go to court; and there you lost before the trial was
+called, unless the judge had reason to befriend you. The cheapest way
+to live in Polotzk was to pay as you went along. Even a little girl
+understood that, in Polotzk.
+
+Perhaps your parents were in business,--usually they were, as almost
+everybody kept store,--and you heard a great deal about the chief of
+police, and excise officers, and other agents of the Czar. Between the
+Czar whom you had never seen, and the policeman whom you knew too
+well, you pictured to yourself a long row of officials of all sorts,
+all with their palms stretched out to receive your father's money. You
+knew your father hated them all, but you saw him smile and bend as he
+filled those greedy palms. You did the same, in your petty way, when
+you saw Vanka coming toward you on a lonely street, and you held out
+to him the core of the apple you had been chewing, and forced your
+unwilling lips into a smile. It hurt, that false smile; it made you
+feel black inside.
+
+In your father's parlor hung a large colored portrait of Alexander
+III. The Czar was a cruel tyrant,--oh, it was whispered when doors
+were locked and shutters tightly barred, at night,--he was a Titus, a
+Haman, a sworn foe of all Jews,--and yet his portrait was seen in a
+place of honor in your father's house. You knew why. It looked well
+when police or government officers came on business.
+
+You went out to play one morning, and saw a little knot of people
+gathered around a lamp-post. There was a notice on it--a new order
+from the chief of police. You pushed into the crowd, and stared at the
+placard, but you could not read. A woman with a ragged shawl looked
+down upon you, and said, with a bitter kind of smile, "Rejoice,
+rejoice, little girl! The chief of police bids you rejoice. There
+shall be a pretty flag flying from every housetop to-day, because it
+is the Czar's birthday, and we must celebrate. Come and watch the poor
+people pawn their samovars and candlesticks, to raise money for a
+pretty flag. It is a holiday, little girl. Rejoice!"
+
+You know the woman is mocking,--you are familiar with the quality of
+that smile,--but you accept the hint and go and watch the people buy
+their flags. Your cousin keeps a dry-goods store, where you have a
+fine view of the proceedings. There is a crowd around the counter, and
+your cousin and the assistant are busily measuring off lengths of
+cloth, red, and blue, and white.
+
+"How much does it take?" somebody asks. "May I know no more of sin
+than I know of flags," another replies. "How is it put together?" "Do
+you have to have all three colors?" One customer puts down a few
+kopecks on the counter, saying, "Give me a piece of flag. This is all
+the money I have. Give me the red and the blue; I'll tear up my shirt
+for the white."
+
+You know it is no joke. The flag must show from every house, or the
+owner will be dragged to the police station, to pay a fine of
+twenty-five rubles. What happened to the old woman who lives in that
+tumble-down shanty over the way? It was that other time when flags
+were ordered up, because the Grand Duke was to visit Polotzk. The old
+woman had no flag, and no money. She hoped the policeman would not
+notice her miserable hut. But he did, the vigilant one, and he went up
+and kicked the door open with his great boot, and he took the last
+pillow from the bed, and sold it, and hoisted a flag above the rotten
+roof. I knew the old woman well, with her one watery eye and her
+crumpled hands. I often took a plate of soup to her from our kitchen.
+There was nothing but rags left on her bed, when the policeman had
+taken the pillow.
+
+The Czar always got his dues, no matter if it ruined a family. There
+was a poor locksmith who owed the Czar three hundred rubles, because
+his brother had escaped from Russia before serving his term in the
+army. There was no such fine for Gentiles, only for Jews; and the
+whole family was liable. Now, the locksmith never could have so much
+money, and he had no valuables to pawn. The police came and attached
+his household goods, everything he had, including his young bride's
+trousseau; and the sale of the goods brought thirty-five rubles. After
+a year's time the police came again, looking for the balance of the
+Czar's dues. They put their seal on everything they found. The bride
+was in bed with her first baby, a boy. The circumcision was to be next
+day. The police did not leave a sheet to wrap the child in when he is
+handed up for the operation.
+
+Many bitter sayings came to your ears if you were a Jewish little girl
+in Polotzk. "It is a false world," you heard, and you knew it was so,
+looking at the Czar's portrait, and at the flags. "Never tell a police
+officer the truth," was another saying, and you knew it was good
+advice. That fine of three hundred rubles was a sentence of lifelong
+slavery for the poor locksmith, unless he freed himself by some trick.
+As fast as he could collect a few rags and sticks, the police would be
+after them. He might hide under a false name, if he could get away
+from Polotzk on a false passport; or he might bribe the proper
+officials to issue a false certificate of the missing brother's death.
+Only by false means could he secure peace for himself and his family,
+as long as the Czar was after his dues.
+
+It was bewildering to hear how many kinds of duties and taxes we owed
+the Czar. We paid taxes on our houses, and taxes on the rents from the
+houses, taxes on our business, taxes on our profits. I am not sure
+whether there were taxes on our losses. The town collected taxes, and
+the county, and the central government; and the chief of police we had
+always with us. There were taxes for public works, but rotten
+pavements went on rotting year after year; and when a bridge was to be
+built, special taxes were levied. A bridge, by the way, was not always
+a public highway. A railroad bridge across the Dvina, while open to
+the military, could be used by the people only by individual
+permission.
+
+My uncle explained to me all about the excise duties on tobacco.
+Tobacco being a source of government revenue, there was a heavy tax on
+it. Cigarettes were taxed at every step of their process. The tobacco
+was taxed separately, and the paper, and the mouthpiece, and on the
+finished product an additional tax was put. There was no tax on the
+smoke. The Czar must have overlooked it.
+
+Business really did not pay when the price of goods was so swollen by
+taxes that the people could not buy. The only way to make business pay
+was to cheat--cheat the Government of part of the duties. But playing
+tricks on the Czar was dangerous, with so many spies watching his
+interests. People who sold cigarettes without the government seal got
+more gray hairs than bank notes out of their business. The constant
+risk, the worry, the dread of a police raid in the night, and the
+ruinous fines, in case of detection, left very little margin of profit
+or comfort to the dealer in contraband goods. "But what can one do?"
+the people said, with the shrug of the shoulders that expresses the
+helplessness of the Pale. "What can one do? One must live."
+
+It was not easy to live, with such bitter competition as the
+congestion of population made inevitable. There were ten times as many
+stores as there should have been, ten times as many tailors, cobblers,
+barbers, tinsmiths. A Gentile, if he failed in Polotzk, could go
+elsewhere, where there was less competition. A Jew could make the
+circle of the Pale, only to find the same conditions as at home.
+Outside the Pale he could only go to certain designated localities, on
+payment of prohibitive fees, augmented by a constant stream of bribes;
+and even then he lived at the mercy of the local chief of police.
+
+Artisans had the right to reside outside the Pale, on fulfilment of
+certain conditions. This sounded easy to me, when I was a little girl,
+till I realized how it worked. There was a capmaker who had duly
+qualified, by passing an examination and paying for his trade papers,
+to live in a certain city. The chief of police suddenly took it into
+his head to impeach the genuineness of his papers. The capmaker was
+obliged to travel to St. Petersburg, where he had qualified in the
+first place, to repeat the examination. He spent the savings of years
+in petty bribes, trying to hasten the process, but was detained ten
+months by bureaucratic red tape. When at length he returned to his
+home town, he found a new chief of police, installed during his
+absence, who discovered a new flaw in the papers he had just obtained,
+and expelled him from the city. If he came to Polotzk, there were then
+eleven capmakers where only one could make a living.
+
+Merchants fared like the artisans. They, too, could buy the right of
+residence outside the Pale, permanent or temporary, on conditions that
+gave them no real security. I was proud to have an uncle who was a
+merchant of the First Guild, but it was very expensive for my uncle.
+He had to pay so much a year for the title, and a certain percentage
+on the profits from his business. This gave him the right to travel on
+business outside the Pale, twice a year, for not more than six months
+in all. If he were found outside the Pale after his permit expired, he
+had to pay a fine that exceeded all he had gained by his journey,
+perhaps. I used to picture my uncle on his Russian travels, hurrying,
+hurrying to finish his business in the limited time; while a policeman
+marched behind him, ticking off the days and counting up the hours.
+That was a foolish fancy, but some of the things that were done in
+Russia really were very funny.
+
+There were things in Polotzk that made you laugh with one eye and weep
+with the other, like a clown. During an epidemic of cholera, the city
+officials, suddenly becoming energetic, opened stations for the
+distribution of disinfectants to the people. A quarter of the
+population was dead when they began, and most of the dead were buried,
+while some lay decaying in deserted houses. The survivors, some of
+them crazy from horror, stole through the empty streets, avoiding one
+another, till they came to the appointed stations, where they pushed
+and crowded to get their little bottles of carbolic acid. Many died
+from fear in those horrible days, but some must have died from
+laughter. For only the Gentiles were allowed to receive the
+disinfectant. Poor Jews who had nothing but their new-made graves were
+driven away from the stations.
+
+Perhaps it was wrong of us to think of our Gentile neighbors as a
+different species of beings from ourselves, but such madness as that
+did not help to make them more human in our eyes. It was easier to be
+friends with the beasts in the barn than with some of the Gentiles.
+The cow and the goat and the cat responded to kindness, and
+remembered which of the housemaids was generous and which was cross.
+The Gentiles made no distinctions. A Jew was a Jew, to be hated and
+spat upon and used spitefully.
+
+The only Gentiles, besides the few of the intelligent kind, who did
+not habitually look upon us with hate and contempt, were the stupid
+peasants from the country, who were hardly human themselves. They
+lived in filthy huts together with their swine, and all they cared for
+was how to get something to eat. It was not their fault. The land laws
+made them so poor that they had to sell themselves to fill their
+bellies. What help was there for us in the good will of such wretched
+slaves? For a cask of vodka you could buy up a whole village of them.
+They trembled before the meanest townsman, and at a sign from a
+long-haired priest they would sharpen their axes against us.
+
+The Gentiles had their excuse for their malice. They said our
+merchants and money-lenders preyed upon them, and our shopkeepers gave
+false measure. People who want to defend the Jews ought never to deny
+this. Yes, I say, we cheated the Gentiles whenever we dared, because
+it was the only thing to do. Remember how the Czar was always sending
+us commands,--you shall not do this and you shall not do that, until
+there was little left that we might honestly do, except pay tribute
+and die. There he had us cooped up, thousands of us where only
+hundreds could live, and every means of living taxed to the utmost.
+When there are too many wolves in the prairie, they begin to prey upon
+each other. We starving captives of the Pale--we did as do the hungry
+brutes. But our humanity showed in our discrimination between our
+victims. Whenever we could, we spared our own kind, directing against
+our racial foes the cunning wiles which our bitter need invented. Is
+not that the code of war? Encamped in the midst of the enemy, we could
+practice no other. A Jew could hardly exist in business unless he
+developed a dual conscience, which allowed him to do to the Gentile
+what he would call a sin against a fellow Jew. Such spiritual
+deformities are self-explained in the step-children of the Czar. A
+glance over the statutes of the Pale leaves you wondering that the
+Russian Jews have not lost all semblance to humanity.
+
+   [Illustration: THE GRAVE DIGGER OF POLOTZK]
+
+A favorite complaint against us was that we were greedy for gold. Why
+could not the Gentiles see the whole truth where they saw half? Greedy
+for profits we were, eager for bargains, for savings, intent on
+squeezing the utmost out of every business transaction. But why? Did
+not the Gentiles know the reason? Did they not know what price we had
+to pay for the air we breathed? If a Jew and a Gentile kept store side
+by side, the Gentile could content himself with smaller profits. He
+did not have to buy permission to travel in the interests of his
+business. He did not have to pay three hundred rubles fine if his son
+evaded military service. He was saved the expense of hushing inciters
+of pogroms. Police favor was retailed at a lower price to him than to
+the Jew. His nature did not compel him to support schools and
+charities. It cost nothing to be a Christian; on the contrary, it
+brought rewards and immunities. To be a Jew was a costly luxury, the
+price of which was either money or blood. Is it any wonder that we
+hoarded our pennies? What his shield is to the soldier in battle, that
+was the ruble to the Jew in the Pale.
+
+The knowledge of such things as I am telling leaves marks upon the
+flesh and spirit. I remember little children in Polotzk with old, old
+faces and eyes glazed with secrets. I knew how to dodge and cringe and
+dissemble before I knew the names of the seasons. And I had plenty of
+time to ponder on these things, because I was so idle. If they had let
+me go to school, now--But of course they didn't.
+
+There was no free school for girls, and even if your parents were rich
+enough to send you to a private school, you could not go very far. At
+the high school, which was under government control, Jewish children
+were admitted in limited numbers,--only ten to every hundred,--and
+even if you were among the lucky ones, you had your troubles. The
+tutor who prepared you talked all the time about the examinations you
+would have to pass, till you were scared. You heard on all sides that
+the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining
+officers did not like the turn of their noses. You went up to be
+examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that
+matter of your nose. There was a special examination for the Jewish
+candidates, of course; a nine-year-old Jewish child had to answer
+questions that a thirteen-year-old Gentile was hardly expected to
+understand. But that did not matter so much. You had been prepared for
+the thirteen-year-old test; you found the questions quite easy. You
+wrote your answers triumphantly--and you received a low rating, and
+there was no appeal.
+
+I used to stand in the doorway of my father's store, munching an apple
+that did not taste good any more, and watch the pupils going home from
+school in twos and threes; the girls in neat brown dresses and black
+aprons and little stiff hats, the boys in trim uniforms with many
+buttons. They had ever so many books in the satchels on their backs.
+They would take them out at home, and read and write, and learn all
+sorts of interesting things. They looked to me like beings from
+another world than mine. But those whom I envied had their own
+troubles, as I often heard. Their school life was one struggle against
+injustice from instructors, spiteful treatment from fellow students,
+and insults from everybody. Those who, by heroic efforts and
+transcendent good luck, successfully finished the course, found
+themselves against a new wall, if they wished to go on. They were
+turned down at the universities, which admitted them in the ratio of
+three Jews to a hundred Gentiles, under the same debarring entrance
+conditions as at the high school,--especially rigorous examinations,
+dishonest marking, or arbitrary rulings without disguise. No, the Czar
+did not want us in the schools.
+
+I heard from my mother of a different state of affairs, at the time
+when her brothers were little boys. The Czar of those days had a
+bright idea. He said to his ministers: "Let us educate the people. Let
+us win over those Jews through the public schools, instead of allowing
+them to persist in their narrow Hebrew learning, which teaches them no
+love for their monarch. Force has failed with them; the unwilling
+converts return to their old ways whenever they dare. Let us try
+education."
+
+Perhaps peaceable conversion of the Jews was not the Czar's only
+motive when he opened public schools everywhere and compelled parents
+to send their boys for instruction. Perhaps he just wanted to be good,
+and really hoped to benefit the country. But to the Jews the public
+schools appeared as a trap door to the abyss of apostasy. The
+instructors were always Christians, the teaching was Christian, and
+the regulations of the schoolroom, as to hours, costume, and manners,
+were often in opposition to Jewish practices. The public school
+interrupted the boy's sacred studies in the Hebrew school. Where would
+you look for pious Jews, after a few generations of boys brought up by
+Christian teachers? Plainly the Czar was after the souls of the Jewish
+children. The church door gaped for them at the end of the school
+course. And all good Jews rose up against the schools, and by every
+means, fair or foul, kept their boys away. The official appointed to
+keep the register of boys for school purposes waxed rich on the bribes
+paid him by anxious parents who kept their sons in hiding.
+
+After a while the wise Czar changed his mind, or he died,--probably he
+did both,--and the schools were closed, and the Jewish boys perused
+their Hebrew books in peace, wearing the sacred fringes[1] in plain
+sight, and never polluting their mouths with a word of Russian.
+
+And then it was the Jews who changed their minds--some of them. They
+wanted to send their children to school, to learn histories and
+sciences, because they had discovered that there was good in such
+things as well as in the Sacred Law. These people were called
+progressive, but they had no chance to progress. All the czars that
+came along persisted in the old idea, that for the Jew no door should
+be opened,--no door out of the Pale, no door out of their mediævalism.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] A four-cornered cloth with specially prepared fringes is worn by
+pious males under the outer garments, but with, the fringes showing.
+The latter play a part in the daily ritual.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHILDREN OF THE LAW
+
+
+As I look back to-day I see, within the wall raised around my
+birthplace by the vigilance of the police, another wall, higher,
+thicker, more impenetrable. This is the wall which the Czar with all
+his minions could not shake, the priests with their instruments of
+torture could not pierce, the mob with their firebrands could not
+destroy. This wall within the wall is the religious integrity of the
+Jews, a fortress erected by the prisoners of the Pale, in defiance of
+their jailers; a stronghold built of the ruins of their pillaged
+homes, cemented with the blood of their murdered children.
+
+Harassed on every side, thwarted in every normal effort, pent up
+within narrow limits, all but dehumanized, the Russian Jew fell back
+upon the only thing that never failed him,--his hereditary faith in
+God. In the study of the Torah he found the balm for all his wounds;
+the minute observance of traditional rites became the expression of
+his spiritual cravings; and in the dream of a restoration to Palestine
+he forgot the world.
+
+What did it matter to us, on a Sabbath or festival, when our life was
+centred in the synagogue, what czar sat on the throne, what evil
+counsellors whispered in his ear? They were concerned with revenues
+and policies and ephemeral trifles of all sorts, while we were intent
+on renewing our ancient covenant with God, to the end that His promise
+to the world should be fulfilled, and His justice overwhelm the
+nations.
+
+On a Friday afternoon the stores and markets closed early. The clatter
+of business ceased, the dust of worry was laid, and the Sabbath peace
+flooded the quiet streets. No hovel so mean but what its casement sent
+out its consecrated ray, so that a wayfarer passing in the twilight
+saw the spirit of God brooding over the lowly roof.
+
+Care and fear and shrewishness dropped like a mask from every face.
+Eyes dimmed with weeping kindled with inmost joy. Wherever a head bent
+over a sacred page, there rested the halo of God's presence.
+
+Not on festivals alone, but also on the common days of the week, we
+lived by the Law that had been given us through our teacher Moses. How
+to eat, how to bathe, how to work--everything had been written down
+for us, and we strove to fulfil the Law. The study of the Torah was
+the most honored of all occupations, and they who engaged in it the
+most revered of all men.
+
+My memory does not go back to a time when I was too young to know that
+God had made the world, and had appointed teachers to tell the people
+how to live in it. First came Moses, and after him the great rabbis,
+and finally the Rav of Polotzk, who read all day in the sacred books,
+so that he could tell me and my parents and my friends what to do
+whenever we were in doubt. If my mother cut up a chicken and found
+something wrong in it,--some hurt or mark that should not be,--she
+sent the housemaid with it to the rav, and I ran along, and saw the
+rav look in his big books; and whatever he decided was right. If he
+called the chicken "trefah" I must not eat of it; no, not if I had to
+starve. And the rav knew about everything: about going on a journey,
+about business, about marrying, about purifying vessels for Passover.
+
+Another great teacher was the dayyan, who heard people's quarrels and
+settled them according to the Law, so that they should not have to go
+to the Gentile courts. The Gentiles were false, judges and witnesses
+and all. They favored the rich man against the poor, the Christian
+against the Jew. The dayyan always gave true judgments. Nohem
+Rabinovitch, the richest man in Polotzk, could not win a case against
+a servant maid, unless he were in the right.
+
+Besides the rav and the dayyan there were other men whose callings
+were holy,--the shohat, who knew how cattle and fowls should be
+killed; the hazzan and the other officers of the synagogue; the
+teachers of Hebrew, and their pupils. It did not matter how poor a man
+was, he was to be respected and set above other men, if he were
+learned in the Law.
+
+In the synagogue scores of men sat all day long over the Hebrew books,
+studying and disputing from early dawn till candles were brought in at
+night, and then as long as the candles lasted. They could not take
+time for anything else, if they meant to become great scholars. Most
+of them were strangers in Polotzk, and had no home except the
+synagogue. They slept on benches, on tables, on the floor; they picked
+up their meals wherever they could. They had come from distant cities,
+so as to be under good teachers in Polotzk; and the townspeople were
+proud to support them by giving them food and clothing and sometimes
+money to visit their homes on holidays. But the poor students came in
+such numbers that there were not enough rich families to provide for
+all, so that some of them suffered privation. You could pick out a
+poor student in a crowd, by his pale face and shrunken form.
+
+There was almost always a poor student taking meals at our house. He
+was assigned a certain day, and on that day my grandmother took care
+to have something especially good for dinner. It was a very shabby
+guest who sat down with us at table, but we children watched him with
+respectful eyes. Grandmother had told us that he was a lamden
+(scholar), and we saw something holy in the way he ate his cabbage.
+
+Not every man could hope to be a rav, but no Jewish boy was allowed to
+grow up without at least a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew. The
+scantiest income had to be divided so as to provide for the boys'
+tuition. To leave a boy without a teacher was a disgrace upon the
+whole family, to the remotest relative. For the children of the
+destitute there was a free school, supported by the charity of the
+pious. And so every boy was sent to heder (Hebrew school) almost as
+soon as he could speak; and usually he continued to study until his
+confirmation, at thirteen years of age, or as much longer as his
+talent and ambition carried him. My brother was five years old when he
+entered on his studies. He was carried to the heder, on the first day,
+covered over with a praying-shawl, so that nothing unholy should look
+on him; and he was presented with a bun, on which were traced, in
+honey, these words: "The Torah left by Moses is the heritage of the
+children of Jacob."
+
+After a boy entered heder, he was the hero of the family. He was
+served before the other children at table, and nothing was too good
+for him. If the family were very poor, all the girls might go
+barefoot, but the heder boy must have shoes; he must have a plate of
+hot soup, though the others ate dry bread. When the rebbe (teacher)
+came on Sabbath afternoon, to examine the boy in the hearing of the
+family, everybody sat around the table and nodded with satisfaction,
+if he read his portion well; and he was given a great saucerful of
+preserves, and was praised, and blessed, and made much of. No wonder
+he said, in his morning prayer, "I thank Thee, Lord, for not having
+created me a female." It was not much to be a girl, you see. Girls
+could not be scholars and rabbonim.
+
+I went to my brother's heder, sometimes, to bring him his dinner, and
+saw how the boys studied. They sat on benches around the table, with
+their hats on, of course, and the sacred fringes hanging beneath their
+jackets. The rebbe sat at an end of the table, rehearsing two or three
+of the boys who were studying the same part, pointing out the words
+with his wooden pointer, so as not to lose the place. Everybody read
+aloud, the smallest boys repeating the alphabet in a sing-song, while
+the advanced boys read their portions in a different sing-song; and
+everybody raised his voice to its loudest so as to drown the other
+voices. The good boys never took their eyes off their page, except to
+ask the rebbe a question; but the naughty boys stared around the room,
+and kicked each other under the table, till the rebbe caught them at
+it. He had a ruler for striking the bad boys on the knuckles, and in a
+corner of the room leaned a long birch wand for pupils who would not
+learn their lessons.
+
+The boys came to heder before nine in the morning, and remained until
+eight or nine in the evening. Stupid pupils, who could not remember
+the lesson, sometimes had to stay till ten. There was an hour for
+dinner and play at noon. Good little boys played quietly in their
+places, but most of the boys ran out of the house and jumped and
+yelled and quarrelled.
+
+There was nothing in what the boys did in heder that I could not have
+done--if I had not been a girl. For a girl it was enough if she could
+read her prayers in Hebrew, and follow the meaning by the Yiddish
+translation at the bottom of the page. It did not take long to learn
+this much,--a couple of terms with a rebbetzin (female teacher),--and
+after that she was done with books.
+
+A girl's real schoolroom was her mother's kitchen. There she learned
+to bake and cook and manage, to knit, sew, and embroider; also to spin
+and weave, in country places. And while her hands were busy, her
+mother instructed her in the laws regulating a pious Jewish household
+and in the conduct proper for a Jewish wife; for, of course, every
+girl hoped to be a wife. A girl was born for no other purpose.
+
+How soon it came, the pious burden of wifehood! One day the girl is
+playing forfeits with her laughing friends, the next day she is missed
+from the circle. She has been summoned to a conference with the
+shadchan (marriage broker), who has been for months past advertising
+her housewifely talents, her piety, her good looks, and her marriage
+portion, among families with marriageable sons. Her parents are
+pleased with the son-in-law proposed by the shadchan, and now, at the
+last, the girl is brought in, to be examined and appraised by the
+prospective parents-in-law. If the negotiations go off smoothly, the
+marriage contract is written, presents are exchanged between the
+engaged couple, through their respective parents, and all that is left
+the girl of her maidenhood is a period of busy preparation for the
+wedding.
+
+   [Illustration: HEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL) FOR BOYS IN POLOTZK]
+
+If the girl is well-to-do, it is a happy interval, spent in visits to
+the drapers and tailors, in collecting linens and featherbeds and
+vessels of copper and brass. The former playmates come to inspect the
+trousseau, enviously fingering the silks and velvets of the
+bride-elect. The happy heroine tries on frocks and mantles before her
+glass, blushing at references to the wedding day; and to the question,
+"How do you like the bridegroom?" she replies, "How should I know?
+There was such a crowd at the betrothal that I didn't see him."
+
+Marriage was a sacrament with us Jews in the Pale. To rear a family of
+children was to serve God. Every Jewish man and woman had a part in
+the fulfilment of the ancient promise given to Jacob that his seed
+should be abundantly scattered over the earth. Parenthood, therefore,
+was the great career. But while men, in addition to begetting, might
+busy themselves with the study of the Law, woman's only work was
+motherhood. To be left an old maid became, accordingly, the greatest
+misfortune that could threaten a girl; and to ward off that calamity
+the girl and her family, to the most distant relatives, would strain
+every nerve, whether by contributing to her dowry, or hiding her
+defects from the marriage broker, or praying and fasting that God
+might send her a husband.
+
+Not only must all the children of a family be mated, but they must
+marry in the order of their ages. A younger daughter must on no
+account marry before an elder. A houseful of daughters might be held
+up because the eldest failed to find favor in the eyes of prospective
+mothers-in-law; not one of the others could marry till the eldest was
+disposed of.
+
+A cousin of mine was guilty of the disloyalty of wishing to marry
+before her elder sister, who was unfortunate enough to be rejected by
+one mother-in-law after another. My uncle feared that the younger
+daughter, who was of a firm and masterful nature, might carry out her
+plans, thereby disgracing her unhappy sister. Accordingly he hastened
+to conclude an alliance with a family far beneath him, and the girl
+was hastily married to a boy of whom little was known beyond the fact
+that he was inclined to consumption.
+
+The consumptive tendency was no such horror, in an age when
+superstition was more in vogue than science. For one patient that went
+to a physician in Polotzk, there were ten who called in unlicensed
+practitioners and miracle workers. If my mother had an obstinate
+toothache that honored household remedies failed to relieve, she went
+to Dvoshe, the pious woman, who cured by means of a flint and steel,
+and a secret prayer pronounced as the sparks flew up. During an
+epidemic of scarlet fever, we protected ourselves by wearing a piece
+of red woolen tape around the neck. Pepper and salt tied in a corner
+of the pocket was effective in warding off the evil eye. There were
+lucky signs, lucky dreams, spirits, and hobgoblins, a grisly
+collection, gathered by our wandering ancestors from the demonologies
+of Asia and Europe.
+
+Antiquated as our popular follies was the organization of our small
+society. It was a caste system with social levels sharply marked off,
+and families united by clannish ties. The rich looked down on the
+poor, the merchants looked down on the artisans, and within the ranks
+of the artisans higher and lower grades were distinguished. A
+shoemaker's daughter could not hope to marry the son of a shopkeeper,
+unless she brought an extra large dowry; and she had to make up her
+mind to be snubbed by the sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law all her
+life.
+
+One qualification only could raise a man above his social level, and
+that was scholarship. A boy born in the gutter need not despair of
+entering the houses of the rich, if he had a good mind and a great
+appetite for sacred learning. A poor scholar would be preferred in the
+marriage market to a rich ignoramus. In the phrase of our
+grandmothers, a boy stuffed with learning was worth more than a girl
+stuffed with bank notes.
+
+Simple piety unsupported by learning had a parallel value in the eyes
+of good families. This was especially true among the Hasidim, the sect
+of enthusiasts who set religious exaltation above rabbinical lore.
+Ecstasy in prayer and fantastic merriment on days of religious
+rejoicing, raised a Hasid to a hero among his kind. My father's
+grandfather, who knew of Hebrew only enough to teach beginners, was
+famous through a good part of the Pale for his holy life. Israel
+Kimanyer he was called, from the village of Kimanye where he lived;
+and people were proud to establish even the most distant relationship
+with him. Israel was poor to the verge of beggary, but he prayed more
+than other people, never failed in the slightest observance enjoined
+on Jews, shared his last crust with every chance beggar, and sat up
+nights to commune with God. His family connections included country
+peddlers, starving artisans, and ne'er-do-wells; but Israel was a
+zaddik--a man of piety--and the fame of his good life redeemed the
+whole wretched clan. When his grandson, my father, came to marry, he
+boasted his direct descent from Israel Kimanyer, and picked his bride
+from the best families.
+
+The little house may still be standing which the pious Jews of Kimanye
+and the neighboring villages built for my great-grandfather, close on
+a century ago. He was too poor to build his own house, so the good
+people who loved him, and who were almost as poor as he, collected a
+few rubles among themselves, and bought a site, and built the house.
+Built, let it be known, with their own hands; for they were too poor
+to hire workmen. They carried the beams and boards on their shoulders,
+singing and dancing on the way, as they sang and danced at the
+presentation of a scroll to the synagogue. They hauled and sawed and
+hammered, till the last nail was driven home; and when they conducted
+the holy man to his new abode, the rejoicing was greater than at the
+crowning of a czar.
+
+That little cabin was fit to be preserved as the monument to a
+species of idealism that has rarely been known outside the Pale. What
+was the ultimate source of the pious enthusiasm that built my
+great-grandfather's house? What was the substance behind the show of
+the Judaism of the Pale? Stripped of its grotesque mask of forms,
+rites, and mediæval superstitions, the religion of these fanatics was
+simply the belief that God was, had been, and ever would be, and that
+they, the children of Jacob, were His chosen messengers to carry His
+Law to all the nations. Beneath the mountainous volumes of the
+Talmudists and commentators, the Mosaic tablets remained intact. Out
+of the mazes of the Cabala the pure doctrine of ancient Judaism found
+its way to the hearts of the faithful. Sects and schools might rise
+and fall, deafening the ears of the simple with the clamor of their
+disputes, still the Jew, retiring within his own soul, heard the
+voice of the God of Abraham. Prophets, messiahs, miracle workers
+might have their day, still the Jew was conscious that between
+himself and God no go-between was needed; that he, as well as every
+one of his million brothers, had his portion of God's work to do. And
+this close relation to God was the source of the strength that
+sustained the Jew through all the trials of his life in the Pale.
+Consciously or unconsciously, the Jew identified himself with the
+cause of righteousness on earth; and hence the heroism with which he
+met the battalions of tyrants.
+
+No empty forms could have impressed the unborn children of the Pale so
+deeply that they were prepared for willing martyrdom almost as soon as
+they were weaned from their mother's breast. The flame of the burning
+bush that had dazzled Moses still lighted the gloomy prison of the
+Pale. Behind the mummeries, ceremonials, and symbolic accessories, the
+object of the Jew's adoration was the face of God.
+
+This has been many times proved by those who escaped from the Pale,
+and, excited by sudden freedom, thought to rid themselves, by one
+impatient effort, of every strand of their ancient bonds. Eager to be
+merged in the better world in which they found themselves, the escaped
+prisoners determined on a change of mind, a change of heart, a change
+of manner. They rejoiced in their transformation, thinking that every
+mark of their former slavery was obliterated. And then, one day,
+caught in the vise of some crucial test, the Jew fixed his alarmed
+gaze on his inmost soul, and found there the image of his father's
+God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Merrily played the fiddlers at the wedding of my father, who was the
+grandson of Israel Kimanyer of sainted memory. The most pious men in
+Polotzk danced the night through, their earlocks dangling, the tails
+of their long coats flying in a pious ecstasy. Beggars swarmed among
+the bidden guests, sure of an easy harvest where so many hearts were
+melted by piety. The wedding jester excelled himself in apt allusions
+to the friends and relatives who brought up their wedding presents at
+his merry invitation. The sixteen-year-old bride, suffocated beneath
+her heavy veil, blushed unseen at the numerous healths drunk to her
+future sons and daughters. The whole town was a-flutter with joy,
+because the pious scion of a godly race had found a pious wife, and a
+young branch of the tree of Judah was about to bear fruit.
+
+When I came to lie on my mother's breast, she sang me lullabies on
+lofty themes. I heard the names of Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah as early
+as the names of father, mother, and nurse. My baby soul was enthralled
+by sad and noble cadences, as my mother sang of my ancient home in
+Palestine, or mourned over the desolation of Zion. With the first
+rattle that was placed in my hand a prayer was pronounced over me, a
+petition that a pious man might take me to wife, and a messiah be
+among my sons.
+
+I was fed on dreams, instructed by means of prophecies, trained to
+hear and see mystical things that callous senses could not perceive. I
+was taught to call myself a princess, in memory of my forefathers who
+had ruled a nation. Though I went in the disguise of an outcast, I
+felt a halo resting on my brow. Sat upon by brutal enemies, unjustly
+hated, annihilated a hundred times, I yet arose and held my head high,
+sure that I should find my kingdom in the end, although I had lost my
+way in exile; for He who had brought my ancestors safe through a
+thousand perils was guiding my feet as well. God needed me and I
+needed Him, for we two together had a work to do, according to an
+ancient covenant between Him and my forefathers.
+
+This is the dream to which I was heir, in common with every sad-eyed
+child of the Pale. This is the living seed which I found among my
+heirlooms, when I learned how to strip from them the prickly husk in
+which they were passed down to me. And what is the fruit of such seed
+as that, and whither lead such dreams? If it is mine to give the
+answer, let my words be true and brave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BOTH THEIR HOUSES
+
+
+Among the mediæval customs which were preserved in the Pale when the
+rest of the world had long forgotten them was the use of popular
+sobriquets in place of surnames proper. Family names existed only in
+official documents, such as passports. For the most part people were
+known by nicknames, prosaic or picturesque, derived from their
+occupations, their physical peculiarities, or distinctive
+achievements. Among my neighbors in Polotzk were Yankel the Wig-maker,
+Mulye the Blind, Moshe the Six-fingered; and members of their
+respective families were referred to by these nicknames: as, for
+example, "Mirele, niece of Moshe the Six-fingered."
+
+Let me spread out my family tree, raise aloft my coat-of-arms, and see
+what heroes have left a mark by which I may be distinguished. Let me
+hunt for my name in the chronicles of the Pale.
+
+In the village of Yuchovitch, about sixty versts above Polotzk, the
+oldest inhabitant still remembered my father's great-grandfather when
+my father was a boy. Lebe the Innkeeper he was called, and no reproach
+was coupled with the name. His son Hayyim succeeded to the business,
+but later he took up the glazier's trade, and developed a knack for
+all sorts of tinkering, whereby he was able to increase his too scanty
+earnings.
+
+Hayyim the Glazier is reputed to have been a man of fine countenance,
+wise in homely counsel, honest in all his dealings. Rachel Leah, his
+wife, had a reputation for practical wisdom even greater than his. She
+was the advice giver of the village in every perplexity of life. My
+father remembers his grandmother as a tall, trim, handsome old woman,
+active and independent. Satin headbands and lace-trimmed bonnets not
+having been invented in her day, Rachel Leah wore the stately knupf or
+turban on her shaven head. On Sabbaths and holidays she went to the
+synagogue with a long, straight mantle hanging from neck to ankle; and
+she wore it with an air, on one sleeve only, the other dangling empty
+from her shoulder.
+
+Hayyim begat Joseph, and Joseph begat Pinchus, my father. It behooves
+me to consider the stuff I sprang from.
+
+Joseph inherited the trade, good name, and meagre portion of his
+father, and maintained the family tradition of honesty and poverty
+unbroken to the day of his death. For that matter, Yuchovitch never
+heard of any connection of the family, not even a doubtful cousin, who
+was not steeped to the earlocks in poverty. But that was no
+distinction in Yuchovitch; the whole village was poor almost to
+beggary.
+
+Joseph was an indifferent workman, an indifferent scholar, and an
+indifferent hasid. At one thing only he was strikingly good, and that
+was at grumbling. Although not unkind, he had a temper that boiled
+over at small provocation, and even in his most placid mood he took
+very little satisfaction in the world. He reversed the proverb,
+looking for the sable lining of every silver cloud. In the conditions
+of his life he found plenty of food for his pessimism, and merry
+hearts were very rare among his neighbors. Still a certain amount of
+gloom appears to have been inherent in the man. And as he distrusted
+the whole world, so Joseph distrusted himself, which made him shy and
+awkward in company. My mother tells how, at the wedding of his only
+son, my father, Joseph sat the whole night through in a corner, never
+as much as cracking a smile, while the wedding guests danced, laughed,
+and rejoiced.
+
+It may have been through distrust of the marital state that Joseph
+remained single till the advanced age of twenty-five. Then he took
+unto himself an orphan girl as poor as he, namely, Rachel, the
+daughter of Israel Kimanyer of pious memory.
+
+My grandmother was such a gentle, cheerful soul, when I knew her, that
+I imagine she must have been a merry bride. I should think my
+grandfather would have taken great satisfaction in her society, as her
+attempts to show him the world through rose-hued spectacles would have
+given him frequent opportunity to parade his grievances and recite his
+wrongs. But from all reports it appears that he was never satisfied,
+and if he did not make his wife unhappy it was because he was away
+from home so much. He was absent the greater part of the time; for a
+glazier, even if he were a better workman than my grandfather, could
+not make a living in Yuchovitch. He became a country peddler, trading
+between Polotzk and Yuchovitch, and taking in all the desolate little
+hamlets scattered along that route. Fifteen rubles' worth of goods was
+a big bill to carry out of Polotzk. The stock consisted of cheap
+pottery, tobacco, matches, boot grease, and axle grease. These he
+bartered for country produce, including grains in small quantity,
+bristles, rags, and bones. Money was seldom handled in these
+transactions.
+
+A rough enough life my grandfather led, on the road at all seasons, in
+all weathers, knocking about at smoky little inns, glad sometimes of
+the hospitality of some peasant's hut, where the pigs slept with the
+family. He was doing well if he got home for the holidays with a
+little white flour for a cake, and money enough to take his best coat
+out of pawn. The best coat, and the candlesticks, too, would be
+repawned promptly on the first workday; for it was not for the like of
+Joseph of Yuchovitch to live with idle riches around him.
+
+For the credit of Yuchovitch it must be recorded that my grandfather
+never had to stay away from the synagogue for want of his one decent
+coat to wear. His neighbor Isaac, the village money lender, never
+refused to give up the pledged articles on a Sabbath eve, even if the
+money due was not forthcoming. Many Sabbath coats besides my
+grandfather's, and many candlesticks besides my grandmother's, passed
+most of their existence under Isaac's roof, waiting to be redeemed.
+But on the eve of Sabbath or holiday Isaac delivered them to their
+respective owners, came they empty-handed or otherwise; and at the
+expiration of the festival the grateful owners brought them promptly
+back, for another season of retirement.
+
+While my grandfather was on the road, my grandmother conducted her
+humble household in a capable, housewifely way. Of her six children,
+three died young, leaving two daughters and an only son, my father. My
+grandmother fed and dressed her children the best she could, and
+taught them to thank God for what they had not as well as for what
+they had. Piety was about the only positive doctrine she attempted to
+drill them in, leaving the rest of their education to life and the
+rebbe.
+
+Promptly when custom prescribed, Pinchus, the petted only son, was
+sent to heder. My grandfather being on the road at the time, my
+grandmother herself carried the boy in her arms, as was usual on the
+first day. My father distinctly remembers that she wept on the way to
+the heder; partly, I suppose, from joy at starting her son on a holy
+life, and partly from sadness at being too poor to set forth the wine
+and honey-cake proper to the occasion. For Grandma Rachel, schooled
+though she was to pious contentment, probably had her moments of human
+pettiness like the rest of us.
+
+My father distinguished himself for scholarship from the first. Five
+years old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a _yeshibah
+bahur_--a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use
+the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the
+dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and carried his fame
+to Polotzk.
+
+My grandmother's cup of pious joy was overfilled. Everything her boy
+did was pleasant in her sight, for Pinchus was going to be a scholar,
+a godly man, a credit to the memory of his renowned grandfather,
+Israel Kimanyer. She let nothing interfere with his schooling. When
+times were bad, and her husband came home with his goods unsold, she
+borrowed and begged, till the rebbe's fee was produced. If bad luck
+continued, she pleaded with the rebbe for time. She pawned not only
+the candlesticks, but her shawl and Sabbath cap as well, to secure the
+scant rations that gave the young scholar strength to study. More than
+once in the bitter winter, as my father remembers, she carried him to
+heder on her back, because he had no shoes; she herself walking
+almost barefoot in the cruel snow. No sacrifice was too great for her
+in the pious cause of her boy's education. And when there was no rebbe
+in Yuchovitch learned enough to guide him in the advanced studies, my
+father was sent to Polotzk, where he lived with his poor relations,
+who were not too poor to help support a future rebbe or rav. In
+Polotzk he continued to distinguish himself for scholarship, till
+people began to prophesy that he would live to be famous; and
+everybody who remembered Israel Kimanyer regarded the promising
+grandson with double respect.
+
+At the age of fifteen my father was qualified to teach beginners in
+Hebrew, and he was engaged as instructor in two families living six
+versts apart in the country. The boy tutor had to make himself useful,
+after lesson hours, by caring for the horse, hauling water from the
+frozen pond, and lending a hand at everything. When the little sister
+of one of his pupils died, in the middle of the winter, it fell to my
+father's lot to take the body to the nearest Jewish cemetery, through
+miles of desolate country, no living soul accompanying him.
+
+After one term of this, he tried to go on with his own studies,
+sometimes in Yuchovitch, sometimes in Polotzk, as opportunity
+dictated. He made the journey to Polotzk beside his father, jogging
+along in the springless wagon on the rutty roads. He took a boy's
+pleasure in the gypsy life, the green wood, and the summer storm;
+while his father sat moody beside him, seeing nothing but the spavins
+on the horse's hocks, and the mud in the road ahead.
+
+There is little else to tell of my father's boyhood, as most of his
+time was spent in the schoolroom. Outside the schoolroom he was
+conspicuous for high spirits in play, daring in mischief, and
+independence in everything. But a boy's playtime was so short in
+Yuchovitch, and his resources so limited, that even a lad of spirit
+came to the edge of his premature manhood without a regret for his
+nipped youth. So my father, at the age of sixteen and a half, lent a
+willing ear to the cooing voice of the marriage broker.
+
+Indeed, it was high time for him to marry. His parents had kept him so
+far, but they had two daughters to marry off, and not a groschen laid
+by for their dowries. The cost of my father's schooling, as he
+advanced, had mounted to seventeen rubles a term, and the poor rebbe
+was seldom paid in full. Of course my father's scholarship was his
+fortune--in time it would be his support; but in the meanwhile the
+burden of feeding and clothing him lay heavy on his parents'
+shoulders. The time had come to find him a well-to-do father-in-law,
+who should support him and his wife and children, while he continued
+to study in the seminary.
+
+After the usual conferences between parents and marriage brokers, my
+father was betrothed to an undertaker's daughter in Polotzk. The girl
+was too old,--every day of twenty years,--but three hundred rubles in
+dowry, with board after marriage, not to mention handsome presents to
+the bridegroom, easily offset the bride's age. My father's family, to
+the humblest cousin, felt themselves set up by the match he had made;
+and the boy was happy enough, displaying a watch and chain for the
+first time in his life, and a good coat on week days. As for his
+fiancée, he could have no objection to her, as he had seen her only at
+a distance, and had never spoken to her.
+
+When it was time for the wedding preparations to begin, news came to
+Yuchovitch of the death of the bride-elect, and my father's prospects
+seemed fallen to the ground. But the undertaker had another daughter,
+girl of thirteen, and he pressed my father to take her in her sister's
+place. At the same time the marriage broker proposed another match;
+and my father's poor cousins bristled with importance once more.
+
+Somehow or other my father succeeded in getting in a word at the
+family councils that ensued; he even had the temerity to express a
+strong preference. He did not want any more of the undertaker's
+daughters; he wanted to consider the rival match. There were no
+serious objections from the cousins, and my father became engaged to
+my mother.
+
+This second choice was Hannah Hayye, only daughter of Raphael, called
+the Russian. She had had a very different bringing-up from Pinchus,
+the grandson of Israel Kimanyer. She had never known a day of want;
+had never gone barefoot from necessity. The family had a solid
+position in Polotzk, her father being the owner of a comfortable home
+and a good business.
+
+Prosperity is prosaic, so I shall skip briefly over the history of my
+mother's house.
+
+My grandfather Raphael, early left an orphan, was brought up by an
+elder brother, in a village at no great distance from Polotzk. The
+brother dutifully sent him to heder, and at an early age betrothed him
+to Deborah, daughter of one Solomon, a dealer in grain and cattle.
+Deborah was not yet in her teens at the time of the betrothal, and so
+foolish was she that she was afraid of her affianced husband. One day,
+when she was coming from the store with a bottle of liquid yeast, she
+suddenly came face to face with her betrothed, which gave her such a
+fright that she dropped the bottle, spilling the yeast on her pretty
+dress; and she ran home crying all the way. At thirteen she was
+married, which had a good effect on her deportment. I hear no more of
+her running away from her husband.
+
+Among the interesting things belonging to my grandmother, besides her
+dowry, at the time of the marriage, was her family. Her father was so
+original that he kept a tutor for his daughters--sons he had none--and
+allowed them to be instructed in the rudiments of three or four
+languages and the elements of arithmetic. Even more unconventional was
+her sister Hode. She had married a fiddler, who travelled constantly,
+playing at hotels and inns, all through "far Russia." Having no
+children, she ought to have spent her days in fasting and praying and
+lamenting. Instead of this, she accompanied her husband on his
+travels, and even had a heart to enjoy the excitement and variety of
+their restless life. I should be the last to blame my great-aunt, for
+the irregularity of her conduct afforded my grandfather the opening
+for his career, the fruits of which made my childhood so pleasant. For
+several years my grandfather travelled in Hode's train, in the
+capacity of shohat providing kosher meat for the little troup in the
+unholy wilds of "far Russia"; and the grateful couple rewarded him so
+generously that he soon had a fortune of eighty rubles laid by.
+
+My grandfather thought the time had now come to settle down, but he
+did not know how to invest his wealth. To resolve his perplexity, he
+made a pilgrimage to the Rebbe of Kopistch, who advised him to open a
+store in Polotzk, and gave him a blessed groschen to keep in the money
+drawer for good luck.
+
+The blessing of the "good Jew" proved fruitful. My grandfather's
+business prospered, and my grandmother bore him children, several sons
+and one daughter. The sons were sent to heder, like all respectable
+boys; and they were taught, in addition, writing and arithmetic,
+enough for conducting a business. With this my grandfather was
+content; more than this he considered incompatible with piety. He was
+one of those who strenuously opposed the influence of the public
+school, and bribed the government officials to keep their children's
+names off the register of schoolboys, as we have already seen. When he
+sent his sons to a private tutor, where they could study Russian with
+their hats on, he felt, no doubt, that he was giving them all the
+education necessary to a successful business career, without violating
+piety too grossly.
+
+If reading and writing were enough for the sons, even less would
+suffice the daughter. A female teacher was engaged for my mother, at
+three kopecks a week, to teach her the Hebrew prayers; and my
+grandmother, herself a better scholar than the teacher, taught her
+writing in addition. My mother was quick to learn, and expressed an
+ambition to study Russian. She teased and coaxed, and her mother
+pleaded for her, till my grandfather was persuaded to send her to a
+tutor. But the fates were opposed to my mother's education. On the
+first day at school, a sudden inflammation of the eyes blinded my
+mother temporarily, and although the distemper vanished as suddenly as
+it had appeared, it was taken as an omen, and my mother was not
+allowed to return to her lessons.
+
+Still she did not give up. She saved up every groschen that was given
+her to buy sweets, and bribed her brother Solomon, who was proud of
+his scholarship, to give her lessons in secret. The two strove
+earnestly with book and quill, in their hiding-place under the
+rafters, till my mother could read and write Russian, and translate a
+simple passage of Hebrew.
+
+My grandmother, although herself a good housewife, took no pains to
+teach her only daughter the domestic arts. She only petted and coddled
+her and sent her out to play. But my mother was as ambitious about
+housework as about books. She coaxed the housemaid to let her mix the
+bread. She learned knitting from watching her playmates. She was
+healthy and active, quick at everything, and restless with unspent
+energy. Therefore she was quite willing, at the age of ten, to go into
+her father's business as his chief assistant.
+
+As the years went by she developed a decided talent for business, so
+that her father could safely leave all his affairs in her hands if he
+had to go out of town. Her devotion, ability, and tireless energy made
+her, in time, indispensable. My grandfather was obliged to admit that
+the little learning she had stolen was turned to good account, when he
+saw how well she could keep his books, and how smoothly she got along
+with Russian and Polish customers. Perhaps that was the argument that
+induced him, after obstinate years, to remove his veto from my
+mother's petitions and let her take up lessons again. For while piety
+was my grandfather's chief concern on the godly side, on the worldly
+side he set success in business above everything.
+
+My mother was fifteen years old when she entered on a career of higher
+education. For two hours daily she was released from the store, and in
+that interval she strove with might and main to conquer the world
+of knowledge. Katrina Petrovna, her teacher, praised and encouraged
+her; and there was no reason why the promising pupil should not have
+developed into a young lady of culture, with Madame teaching Russian,
+German, crocheting, and singing--yes, out of a book, to the
+accompaniment of a clavier--all for a fee of seventy-five kopecks a
+week.
+
+    [Illustration: THE WOOD MARKET, POLOTZK]
+
+Did I say there was no reason? And what about the marriage broker?
+Hannah Hayye, the only daughter of Raphael the Russian, going on
+sixteen, buxom, bright, capable, and well educated, could not escape
+the eye of the shadchan. A fine thing it would be to let such a likely
+girl grow old over a book! To the canopy with her, while she could
+fetch the highest price in the marriage market!
+
+My mother was very unwilling to think of marriage at this time. She
+had nothing to gain by marriage, for already she had everything that
+she desired, especially since she was permitted to study. While her
+father was rather stern, her mother spoiled and petted her; and she
+was the idol of her aunt Hode, the fiddler's wife.
+
+Hode had bought a fine estate in Polotzk, after my grandfather settled
+there, and made it her home whenever she became tired of travelling.
+She lived in state, with many servants and dependents, wearing silk
+dresses on week days, and setting silver plate before the meanest
+guest. The women of Polotzk were breathless over her wardrobe,
+counting up how many pairs of embroidered boots she had, at fifteen
+rubles a pair. And Hode's manners were as much a subject of gossip as
+her clothes, for she had picked up strange ways in her travels
+Although she was so pious that she was never tempted to eat trefah, no
+matter if she had to go hungry, her conduct in other respects was not
+strictly orthodox. For one thing, she was in the habit of shaking
+hands with men, looking them straight in the face. She spoke Russian
+like a Gentile, she kept a poodle, and she had no children.
+
+Nobody meant to blame the rich woman for being childless, because it
+was well known in Polotzk that Hode the Russian, as she was called,
+would have given all her wealth for one scrawny baby. But she was to
+blame for voluntarily exiling herself from Jewish society for years at
+a time, to live among pork-eaters, and copy the bold ways of Gentile
+women. And so while they pitied her childlessness, the women of
+Polotzk regarded her misfortune as perhaps no more than a due
+punishment.
+
+Hode, poor woman, felt a hungry heart beneath her satin robes. She
+wanted to adopt one of my grandmother's children, but my grandmother
+would not hear of it. Hode was particularly taken with my mother, and
+my grandmother, in compassion, loaned her the child for days at a
+time; and those were happy days for both aunt and niece. Hode would
+treat my mother to every delicacy in her sumptuous pantry, tell her
+wonderful tales of life in distant parts, show her all her beautiful
+dresses and jewels, and load her with presents.
+
+As my mother developed into girlhood, her aunt grew more and more
+covetous of her. Following a secret plan, she adopted a boy from the
+poorhouse, and brought him up with every advantage that money could
+buy. My mother, on her visits, was thrown a great deal into this boy's
+society, but she liked him less than the poodle. This grieved her
+aunt, who cherished in her heart the hope that my mother would marry
+her adopted son, and so become her daughter after all. And in order
+to accustom her to think well of the match, Hode dinned the boy's name
+in my mother's ears day and night, praising him and showing him off.
+She would open her jewel boxes and take out the flashing diamonds,
+heavy chains, and tinkling bracelets, dress my mother in them in front
+of the mirror, telling her that they would all be hers--all her
+own--when she became the bride of Mulke.
+
+My mother still describes the necklace of pearls and diamonds which
+her aunt used to clasp around her plump throat, with a light in her
+eyes that is reminiscent of girlish pleasure. But to all her aunt's
+teasing references to the future, my mother answered with a giggle and
+a shake of her black curls, and went on enjoying herself, thinking
+that the day of judgment was very, very far away. But it swooped down
+on her sooner than she expected--the momentous hour when she must
+choose between the pearl necklace with Mulke and a penniless stranger
+from Yuchovitch who was reputed to be a fine scholar.
+
+Mulke she would not have even if all the pearls in the ocean came with
+him. The boy was stupid and unteachable, and of unspeakable origin.
+Picked up from the dirty floor of the poorhouse, his father was
+identified as the lazy porter who sometimes chopped a cord of wood for
+my grandmother; and his sisters were slovenly housemaids scattered
+through Polotzk. No, Mulke was not to be considered. But why consider
+anybody? Why think of a _hossen_ at all, when she was so content? My
+mother ran away every time the shadchan came, and she begged to be
+left as she was, and cried, and invoked her mother's support. But her
+mother, for the first time in her history, refused to take the
+daughter's part. She joined the enemy--the family and the
+shadchan--and my mother saw that she was doomed.
+
+Of course she submitted. What else could a dutiful daughter do, in
+Polotzk? She submitted to being weighed, measured, and appraised
+before her face, and resigned herself to what was to come.
+
+When that which was to come did come, she did not recognize it. She
+was all alone in the store one day, when a beardless young man, in top
+boots that wanted grease, and a coat too thin for the weather, came in
+for a package of cigarettes. My mother climbed up on the counter, with
+one foot on a shelf, to reach down the cigarettes. The customer gave
+her the right change, and went out. And my mother never suspected that
+that was the proposed hossen, who came to look her over and see if she
+was likely to last. For my father considered himself a man of
+experience now, this being his second match, and he was determined to
+have a hand in this affair himself.
+
+No sooner was the hossen out of the store than his mother, also
+unknown to the innocent storekeeper, came in for a pound of tallow
+candles. She offered a torn bill in payment, and my mother accepted it
+and gave change; showing that she was wise enough in money matters to
+know that a torn bill was good currency.
+
+After the woman there shuffled in a poor man evidently from the
+country, who, in a shy and yet challenging manner, asked for a package
+of cheap tobacco. My mother produced the goods with her usual
+dispatch, gave the correct change, and stood at attention for more
+trade.
+
+Parents and son held a council around the corner, the object of their
+espionage never dreaming that she had been put to a triple test and
+not found wanting. But in the evening of the same day she was
+enlightened. She was summoned to her elder brother's house, for a
+conference on the subject of the proposed match, and there she found
+the young man who had bought the cigarettes. For my mother's family,
+if they forced her to marry, were willing to make her path easier by
+letting her meet the hossen, convinced that she must be won over by
+his good looks and learned conversation.
+
+It does not really matter how my mother felt, as she sat, with a
+protecting niece in her lap, at one end of a long table, with the
+hossen fidgeting at the other end. The marriage contract would be
+written anyway, no matter what she thought of the hossen. And the
+contract was duly written, in the presence of the assembled families
+of both parties, after plenty of open discussion, in which everybody
+except the prospective bride and groom had a voice.
+
+One voice in particular broke repeatedly into the consultations of the
+parents and the shadchan, and that was the voice of Henne Rösel, one
+of my father's numerous poor cousins. Henne Rösel was not unknown to
+my mother. She often came to the store, to beg, under pretence of
+borrowing, a little flour or sugar or a stick of cinnamon. On the
+occasion of the betrothal she had arrived late, dressed in
+indescribable odds and ends, with an artificial red flower stuck into
+her frowzy wig. She pushed and elbowed her way to the middle of the
+table, where the shadchan sat ready with paper and ink to take down
+the articles of the contract. On every point she had some comment to
+make, till a dispute arose over a note which my grandfather offered as
+part of the dowry, the hossen's people insisting on cash. No one
+insisted so loudly as the cousin with the red flower in her wig; and
+when the other cousins seemed about to weaken and accept the note,
+Red-Flower stood up and exhorted them to be firm, lest their flesh and
+blood be cheated under their noses. The meddlesome cousin was silenced
+at last, the contract was signed, the happiness of the engaged couple
+was pledged in wine, the guests dispersed. And all this while my
+mother had not opened her mouth, and my father had scarcely been
+heard.
+
+That is the way my fate was sealed. It gives me a shudder of wonder to
+think what a narrow escape I had; I came so near not being born at
+all. If the beggarly cousin with the frowzy wig had prevailed upon her
+family and broken off the match, then my mother would not have married
+my father, and I should at this moment be an unborn possibility in a
+philosopher's brain. It is right that I should pick my words most
+carefully, and meditate over every comma, because I am describing
+miracles too great for careless utterance. If I had died after my
+first breath, my history would still be worth recording. For before I
+could lie on my mother's breast, the earth had to be prepared, and the
+stars had to take their places; a million races had to die, testing
+the laws of life; and a boy and girl had to be bound for life to watch
+together for my coming. I was millions of years on the way, and I came
+through the seas of chance, over the fiery mountain of law, by the
+zigzag path of human possibility. Multitudes were pushed back into the
+abyss of non-existence, that I should have way to creep into being.
+And at the last, when I stood at the gate of life, a weazen-faced
+fishwife, who had not wit enough to support herself, came near
+shutting me out.
+
+Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand deaths before
+we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own world, if we
+choose. Since I have stood on my own feet, I have never met my master.
+For every time I choose a friend I determine my fate anew. I can think
+of no cataclysm that could have the force to move me from my path.
+Fire or flood or the envy of men may tear the roof off my house, but
+my soul would still be at home under the lofty mountain pines that dip
+their heads in star dust. Even life, that was so difficult to attain,
+may serve me merely as a wayside inn, if I choose to go on eternally.
+However I came here, it is mine to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DAILY BREAD
+
+
+My mother ought to have been happy in her engagement. Everybody
+congratulated her on securing such a scholar, her parents loaded her
+with presents, and her friends envied her. It is true that the
+hossen's family consisted entirely of poor relations; there was not
+one solid householder among them. From the worldly point of view my
+mother made a mésalliance. But as one of my aunts put it, when my
+mother objected to the association with the undesirable cousins, she
+could take out the cow and set fire to the barn; meaning that she
+could rejoice in the hossen and disregard his family.
+
+The hossen, on his part, had reason to rejoice, without any
+reservations. He was going into a highly respectable family, with a
+name supported by property and business standing. The promised dowry
+was considerable, the presents were generous, the trousseau would be
+liberal, and the bride was fair and capable. The bridegroom would have
+years before him in which he need do nothing but eat free board, wear
+his new clothes, and study Torah; and his poor relations could hold up
+their heads at the market stalls, and in the rear pews in the
+synagogue.
+
+My mother's trousseau was all that a mother-in-law could wish. The
+best tailor in Polotzk was engaged to make the cloaks and gowns, and
+his shop was filled to bursting with ample lengths of velvet and satin
+and silk. The wedding gown alone cost every kopeck of fifty rubles,
+as the tailor's wife reported all over Polotzk. The lingerie was of
+the best, and the seamstress was engaged on it for many weeks.
+Featherbeds, linen, household goods of every sort--everything was
+provided in abundance. My mother crocheted many yards of lace to trim
+the best sheets, and fine silk coverlets adorned the plump beds. Many
+a marriageable maiden who came to view the trousseau went home to
+prink and blush and watch for the shadchan.
+
+The wedding was memorable for gayety and splendor. The guests included
+some of the finest people in Polotzk; for while my grandfather was not
+quite at the top of the social scale, he had business connections with
+those that were, and they all turned out for the wedding of his only
+daughter, the men in silk frock coats, the women in all their jewelry.
+
+The bridegroom's aunts and cousins came in full force. Wedding
+messengers had been sent to every person who could possibly claim
+relationship with the hossen. My mother's parents were too generous to
+slight the lowliest. Instead of burning the barn, they did all they
+could to garnish it. One or two of the more important of the poor
+relations came to the wedding in gowns paid for by my rich
+grandfather. The rest came decked out in borrowed finery, or in
+undisguised shabbiness. But nobody thought of staying away--except the
+obstructive cousin who had nearly prevented the match.
+
+When it was time to conduct the bride to the wedding canopy, the
+bridegroom's mother missed Henne Rösel. The house was searched for
+her, but in vain. Nobody had seen her. But my grandmother could not
+bear to have the marriage solemnized in the absence of a first
+cousin. Such a wedding as this was not likely to be repeated in her
+family; it would be a great pity if any of the relatives missed it. So
+she petitioned the principals to delay the ceremony, while she herself
+went in search of the missing cousin.
+
+Clear over to the farthest end of the town she walked, lifting her
+gala dress well above her ankles. She found Henne Rösel in her untidy
+kitchen, sound in every limb but sulky in spirit. My grandmother
+exclaimed at her conduct, and bade her hurry with her toilet, and
+accompany her; the wedding guests were waiting; the bride was faint
+from prolonging her fast. But Henne Rösel flatly refused to go; the
+bride might remain an old maid, for all she, Henne Rösel, cared about
+the wedding. My troubled grandmother expostulated, questioned her,
+till she drew out the root of the cousin's sulkiness. Henne Rösel
+complained that she had not been properly invited. The wedding
+messenger had come,--oh, yes!--but she had not addressed her as
+flatteringly, as respectfully as she had been heard to address the
+wife of Yohem, the money-lender. And Henne Rösel wasn't going to any
+weddings where she was not wanted. My grandmother had a struggle of
+it, but she succeeded in soothing the sensitive cousin, who consented
+at length to don her best dress and go to the wedding.
+
+While my grandmother labored with Henne Rösel, the bride sat in state
+in her father's house under the hill, the maidens danced, and the
+matrons fanned themselves, while the fiddlers and _zimblers_ scraped
+and tinkled. But as the hours went by, the matrons became restless and
+the dancers wearied. The poor relations grew impatient for the feast,
+and the babies in their laps began to fidget and cry; while the bride
+grew faint, and the bridegroom's party began to send frequent
+messengers from the house next door, demanding to know the cause of
+the delay. Some of the guests at last lost all patience, and begged
+leave to go home. But before they went they deposited the wedding
+presents in the bride's satin lap, till she resembled a heathen image
+hung about with offerings.
+
+My mother, after thirty years of bustling life, retains a lively
+memory of the embarrassment she suffered while waiting for the arrival
+of the troublesome cousin. When that important dame at last appeared,
+with her chin in the air, the artificial flower still stuck
+belligerently into her dusty wig, and my grandmother beaming behind
+her, the bride's heart fairly jumped with anger, and the red blood of
+indignation set her cheeks afire. No wonder that she speaks the name
+of the Red-Flower with an unloving accent to this day, although she
+has forgiven the enemies who did her greater wrong. The bride is a
+princess on her wedding day. To put upon her an indignity is an
+unpardonable offense.
+
+After the feasting and dancing, which lasted a whole week, the wedding
+presents were locked up, the bride, with her hair discreetly covered,
+returned to her father's store, and the groom, with his new
+praying-shawl, repaired to the synagogue. This was all according to
+the marriage bargain, which implied that my father was to study and
+pray and fill the house with the spirit of piety, in return for board
+and lodging and the devotion of his wife and her entire family.
+
+All the parties concerned had entered into this bargain in good faith,
+so far as they knew their own minds. But the eighteen-year-old
+bridegroom, before many months had passed, began to realize that he
+felt no such hunger for the word of the Law as he was supposed to
+feel. He felt, rather, a hunger for life that all his studying did not
+satisfy. He was not trained enough to analyze his own thoughts to any
+purpose; he was not experienced enough to understand where his
+thoughts were leading him. He only knew that he felt no call to pray
+and fast that the Torah did not inspire him, and his days were blank.
+The life he was expected to lead grew distasteful to him, and yet he
+knew no other way to live. He became lax in his attendance at the
+synagogue, incurring the reproach of the family. It began to be
+rumored among the studious that the son-in-law of Raphael the Russian
+was not devoting himself to the sacred books with any degree of
+enthusiasm. It was well known that he had a good mind, but evidently
+the spirit was lacking. My grandparents went from surprise to
+indignation, from exhortation they passed to recrimination. Before my
+parents had been married half a year, my grandfather's house was
+divided against itself and my mother was torn between the two
+factions. For while she sympathized with her parents, and felt
+personally cheated by my father's lack of piety, she thought it was
+her duty to take her husband's part, even against her parents, in
+their own house. My mother was one of those women who always obey the
+highest law they know, even though it leads them to their doom.
+
+How did it happen that my father, who from his early boyhood had been
+pointed out as a scholar in embryo, failed to live up to the
+expectations of his world? It happened as it happened that his hair
+curled over his high forehead: he was made that way. If people were
+disappointed, it was because they had based their expectations on a
+misconception of his character, for my father had never had any
+aspirations for extreme piety. Piety was imputed to him by his mother,
+by his rebbe, by his neighbors, when they saw that he rendered the
+sacred word more intelligently than his fellow students. It was not
+his fault that his people confused scholarship with religious ardor.
+Having a good mind, he was glad to exercise it; and being given only
+one subject to study he was bound to make rapid progress in that. If
+he had ever been offered a choice between a religious and a secular
+education, his friends would have found out early that he was not born
+to be a rav. But as he had no mental opening except through the
+hedder, he went on from year to year winning new distinction in Hebrew
+scholarship; with the result that witnesses with preconceived ideas
+began to see the halo of piety playing around his head, and a
+well-to-do family was misled into making a match with him for the sake
+of the glory that he was to attain.
+
+When it became evident that the son-in-law was not going to develop
+into a rav, my grandfather notified him that he would have to assume
+the support of his own family without delay. My father therefore
+entered on a series of experiments with paying occupations, for none
+of which he was qualified, and in none of which he succeeded
+permanently.
+
+My mother was with my father, as equal partner and laborer, in
+everything he attempted in Polotzk. They tried keeping a wayside inn,
+but had to give it up because the life was too rough for my mother,
+who was expecting her first baby. Returning to Polotzk they went to
+storekeeping on their own account, but failed in this also, because my
+father was inexperienced, and my mother, now with the baby to nurse,
+was not able to give her best attention to business. Over two years
+passed in this experiment, and in the interval the second child was
+born, increasing my parents' need of a home and a reliable income.
+
+It was then decided that my father should seek his fortune elsewhere.
+He travelled as far east as Tchistopol, on the Volga, and south as far
+as Odessa, on the Black Sea, trying his luck at various occupations
+within the usual Jewish restrictions. Finally he reached the position
+of assistant superintendent in a distillery, with a salary of thirty
+rubles a month. That was a fair income for those days, and he was
+planning to have his family join him when my Grandfather Raphael died,
+leaving my mother heir to a good business. My father thereupon
+returned to Polotzk, after nearly three years' absence from home.
+
+As my mother had been trained to her business from childhood, while my
+father had had only a little irregular experience, she naturally
+remained the leader. She was as successful as her father before her.
+The people continued to call her Raphael's Hannah Hayye, and under
+that name she was greatly respected in the business world. Her eldest
+brother was now a merchant of importance, and my mother's
+establishment was gradually enlarged; so that, altogether, our family
+had a solid position in Polotzk, and there were plenty to envy us.
+
+We were almost rich, as Polotzk counted riches in those days;
+certainly we were considered well-to-do. We moved into a larger house,
+where there was room for out-of-town customers to stay overnight, with
+stabling for their horses. We lived as well as any people of our
+class, and perhaps better, because my father had brought home with
+him from his travels a taste for a more genial life than Polotzk
+usually asked for. My mother kept a cook and a nursemaid, and a
+dvornik, or outdoor man, to take care of the horses, the cow, and the
+woodpile. All the year round we kept open house, as I remember.
+Cousins and aunts were always about, and on holidays friends of all
+degrees gathered in numbers. And coming and going in the wing set
+apart for business guests were merchants, traders, country peddlers,
+peasants, soldiers, and minor government officials. It was a full
+house at all times, and especially so during fairs, and at the season
+of the military draft.
+
+In the family wing there was also enough going on. There were four of
+us children, besides father and mother and grandmother, and the
+parasitic cousins. Fetchke was the eldest; I was the second; the third
+was my only brother, named Joseph, for my father's father; and the
+fourth was Deborah, named for my mother's mother.
+
+I suppose I ought to explain my own name also, especially because I am
+going to emerge as the heroine by and by. Be it therefore known that I
+was named Maryashe, for a bygone aunt. I was never called by my full
+name, however. "Maryashe" was too dignified for me. I was always
+"Mashinke," or else "Mashke," by way of diminutive. A variety of
+nicknames, mostly suggested by my physical peculiarities, were
+bestowed on me from time to time by my fond or foolish relatives. My
+uncle Berl, for example, gave me the name of "Zukrochene Flum," which
+I am not going to translate, because it is uncomplimentary.
+
+My sister Fetchke was always the good little girl, and when our
+troubles began she was an important member of the family. What sort of
+little girl I was will be written by and by. Joseph was the best
+Jewish boy that ever was born, but he hated to go to heder, so he had
+to be whipped, of course. Deborah was just a baby, and her principal
+characteristic was single-mindedness. If she had teething to attend
+to, she thought of nothing else day or night, and communicated with
+the family on no other subject. If it was whooping-cough, she whooped
+most heartily; if it was measles, she had them thick.
+
+It was the normal thing in Polotzk, where the mothers worked as well
+as the fathers, for the children to be left in the hands of
+grandmothers and nursemaids. I suffer reminiscent terrors when I
+recall Deborah's nurse, who never opened her lips except to frighten
+us children--or else to lie. That girl never told the truth if she
+could help it. I know it is so because I heard her tell eleven or
+twelve unnecessary lies every day. In the beginning of her residence
+with us, I exposed her indignantly every time I caught her lying; but
+the tenor of her private conversations with me was conducive to a
+cessation of my activity along the line of volunteer testimony. In
+shorter words, the nurse terrified me with horrid threats until I did
+not dare to contradict her even if she lied her head off. The things
+she promised me in this life and in the life to come could not be
+executed by a person without imagination. The nurse gave almost her
+entire attention to us older children, disposing easily of the baby's
+claims. Deborah, unless she was teething or whoop-coughing, was a
+quiet baby, and would lie for hours on the nurse's lap, sucking at a
+"pacifier" made of bread and sugar tied up in a muslin rag, and
+previously chewed to a pulp by the nurse. And while the baby sucked
+the nurse told us things--things that we must remember when we went to
+bed at night.
+
+A favorite subject of her discourse was the Evil One, who lived, so
+she told us, in our attic, with his wife and brood. A pet amusement of
+our invisible tenant was the translating of human babies into his
+lair, leaving one of his own brats in the cradle; the moral of which
+was that if nurse wanted to loaf in the yard and watch who went out
+and who came in, we children must mind the baby. The girl was so sly
+that she carried on all this tyranny without being detected, and we
+lived in terror till she was discharged for stealing.
+
+In our grandmothers we were very fortunate: They spoiled us to our
+hearts' content. Grandma Deborah's methods I know only from hearsay,
+for I was very little when she died. Grandma Rachel I remember
+distinctly, spare and trim and always busy. I recall her coming in
+midwinter from the frozen village where she lived. I remember, as if
+it were but last winter, the immense shawls and wraps which we unwound
+from about her person, her voluminous brown sack coat in which there
+was room for three of us at a time, and at last the tight clasp of her
+long arms, and her fresh, cold cheeks on ours. And when the hugging
+and kissing were over, Grandma had a treat for us. It was _talakno_,
+or oat flour, which we mixed with cold water and ate raw, using wooden
+spoons, just like the peasants, and smacking our lips over it in
+imaginary enjoyment.
+
+But Grandma Rachel did not come to play. She applied herself
+energetically to the housekeeping. She kept her bright eye on
+everything, as if she were in her own trifling establishment in
+Yuchovitch. Watchful was she as any cat--and harmless as a tame
+rabbit. If she caught the maids at fault, she found an excuse for
+them at the same time. If she was quite exasperated with the stupidity
+of Yakub, the dvornik, she pretended to curse him in a phrase of her
+own invention, a mixture of Hebrew and Russian, which, translated,
+said, "Mayst thou have gold and silver in thy bosom"; but to the
+choreman, who was not a linguist, the mongrel phrase conveyed a sense
+of his delinquency.
+
+Grandma Rachel meant to be very strict with us children, and
+accordingly was prompt to discipline us; but we discovered early in
+our acquaintance with her that the child who got a spanking was sure
+to get a hot cookie or the jam pot to lick, so we did not stand in
+great awe of her punishments. Even if it came to a spanking it was
+only a farce. Grandma generally interposed a pillow between the palm
+of her hand and the area of moral stimulation.
+
+The real disciplinarian in our family was my father. Present or
+absent, it was fear of his displeasure that kept us in the straight
+and narrow path. In the minds of us children he was as much
+represented, when away from home, by the strap hanging on the wall as
+by his portrait which stood on a parlor table, in a gorgeous frame
+adorned with little shells. Almost everybody's father had a strap, but
+our father's strap was more formidable than the ordinary. For one
+thing, it was more painful to encounter personally, because it was not
+a simple strap, but a bunch of fine long strips, clinging as rubber.
+My father called it noodles; and while his facetiousness was lost on
+us children, the superior sting of his instrument was entirely
+effective.
+
+In his leisure, my father found means of instructing us other than by
+the strap. He took us walking and driving, answered our questions, and
+taught us many little things that our playmates were not taught.
+From distant parts of the country he had imported little tricks of
+speech and conduct, which we learned readily enough; for we were
+always a teachable lot. Our pretty manners were very much admired, so
+that we became used to being held up as models to children less
+polite. Guests at our table praised our deportment, when, at the end
+of a meal, we kissed the hands of father and mother and thanked them
+for food. Envious mothers of rowdy children used to sneer, "Those
+grandchildren of Raphael the Russian are quite the aristocrats."
+
+    [Illustration: MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT]
+
+And yet, off the stage, we had our little quarrels and tempests,
+especially I. I really and truly cannot remember a time when Fetchke
+was naughty, but I was oftener in trouble than out of it. I need not
+go into details. I only need to recall how often, on going to bed, I
+used to lie silently rehearsing the day's misdeeds, my sister
+refraining from talk out of sympathy. As I always came to the
+conclusion that I wanted to reform, I emerged from my reflections with
+this solemn formula: "Fetchke, let us be good." And my generosity in
+including my sister in my plans for salvation was equalled by her
+magnanimity in assuming part of my degradation. She always replied, in
+aspiration as eager as mine, "Yes, Mashke, let us be good."
+
+My mother had less to do than any one with our early training, because
+she was confined to the store. When she came home at night, with her
+pockets full of goodies for us, she was too hungry for our love to
+listen to tales against us, too tired from work to discipline us. It
+was only on Sabbaths and holidays that she had a chance to get
+acquainted with us, and we all looked forward to these days of
+enjoined rest.
+
+On Friday afternoons my parents came home early, to wash and dress and
+remove from their persons every sign of labor. The great keys of the
+store were put away out of sight; the money bag was hidden in the
+featherbeds. My father put on his best coat and silk skull-cap; my
+mother replaced the cotton kerchief by the well-brushed wig. We
+children bustled around our parents, asking favors in the name of the
+Sabbath--"Mama, let Fetchke and me wear our new shoes, in honor of
+Sabbath"; or "Papa, will you take us to-morrow across the bridge? You
+said you would, on Sabbath." And while we adorned ourselves in our
+best, my grandmother superintended the sealing of the oven, the maids
+washed the sweat from their faces, and the dvornik scraped his feet at
+the door.
+
+My father and brother went to the synagogue, while we women and girls
+assembled in the living-room for candle prayer. The table gleamed with
+spotless linen and china. At my father's place lay the Sabbath loaf,
+covered over with a crocheted doily; and beside it stood the wine
+flask and _kiddush_ cup of gold or silver. At the opposite end of the
+table was a long row of brass candlesticks, polished to perfection,
+with the heavy silver candlesticks in a shorter row in front; for my
+mother and grandmother were very pious, and each used a number of
+candles; while Fetchke and I and the maids had one apiece.
+
+After the candle prayer the women generally read in some book of
+devotion, while we children amused ourselves in the quietest manner,
+till the men returned from synagogue. "Good Sabbath!" my father
+called, as he entered; and "Good Sabbath! Good Sabbath!" we wished him
+in return. If he brought with him a Sabbath guest from the synagogue,
+some poor man without a home, the stranger was welcomed and invited
+in, and placed in the seat of honor, next to my father.
+
+We all stood around the table while _kiddush_, or the blessing over
+the wine, was said, and if a child whispered or nudged another my
+father reproved him with a stern look, and began again from the
+beginning. But as soon as he had cut the consecrated loaf, and
+distributed the slices, we were at liberty to talk and ask questions,
+unless a guest was present, when we maintained a polite silence.
+
+Of one Sabbath guest we were always sure, even if no destitute Jew
+accompanied my father from the synagogue. Yakub the choreman partook
+of the festival with us. He slept on a bunk built over the entrance
+door, and reached by means of a rude flight of steps. There he liked
+to roll on his straw and rags, whenever he was not busy, or felt
+especially lazy. On Friday evenings he climbed to his roost very
+early, before the family assembled for supper, and waited for his cue,
+which was the breaking-out of table talk after the blessing of the
+bread. Then Yakub began to clear his throat and kept on working at it
+until my father called to him to come down and have a glass of vodka.
+Sometimes my father pretended not to hear him, and we smiled at one
+another around the table, while Yakub's throat grew worse and worse,
+and he began to cough and mutter and rustle in his straw. Then my
+father let him come down, and he shuffled in, and stood clutching his
+cap with both hands, while my father poured him a brimming glass of
+whiskey. This Yakub dedicated to all our healths, and tossed off to
+his own comfort. If he got a slice of boiled fish after his glassful,
+he gulped it down as a chicken gulps worms, smacked his lips
+explosively, and wiped his fingers on his unkempt locks. Then,
+thanking his master and mistress, and scraping and bowing, he backed
+out of the room and ascended to his roost once more; and in less time
+than it takes to write his name, the simple fellow was asleep, and
+snoring the snore of the just.
+
+On Sabbath morning almost everybody went to synagogue, and those who
+did not, read their prayers and devotions at home. Dinner, at midday,
+was a pleasant and leisurely meal in our house. Between courses my
+father led us in singing our favorite songs, sometimes Hebrew,
+sometimes Yiddish, sometimes Russian, or some of the songs without
+words for which the Hasidim were famous. In the afternoon we went
+visiting, or else we took long walks out of town, where the fields
+sprouted and the orchards waited to bloom. If we stayed at home, we
+were not without company. Neighbors dropped in for a glass of tea.
+Uncles and cousins came, and perhaps my brother's rebbe, to examine
+his pupil in the hearing of the family. And wherever we spent the day,
+the talk was pleasant, the faces were cheerful, and the joy of Sabbath
+pervaded everything.
+
+The festivals were observed with all due pomp and circumstance in our
+house. Passover was beautiful with shining new things all through the
+house; _Purim_ was gay with feasting and presents and the jolly
+mummers; _Succoth_ was a poem lived in a green arbor; New-Year
+thrilled our hearts with its symbols and promises; and the Day of
+Atonement moved even the laughing children to a longing for
+consecration. The year, in our pious house, was an endless song in
+many cantos of joy, lamentation, aspiration, and rhapsody.
+
+We children, while we regretted the passing of a festival, found
+plenty to content us in the common days of the week. We had
+everything we needed, and almost everything we wanted. We were
+welcomed everywhere, petted and praised, abroad as well as at home. I
+suppose no little girls with whom we played had a more comfortable
+sense of being well-off than Fetchke and I. "Raphael the Russian's
+grandchildren" people called us, as if referring to the quarterings in
+our shield. It was very pleasant to wear fine clothes, to have kopecks
+to spend at the fruit stalls, and to be pointed at admiringly. Some of
+the little girls we went with were richer than we, but after all one's
+mother can wear only one pair of earrings at a time, and our mother
+had beautiful gold ones that hung down on her neck.
+
+As we grew older, my parents gave us more than physical comfort and
+social standing to rejoice in. They gave us, or set out to give us,
+education, which was less common than gold earrings in Polotzk. For
+the ideal of a modern education was the priceless ware that my father
+brought back with him from his travels in distant parts. His travels,
+indeed, had been the making of my father. He had gone away from
+Polotzk, in the first place, as a man unfit for the life he led, out
+of harmony with his surroundings, at odds with his neighbors. Never
+heartily devoted to the religious ideals of the Hebrew scholar, he was
+more and more a dissenter as he matured, but he hardly knew what he
+wanted to embrace in place of the ideals he rejected. The rigid scheme
+of orthodox Jewish life in the Pale offered no opening to any other
+mode of life. But in the large cities in the east and south he
+discovered a new world, and found himself at home in it. The Jews
+among whom he lived in those parts were faithful to the essence of the
+religion, but they allowed themselves more latitude in practice and
+observance than the people in Polotzk. Instead of bribing government
+officials to relax the law of compulsory education for boys, these
+people pushed in numbers at every open door of culture and
+enlightenment. Even the girls were given books in Odessa and Kherson,
+as the rock to build their lives on, and not as an ornament for
+idleness. My father's mind was ready for the reception of such ideas,
+and he was inspired by the new view of the world which they afforded
+him.
+
+When he returned to Polotzk he knew what had been wrong with his life
+before, and he proceeded to remedy it. He resolved to live, as far as
+the conditions of existence in Polotzk permitted, the life of a modern
+man. And he saw no better place to begin than with the education of
+the children. Outwardly he must conform to the ways of his neighbors,
+just as he must pay tribute to the policeman on the beat; for standing
+room is necessary to all operations, and social ostracism could ruin
+him as easily as police persecution. His children, if he started them
+right, would not have to bow to the yoke as low as he; his children's
+children might even be free men. And education was the one means to
+redemption.
+
+Fetchke and I were started with a rebbe, in the orthodox way, but we
+were taught to translate as well as read Hebrew, and we had a secular
+teacher besides. My sister and I were very diligent pupils, and my
+father took great satisfaction in our progress and built great plans
+for our higher education.
+
+My brother, who was five years old when he entered heder, hated to be
+shut up all day over a printed page that meant nothing to him. He
+cried and protested, but my father was determined that he should not
+grow up ignorant, so he used the strap freely to hasten the truant's
+steps to school. The heder was the only beginning allowable for a boy
+in Polotzk, and to heder Joseph must go. So the poor boy's life was
+made a nightmare, and the horror was not lifted until he was ten years
+old, when he went to a modern school where intelligible things were
+taught, and it proved that it was not the book he hated, but the
+blindness of the heder.
+
+For a number of peaceful years after my father's return from "far
+Russia," we led a wholesome life of comfort, contentment, and faith in
+to-morrow. Everything prospered, and we children grew in the sun. My
+mother was one with my father in all his plans for us. Although she
+had spent her young years in the pursuit of the ruble, it was more to
+her that our teacher praised us than that she had made a good bargain
+with a tea merchant. Fetchke and Joseph and I, and Deborah, when she
+grew up, had some prospects even in Polotzk, with our parents' hearts
+set on the highest things; but we were destined to seek our fortunes
+in a world which even my father did not dream of when he settled down
+to business in Polotzk.
+
+Just when he felt himself safe and strong, a long series of troubles
+set in to harass us, and in a few years' time we were reduced to a
+state of helpless poverty, in which there was no room to think of
+anything but bread. My father became seriously ill, and spent large
+sums on cures that did not cure him. While he was still an invalid, my
+mother also became ill and kept her bed for the better part of two
+years. When she got up, it was only to lapse again. Some of us
+children also fell ill, so that at one period the house was a
+hospital. And while my parents were incapacitated, the business was
+ruined through bad management, until a day came when there was not
+enough money in the cash drawer to pay the doctor's bills.
+
+For some years after they got upon their feet again, my parents
+struggled to regain their place in the business world, but failed to
+do so. My father had another period of experimenting with this or that
+business, like his earlier experience. But everything went wrong, till
+at last he made a great resolve to begin life all over again. And the
+way to do that was to start on a new soil. My father determined to
+emigrate to America.
+
+I have now told who I am, what my people were, how I began life, and
+why I was brought to a new home. Up to this point I have borrowed the
+recollections of my parents, to piece out my own fragmentary
+reminiscences. But from now on I propose to be my own pilot across the
+seas of memory; and if I lose myself in the mists of uncertainty, or
+run aground on the reefs of speculation, I still hope to make port at
+last, and I shall look for welcoming faces on the shore. For the ship
+I sail in is history, and facts will kindle my beacon fires.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+I REMEMBER
+
+
+My father and mother could tell me much more that I have forgotten, or
+that I never was aware of; but I want to reconstruct my childhood from
+those broken recollections only which, recurring to me in after years,
+filled me with the pain and wonder of remembrance. I want to string
+together those glimpses of my earliest days that dangle in my mind,
+like little lanterns in the crooked alleys of the past, and show me an
+elusive little figure that is myself, and yet so much a stranger to
+me, that I often ask, Can this be I?
+
+I have not much faith in the reality of my first recollection, but as
+I can never go back over the past without bringing up at last at this
+sombre little scene, as at a door beyond which I cannot pass, I must
+put it down for what it is worth in the scheme of my memories. I see,
+then, an empty, darkened room. In the middle, on the floor, lies a
+long Shape, covered with some black stuff. There are candles at the
+head of the Shape. Dim figures are seated low, against the walls,
+swaying to and fro. No sound is in the room, except a moan or a sigh
+from the shadowy figures; but a child is walking softly around and
+around the Shape on the floor, in quiet curiosity.
+
+The Shape is the body of my grandfather laid out for burial. The child
+is myself--myself asking questions of Death.
+
+I was four years old when my mother's father died. Do I really
+remember the little scene? Perhaps I heard it described by some fond
+relative, as I heard other anecdotes of my infancy, and unconsciously
+incorporated it with my genuine recollections. It is so suitable a
+scene for a beginning: the darkness, the mystery, the impenetrability.
+My share in it, too, is characteristic enough, if I really studied
+that Shape by the lighted candles, as I have always pretended to
+myself. So often afterwards I find myself forgetting the conventional
+meanings of things, in some search for a meaning of my own. It is more
+likely, however, that I took no intellectual interest in my
+grandfather's remains at the time, but later on, when I sought for a
+First Recollection, perhaps, elaborated the scene, and my part in it,
+to something that satisfied my sense of dramatic fitness. If I really
+committed such a fraud, I am now well punished, by being obliged, at
+the very start, to discredit the authenticity of my memoirs.
+
+The abode of our childhood, if not revisited in later years, is apt to
+loom in our imagination as a vast edifice with immense chambers in
+which our little self seems lost. Somehow I have failed of this
+illusion. My grandfather's house, where I was born, stands, in my
+memory, a small, one-story wooden building, whose chimneys touch the
+sky at the same level as its neighbors' chimneys. Such as it was, the
+house stood even with the sidewalk, but the yard was screened from the
+street by a board fence, outside which I am sure there was a bench.
+The gate into the yard swung so high from the ground that four-footed
+visitors did not have to wait till it was opened. Pigs found their way
+in, and were shown the way out, under the gate; grunting on their
+arrival, but squealing on their departure.
+
+   [Illustration: MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, WHERE I WAS BORN]
+
+Of the interior of the house I remember only one room, and not so much
+the room as the window, which had a blue sash curtain, and beyond the
+curtain a view of a narrow, walled garden, where deep-red dahlias
+grew. The garden belonged to the house adjoining my grandfather's,
+where lived the Gentile girl who was kind to me.
+
+Concerning my dahlias I have been told that they were not dahlias at
+all, but poppies. As a conscientious historian I am bound to record
+every rumor, but I retain the right to cling to my own impression.
+Indeed, I must insist on my dahlias, if I am to preserve the garden at
+all. I have so long believed in them, that if I try to see _poppies_
+in those red masses over the wall, the whole garden crumbles away, and
+leaves me a gray blank. I have nothing against poppies. It is only
+that my illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often
+build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling
+to pieces, if any one but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.
+
+Ours was a quiet neighborhood. Across the narrow street was the
+orderly front of the Korpus, or military academy, with straight rows
+of unshuttered windows. It was an imposing edifice in the eyes of us
+all, because it was built of brick, and was several stories high. At
+one of the windows I pretend I remember seeing a tailor mending the
+uniforms of the cadets. I knew the uniforms, and I knew, in later
+years, the man who had been the tailor; but I am not sure that he did
+not emigrate to America, there to seek his fortune in a candy shop,
+and his happiness in a family of triplets, twins, and even odds, long
+before I was old enough to toddle as far as the gate.
+
+Behind my grandfather's house was a low hill, which I do _not_
+remember as a mountain. Perhaps it was only a hump in the ground. This
+eminence, of whatever stature, was a part of the Vall, a longer and
+higher ridge on the top of which was a promenade, and which was said
+to be the burying-ground of Napoleonic soldiers. This historic rumor
+meant very little to me, for I never knew what Napoleon was.
+
+It was not my way to accept unchallenged every superstition that came
+to my ears. Among the wild flowers that grew on the grassy slopes of
+the Vall, there was a small daisy, popularly called "blind flower,"
+because it was supposed to cause blindness in rash children who picked
+it. I was rash, if I was awake; and I picked "blind flowers" behind
+the house, handfuls of them, and enjoyed my eyesight unimpaired. If my
+faith in nursery lore was shaken by this experience, I kept my
+discovery to myself, and did not undertake to enlighten my playmates.
+I find other instances, later on, of the curious fact that I was
+content with _finding out_ for myself. It is curious to me because I
+am not so reticent now. When I discover anything, if only a new tint
+in the red sunset, I must publish the fact to all my friends. Is it
+possible that in my childish reflections I recognized the fact that
+ours was a secretive atmosphere, where knowledge was for the few, and
+wisdom was sometimes a capital offence?
+
+In the summer-time I lived outdoors considerably. I found many
+occasions to visit my mother in the store, which gave me a long walk.
+If my errand was not pressing--or perhaps even if it was--I made a
+long stop on the Platz, especially if I had a companion with me. The
+Platz was a rectangular space in the centre of a roomy square, with a
+shady promenade around its level lawn. The Korpus faced on the Platz,
+which was its drill ground. Around the square were grouped the fine
+residences of the officers of the Korpus, with a great white church
+occupying one side. These buildings had a fearful interest for me,
+especially the church, as the dwellings and sanctuary of the enemy;
+but on the Platz I was not afraid to play and seek adventures. I loved
+to watch the cadets drill and play ball, or pass them close as they
+promenaded, two and two, looking so perfect in white trousers and
+jackets and visored caps. I loved to run with my playmates and lay out
+all sorts of geometric figures on the four straight sides of the
+promenade; patterns of infinite variety, traceable only by a pair of
+tireless feet. If one got so wild with play as to forget all fear, one
+could swing, until chased away by the guard, on the heavy chain
+festoons that encircled the monument at one side of the square. This
+was the only monument in Polotzk, dedicated I never knew to whom or
+what. It was the monument, as the sky was the sky, and the earth,
+earth: the only phenomenon of its kind, mysterious, unquestionable.
+
+It was not far from the limits of Polotzk to the fields and woods. My
+father was fond of taking us children for a long walk on a Sabbath
+afternoon. I have little pictures in my mind of places where we went,
+though I doubt if they could be found from my descriptions. I try in
+vain to conjure up a panoramic view of the neighborhood. Even when I
+stood on the apex of the Vall, and saw the level country spread in all
+directions, my inexperienced eyes failed to give me the picture of the
+whole. I saw the houses in the streets below, all going to market. The
+highroads wandered out into the country, and disappeared in the sunny
+distance, where the edge of the earth and the edge of the sky fitted
+together, like a jewel box with the lid ajar. In these things I saw
+what a child always sees: the unrelated fragments of a vast,
+mysterious world. But although my geography may be vague, and the
+scenes I remember as the pieces of a paper puzzle, still my breath
+catches as I replace this bit or that, and coax the edges to fit
+together. I am obstinately positive of some points, and for the rest,
+you may amend the puzzle if you can. You may make a survey of Polotzk
+ever so accurate, and show me where I was wrong; still I am the better
+guide. You may show that my adventureful road led nowhere, but I can
+prove, by the quickening of my pulse and the throbbing of my rapid
+recollections, that _things happened to me_ there or here; and I shall
+be believed, not you. And so over the vague canvas of scenes half
+remembered, half imagined, I draw the brush of recollection, and pick
+out here a landmark, there a figure, and set my own feet back in the
+old ways, and live over the old events. It is real enough, as by my
+beating heart you might know.
+
+Sometimes my father took us out by the Long Road. There is no road in
+the neighborhood of Polotzk by that name, but I know very well that
+the way was long to my little feet; and long are the backward thoughts
+that creep along it, like a sunbeam travelling with the day.
+
+The first landmark on the sunny, dusty road is the house of a peasant
+acquaintance where we stopped for rest and a drink. I remember a cool
+gray interior, a woman with her bosom uncovered pattering barefoot to
+hand us the hospitable dipper, and a baby smothered in a deep cradle
+which hung by ropes from the ceiling. Farther on, the empty road gave
+us shadows of trees and rustlings of long grass. This, at least, is
+what I imagine over the spaces where no certain object is. Then, I
+know, we ran and played, and it was father himself who hid in the
+corn, and we made havoc following after. Laughing, we ramble on, till
+we hear the long, far whistle of a locomotive. The railroad track is
+just visible over the field on the _left_ of the road; the cornfield,
+I say, is on the _right_. We stand on tiptoe and wave our hands and
+shout as the long train rushes by at a terrific speed, leaving its
+pennon of smoke behind.
+
+The passing of the train thrilled me wonderfully. Where did it come
+from, and whither did it fly, and how did it feel to be one of the
+faces at the windows? If ever I dreamed of a world beyond Polotzk, it
+must have been at those times, though I do not honestly remember.
+
+Somewhere out on that same Long Road is the place where we once
+attended a wedding. I do not know who were married, or whether they
+lived happily ever after; but I remember that when the dancers were
+wearied, and we were all sated with goodies, day was dawning, and
+several of the young people went out for a stroll in a grove near by.
+They took me with them--who were they?--and they lost me. At any rate,
+when they saw me again, I was a stranger. For I had sojourned, for an
+immeasurable moment, in a world apart from theirs. I had witnessed my
+first sunrise; I had watched the rosy morning tiptoe in among the
+silver birches. And that grove stands on the _left_ side of the road.
+
+We had another stopping-place out in that direction. It was the place
+where my mother sent her hundred and more house plants to be cared for
+one season, because for some reason they could not fare well at home.
+We children went to visit them once; and the memory of that is red and
+white and purple.
+
+The Long Road went ever on and on; I remember no turns. But we turned
+at last, when the sun was set and the breeze of evening blew; and
+sometimes the first star came in and the Sabbath went out before we
+reached home and supper.
+
+Another way out of town was by the bridge across the Polota. I recall
+more than one excursion in that direction. Sometimes we made a large
+party, annexing a few cousins and aunts for the day. At this moment I
+feel a movement of affection for these relations who shared our
+country adventures. I had forgotten what virtue there was in our
+family; I do like people who can walk. In those days, it is likely
+enough, I did not always walk on my own legs, for I was very little,
+and not strong. I do not remember being carried, but if any of my big
+uncles gave me a lift, I am sure I like them all the more for it.
+
+The Dvina River swallowed the Polota many times a day, yet the lesser
+stream flooded the universe on one occasion. On the hither bank of
+that stream, as you go from Polotzk, I should plant a flowering bush,
+a lilac or a rose, in memory of the life that bloomed in me one day
+that I was there.
+
+Leisurely we had strolled out of the peaceful town. It was early
+spring, and the sky and the earth were two warm palms in which all
+live things nestled. Little green leaves trembled on the trees, and
+the green, green grass sparkled. We sat us down to rest a little above
+the bridge; and life flowed in and out of us fully, freely, as the
+river flowed and parted about the bridge piles.
+
+A market garden lay on the opposite slope, yellow-green with first
+growth. In the long black furrows yet unsown a peasant pushed his
+plow. I watched him go up and down, leaving a new black line on the
+bank for every turn. Suddenly he began to sing, a rude plowman's song.
+Only the melody reached me, but the meaning sprang up in my heart to
+fit it--a song of the earth and the hopes of the earth. I sat a long
+time listening, looking, tense with attention. I felt myself
+discovering things. Something in me gasped for life, and lay still. I
+was but a little body, and Life Universal had suddenly burst upon me.
+For a moment I had my little hand on the Great Pulse, but my fingers
+slipped, empty. For the space of a wild heartbeat I _knew_, and then I
+was again a simple child, looking to my earthly senses for life. But
+the sky had stretched for me, the earth had expanded; a greater life
+had dawned in me.
+
+We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first and the
+spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are
+attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful.
+Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we
+ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth. Our souls
+are scarred with the struggles of successive births, and the process
+is recorded also by the wrinkles in our brains, by the lines in our
+faces. Look at me and you will see that I have been born many times.
+And my first self-birth happened, as I have told, that spring day of
+my early springs. Therefore would I plant a rose on the green bank of
+the Polota, there to bloom in token of eternal life.
+
+Eternal, divine life. This is a tale of immortal life. Should I be
+sitting here, chattering of my infantile adventures, if I did not know
+that I was speaking for thousands? Should you be sitting there,
+attending to my chatter, while the world's work waits, if you did not
+know that I spoke also for you? I might say "you" or "he" instead of
+"I." Or I might be silent, while you spoke for me and the rest, but
+for the accident that I was born with a pen in my hand, and you
+without. We love to read the lives of the great, yet what a broken
+history of mankind they give, unless supplemented by the lives of the
+humble. But while the great can speak for themselves, or by the
+tongues of their admirers, the humble are apt to live inarticulate and
+die unheard. It is well that now and then one is born among the simple
+with a taste for self-revelation. The man or woman thus endowed must
+speak, will speak, though there are only the grasses in the field to
+hear, and none but the wind to carry the tale.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is fun to run over the bridge, with a clatter of stout little shoes
+on resounding timbers. We pass a walled orchard on the right, and
+remind each other of the fruit we enjoyed here last summer. Our next
+stopping-place is farther on, beyond the wayside inn where lives the
+idiot boy who gave me such a scare last time. It is a poor enough
+place, where we stop, but there is an ice house, the only one I know.
+We are allowed to go in and see the greenish masses of ice gleaming in
+the half-light, and bring out jars of sweet, black "lager beer," which
+we drink in the sunny doorway. I shall always remember the flavor of
+the stuff, and the smell, and the wonder and chill of the ice house.
+
+I vaguely remember something about a convent out in that direction,
+but I was tired and sleepy after my long walk, and glad to be
+returning home. I hope they carried me a bit of the way, for I was
+very tired. There were stars out before we reached home, and the men
+stopped in the middle of the street to bless the new moon.
+
+It is pleasant to recall how we went bathing in the Polota. On Friday
+afternoons in summer, when the week's work was done, and the houses of
+the good housewives stood shining with cleanliness, ready for the
+Sabbath, parties of women and girls went chattering and laughing down
+to the river bank. There was a particular spot which belonged to the
+women. I do not know where the men bathed, but our part of the river
+was just above Bonderoff's gristmill. I can see the green bank sloping
+to the water, and the still water sliding down to the sudden swirl and
+spray of the mill race.
+
+The woods on the bank screened the bathers. Bathing costumes were
+simply absent, which caused the mermaids no embarrassment, for they
+were accustomed to see each other naked in the public hot baths. They
+had little fear of intrusion, for the spot was sacred to them. They
+splashed about and laughed and played tricks, with streaming hair and
+free gestures. I do not know when I saw the girls play as they did in
+the water. It was a pretty picture, but the bathers would have been
+shocked beyond your understanding if you had suggested that naked
+women might be put into a picture. If it ever happened, as it happened
+at least once for me to remember, that their privacy was outraged, the
+bathers were thrown into a panic as if their very lives were
+threatened. Screaming, they huddled together, low in the water, some
+hiding their eyes in their hands, with the instinct of the ostrich.
+Some ran for their clothes on the bank, and stood shrinking behind
+some inadequate rag. The more spirited of the naiads threw pebbles at
+the cowardly intruders, who, safe behind the leafy cover that was
+meant to shield modesty, threw jeers and mockery in return. But the
+Gentile boys ran away soon, or ran away punished. A chemise and a
+petticoat turn a frightened woman into an Amazon in such
+circumstances; and woe to the impudent wretch who lingered after the
+avengers plunged into the thicket. Slaps and cuffs at close range were
+his portion, and curses pursued him in retreat.
+
+Among the liveliest of my memories are those of eating and drinking;
+and I would sooner give up some of my delightful remembered walks,
+green trees, cool skies, and all, than to lose my images of suppers
+eaten on Sabbath evenings at the end of those walks. I make no apology
+to the spiritually minded, to whom this statement must be a revelation
+of grossness. I am content to tell the truth as well as I am able. I
+do not even need to console myself with the reflection that what is
+dross to the dreamy ascetic may be gold to the psychologist. The fact
+is that I ate, even as a delicate child, with considerable relish; and
+I remember eating with a relish still keener. Why, I can dream away a
+half-hour on the immortal flavor of those thick cheese cakes we used
+to have on Saturday night. I am no cook, so I cannot tell you how to
+make such cake. I might borrow the recipe from my mother, but I would
+rather you should take my word for the excellence of Polotzk cheese
+cakes. If you should attempt that pastry, I am certain, be you ever so
+clever a cook, you would be disappointed by the result; and hence you
+might be led to mistrust my reflections and conclusions. You have
+nothing in your kitchen cupboard to give the pastry its notable
+flavor. It takes history to make such a cake. First, you must eat it
+as a ravenous child, in memorable twilights, before the lighting of
+the week-day lamp. Then you must have yourself removed from the house
+of your simple feast, across the oceans, to a land where your
+cherished pastry is unknown even by name; and where daylight and
+twilight, work day and fête day, for years rush by you in the unbroken
+tide of a strange, new, overfull life. You must abstain from the
+inimitable morsel for a period of years,--I think fifteen is the magic
+number,--and then suddenly, one day, rub the Aladdin's lamp of memory,
+and have the renowned tidbit whisked upon your platter, garnished with
+a hundred sweet herbs of past association.
+
+Do you think all your imported spices, all your scientific blending
+and manipulating, could produce so fragrant a morsel as that which I
+have on my tongue as I write? Glad am I that my mother, in her
+assiduous imitation of everything American, has forgotten the secrets
+of Polotzk cookery. At any rate, she does not practise it, and I am
+the richer in memories for her omissions. Polotzk cheese cake, as I
+now know it, has in it the flavor of daisies and clover picked on the
+Vall; the sweetness of Dvina water; the richness of newly turned earth
+which I moulded with bare feet and hands; the ripeness of red cherries
+bought by the dipperful in the market place; the fragrance of all my
+childhood's summers.
+
+Abstinence, as I have mentioned, is one of the essential ingredients
+in the phantom dish. I discovered this through a recent experience. It
+was cherry time in the country, and the sight of the scarlet fruit
+suddenly reminded me of a cherry season in Polotzk, I could not say
+how many years ago. On that earlier occasion my Cousin Shimke, who,
+like everybody else, was a storekeeper, had set a boy to watch her
+store, and me to watch the boy, while she went home to make cherry
+preserves. She gave us a basket of cherries for our trouble, and the
+boy offered to eat them with the stones if I would give him my share.
+But I was equal to that feat myself, so we sat down to a cherry-stone
+contest. Who ate the most stones I could not remember as I stood under
+the laden trees not long ago, but the transcendent flavor of the
+historical cherries came back to me, and I needs must enjoy it once
+more.
+
+I climbed into the lowest boughs and hung there, eating cherries with
+the stones, my whole mind concentrated on the sense of taste. Alas!
+the fruit had no such flavor to yield as I sought. Excellent American
+cherries were these, but not so fragrantly sweet as my cousin's
+cherries. And if I should return to Polotzk, and buy me a measure of
+cherries at a market stall, and pay for it with a Russian groschen,
+would the market woman be generous enough to throw in that haunting
+flavor? I fear I should find that the old species of cherry is extinct
+in Polotzk.
+
+Sometimes, when I am not trying to remember at all, I am more
+fortunate in extracting the flavors of past feasts from my plain
+American viands. I was eating strawberries the other day, ripe, red
+American strawberries. Suddenly I experienced the very flavor and
+aroma of some strawberries I ate perhaps twenty years ago. I started
+as from a shock, and then sat still for I do not know how long,
+breathless with amazement. In the brief interval of a gustatory
+perception I became a child again, and I positively ached with the
+pain of being so suddenly compressed to that small being. I wandered
+about Polotzk once more, with large, questioning eyes; I rode the
+Atlantic in an emigrant ship; I took possession of the New World, my
+ears growing accustomed to a new language; I sat at the feet of
+renowned professors, till my eyes contracted in dreaming over what
+they taught; and there I was again, an American among Americans,
+suddenly made aware of all that I had been, all that I had
+become--suddenly illuminated, inspired by a complete vision of myself,
+a daughter of Israel and a child of the universe, that taught me more
+of the history of my race than ever my learned teachers could
+understand.
+
+All this came to me in that instant of tasting, all from the flavor of
+ripe strawberries on my tongue. Why, then, should I not treasure my
+memories of childhood feasts? This experience gives me a great respect
+for my bread and meat. I want to taste of as many viands as possible;
+for when I sit down to a dish of porridge I am certain of rising again
+a better animal, and I may rise a wiser man. I want to eat and drink
+and be instructed. Some day I expect to extract from my pudding the
+flavor of manna which I ate in the desert, and then I shall write you
+a contemporaneous commentary on the Exodus. Nor do I despair of
+remembering yet, over a dish of corn, the time when I fed on worms;
+and then I may be able to recall how it felt to be made at last into a
+man. Give me to eat and drink, for I crave wisdom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My winters, while I was a very little girl, were passed in comparative
+confinement. On account of my delicate health, my grandmother and
+aunts deemed it wise to keep me indoors; or if I went out, I was so
+heavily coated and mittened and shawled that the frost scarcely got a
+chance at the tip of my nose. I never skated or coasted or built snow
+houses. If I had any experience of snowballs, it was with those
+thrown at me by the Gentile boys. The way I dodge a snowball to this
+day makes me certain that I learned the act in my fearful childhood
+days, when I learned so many cowardly tricks of bending to a blow. I
+know that I was proud of myself when, not many years ago, I found I
+was not afraid to stand up and catch a flying baseball; but the fear
+of the snowball I have not conquered. When I turn a corner in snowball
+days, the boys with bulging pockets see a head held high and a step
+unquickened, but I know that I cringe inwardly; and this private
+mortification I set down against old Polotzk, in my long score of
+grievances and shames. Fear is a devil hard to cast out.
+
+Let me make the most of the winter adventures that I recall. First,
+there was sleighing. We never kept horses of our own, but the horses
+of our customer-guests were always at our disposal, and many a jolly
+ride they gave us, with the dvornik at the reins, while their owners
+haggled with my mother in the store about the price of soap. We had no
+luxurious sleigh, with cushions and fur robes, no silver bells on our
+harness. Ours was a bare sledge used for hauling wood, with a padding
+of straw and burlap, and the reins, as likely as not, were a knotted
+rope. But the horses did fly, over the river and up the opposite bank
+if we chose; and whether we had bells or not, the merry, foolish heart
+of Yakub would sing, and the whip would crack, and we children would
+laugh; and the sport was as good as when, occasionally, we did ride in
+a more splendid sleigh, loaned us by one of our prouder guests. We
+were wholesome as apples to look at when we returned for bread and tea
+in the dusk; at least I remember my sister, with cheeks as red as a
+painted doll's under her close-clipped curls; and my little brother,
+rosy, too, and aristocratic-looking enough, in his little greatcoat
+tied with a red sash, and little fur cap with earlaps. For myself, I
+suppose my nose was purple and my cheeks pinched, just as they are now
+in the cold weather; but I had a good time.
+
+At certain--I mean uncertain--intervals we were bundled up and marched
+to the public baths. This was so great an undertaking, consuming half
+a day or so, and involving, in winter, such risk of catching cold,
+that it is no wonder the ceremony was not practised oftener.
+
+The public baths were situated on the river bank. I always stopped
+awhile outside, to visit the poor patient horse in the treadmill, by
+means of which the water was pumped into the baths. I was not
+sentimental about animals then. I had not read of "Black Beauty" or
+any other personified monsters; I had not heard of any societies for
+the prevention of cruelty to anything. But my pity stirred of its own
+accord at the sight of that miserable brute in the treadmill. I was
+used to seeing horses hard-worked and abused. This horse had no load
+to make him sweat, and I never saw him whipped. Yet I pitied this
+creature. Round and round his little circle he trod, with head hanging
+and eyes void of expectation; round and round all day, unthrilled by
+any touch of rein or bridle, interpreters of a living will; round and
+round, all solitary, never driven, never checked, never addressed;
+round and round and round, a walking machine, with eyes that did not
+flash, with teeth that did not threaten, with hoofs that did not
+strike; round and round the dull day long. I knew what a horse's life
+should be, entangled with the life of a master: adventurous, troubled,
+thrilled; petted and opposed, loved and abused; to-day the ringing
+city pavement underfoot, and the buzz of beasts and men in the market
+place; to-morrow the yielding turf under tickled flanks, and the lone
+whinny of scattered mates. How empty the existence of the treadmill
+horse beside this! As empty and endless and dull as the life of almost
+any woman in Polotzk, had I had eyes to see the likeness.
+
+But to my ablutions!
+
+We undress in a room leading directly from the entry, and furnished
+only with benches around the walls. There is no screen or other
+protection against the drafts rushing in every time the door is
+opened. When we enter the bathing-room we are confused by a babel of
+sounds--shrill voices of women, hoarse voices of attendants, wailing
+and yelping of children, and rushing of water. At the same time we are
+smitten by the heat of the room and nearly suffocated by clouds of
+steam. We find at last an empty bench, and surround ourselves with a
+semicircle of wooden pails, collected from all around the room.
+Sometimes two women in search of pails lay hold of the same pail at
+the same moment, and a wrangle ensues, in the course of which each
+disputant reminds the other of all her failings, nicknames, and
+undesirable connections, living, dead, and unborn; until an attendant
+interferes, with more muscle than argument, punctuating the sentence
+of justice with newly coined expletives suggested by the occasion. The
+centre of the room, where the bathers fill their pails at the faucets,
+is a field of endless battle, especially on a crowded day. The
+peaceful women seated within earshot stop their violent scrubbing, to
+the relief of unwilling children, while they attend to the liveliest
+of the quarrels.
+
+I like to watch the _poll_, that place of torture and heroic
+endurance. It is a series of steps rising to the ceiling, affording a
+gradually mounting temperature. The bather who wants to enjoy a
+violent sweating rests full length for a few minutes on each step,
+while an attendant administers several hearty strokes of a stinging
+besom. Sometimes a woman climbs too far, and is brought down in a
+faint. On the poll, also, the cupping is done. The back of the
+patient, with the cups in even rows, looks to me like a muffin pan. Of
+course I never go on the poll: I am not robust enough. My spankings I
+take at home.
+
+Another centre of interest is the _mikweh_, the name of which it is
+indelicate to mention in the hearing of men. It is a large pool of
+standing water, its depth graded by means of a flight of steps. Every
+married woman must perform here certain ceremonious ablutions at
+regular intervals. Cleanliness is as strictly enjoined as godliness,
+and the manner of attaining it is carefully prescribed. The women are
+prepared by the attendants for entering the pool, the curious children
+looking on. In the pool they are ducked over their heads the correct
+number of times. The water in the pool has been standing for days; it
+does not look nor smell fresh. But we had no germs in Polotzk, so no
+harm came of it, any more than of the pails used promiscuously by
+feminine Polotzk. If any were so dainty as to have second thoughts
+about the use of the common bath, they could enjoy, for a fee of
+twenty-five kopecks, a private bathtub in another part of the
+building. For the rich there were luxuries even in Polotzk.
+
+Cleansed, red-skinned, and steaming, we return at last to the
+dressing-room, to shiver, as we dress, in the cold drafts from the
+entry door; and then, muffled up to the eyes, we plunge into the
+refreshing outer air, and hurry home, looking like so many big bundles
+running away with smaller bundles. If we meet acquaintances on the way
+we are greeted with "_zu refueh_" ("to your good health"). If the
+first man we meet is a Gentile, the women who have been to the mikweh
+have to return and repeat the ceremony of purification. To prevent
+such a calamity, the kerchief is worn hooded over the eyes, so as to
+exclude unholy sights. At home we are indulged with extra pieces of
+cake for tea, and otherwise treated like heroes returned from victory.
+We narrate anecdotes of our expedition, and my mother complains that
+my little brother is getting too old to be taken to the women's bath.
+He will go hereafter with the men.
+
+    [Illustration: THE MEAT MARKET, POLOTZK]
+
+My winter confinement was not shared by my older sister, who otherwise
+was my constant companion. She went out more than I, not being so
+afraid of the cold. She used to fret so when my mother was away in the
+store that it became a custom for her to accompany my mother from the
+time she was a mere baby. Muffled and rosy and frost-bitten, the tears
+of cold rolling unnoticed down her plump cheeks, she ran after my busy
+mother all day long, or tumbled about behind the counter, or nestled
+for a nap among the bulging sacks of oats and barley. She warmed her
+little hands over my mother's pot of glowing charcoal--there was no
+stove in the store--and even learned to stand astride of it, for
+further comfort, without setting her clothes on fire.
+
+Fetchke was like a young colt inseparable from the mare. I make this
+comparison not in disrespectful jest, but in deepest pity. Fetchke
+kept close to my mother at first for love and protection, but the
+petting she got became a blind for discipline. She learned early, from
+my mother's example, that hands and feet and brains were made for
+labor. She learned to bow to the yoke, to lift burdens, to do more for
+others than she could ever hope to have done for her in turn. She
+learned to see sugar plums lie around without asking for her share.
+When she was only fit to nurse her dolls, she learned how to comfort a
+weary heart.
+
+And all this while I sat warm and watched over at home, untouched by
+any discipline save such as I directly incurred by my own sins. I
+differed from Fetchke a little in age, considerably in health, and
+enormously in luck. It was my good luck, in the first place, to be
+born after her, instead of before; in the second place, to inherit,
+from the family stock, that particular assortment of gifts which was
+sure to mark me for special attentions, exemptions, and privileges;
+and as fortune always smiles on good fortune, it has ever been my
+luck, in the third place, to find something good in my idle
+hand--whether a sunbeam, or a loving heart, or a congenial
+task--whenever, on turning a corner, I put out my hand to see what my
+new world was like; while my sister, dear, devoted creature, had her
+hands so full of work that the sunbeam slipped, and the loving comrade
+passed out of hearing before she could straighten from her task, and
+all she had of the better world was a scented zephyr fanned in her
+face by the irresistible closing of a door.
+
+Perhaps Esau has been too severely blamed for selling his birthright
+for a mess of pottage. The lot of the firstborn is not necessarily to
+be envied. The firstborn of a well-to-do patriarch, like Isaac, or of
+a Rothschild of to-day, inherits, with his father's flocks and slaves
+and coffers, a troop of cares and responsibilities; unless he be a
+man without a sense of duty, in which case we are not supposed to envy
+him. The firstborn of an indigent father inherits a double measure of
+the disadvantages of poverty,--a joyless childhood, a guideless youth,
+and perhaps a mateless manhood, his own life being drained to feed the
+young of his father's begetting. If we cannot do away with poverty
+entirely, we ought at least to abolish the institution of
+primogeniture. Nature invented the individual, and promised him, as a
+reward for lusty being, comfort and immortality. Comes man with his
+patented brains and copyrighted notions, and levies a tax on the
+individual, in the form of enforced coöperation, for the maintenance
+of his pet institution, the family. Our comfort, in the grip of this
+tyranny, must lie in the hope that man, who is no bastard child of
+Mother Nature, may be approaching a more perfect resemblance to her
+majestic features; that his fitful development will culminate in a
+spiritual constitution capable of absolute justice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I think I was telling how I stayed at home in the winter, while my
+sister helped or hindered my mother in her store-keeping. The days
+drew themselves out too long sometimes, so that I sat at the window
+thinking what should happen next. No dolls, no books, no games, and at
+times no companions. My grandmother taught me knitting, but I never
+got to the heel of my stocking, because if I discovered a dropped
+stitch I insisted on unravelling all my work till I picked it up; and
+grandmother, instead of encouraging me in my love for perfection, lost
+patience and took away my knitting needles. I still maintain that she
+was in the wrong, but I have forgiven her, since I have worn many
+pairs of stockings with dropped stitches, and been grateful for them.
+And speaking of such everyday things reminds me of my friends, among
+whom also I find an impressive number with a stitch dropped somewhere
+in the pattern of their souls. I love these friends so dearly that I
+begin to think I am at last shedding my intolerance; for I remember
+the day when I could not love less than perfection. I and my imperfect
+friends together aspire to cast our blemishes, and I am happier so.
+
+There was not much to see from my window, yet adventures beckoned to
+me from the empty street. Sometimes the adventure was real, and I went
+out to act in it, instead of dreaming on my stool. Once, I remember,
+it was early spring, and the winter's ice, just chopped up by the
+street cleaners, lay muddy and ragged and high in the streets from
+curb to curb. So it must lie till there was time to cart it to the
+Dvina, which had all it could do at this season to carry tons, and
+heavy tons, of ice and snow and every sort of city rubbish,
+accumulated during the long closed months. Polotzk had no underground
+communication with the sea, save such as water naturally makes for
+itself. The poor old Dvina was hard-worked, serving both as
+drinking-fountain and sewer, as a bridge in winter, a highway in
+summer, and a playground at all times. So it served us right if we had
+to wait weeks and weeks in thawing time for our streets to be cleared;
+and we deserved all the sprains and bruises we suffered from
+clambering over the broken ice in the streets while going about our
+business.
+
+Leah the Short, little and straight and neat, with a basket on one arm
+and a bundle under the other, stood hesitating on the edge of the curb
+opposite my window. Her poor old face, framed in its calico kerchief,
+had a wrinkle of anxiety in it. The tumbled ice heap in the street
+looked to her like an impassable barrier. Tiny as she was, and loaded,
+she had reason to hesitate. Perhaps she had eggs in her basket,--I
+thought of that as I looked at her across the street; and I thought of
+my old ambition to measure myself, shoulder to shoulder, with Leah,
+reputedly short. I was small myself, and was constantly reminded of it
+by a variety of nicknames, lovingly or vengefully invented by my
+friends and enemies. I was called Mouse and Crumb and Poppy Seed.
+Should I live to be called, in my old age, Mashke the Short? I longed
+to measure my stature by Leah's, and here was my chance.
+
+I ran out into the street, my grandmother scolding me for going
+without a shawl, and I calling back to her to be sure and watch me. I
+skipped over the ice blocks like a goat, and offered my assistance to
+Leah the Short. With admirable skill and solicitude I guided her timid
+steps across the street, at the same time winking to my grandmother at
+the window, and pointing to my shoulder close to Leah's. Once on the
+safe sidewalk, the tiny woman thanked me and blessed me and praised me
+for a thoughtful child; and I watched her toddle away without the
+least stir of shame at my hypocrisy. She had convinced me that I was a
+good little girl, and I had convinced myself that I was not so very
+short. My chin was almost on a level with Leah's shoulder, and I had
+years ahead in which to elevate it. Grandma at the window was witness,
+and I was entirely happy. If I caught cold from going bareheaded, so
+much the better; mother would give me rock candy for my cough.
+
+For the long winter evenings there was plenty of quiet occupation. I
+liked to sit with the women at the long bare table picking feathers
+for new featherbeds. It was pleasant to poke my hand into the
+soft-heaped mass and set it all in motion. I pretended that I could
+pick out the feathers of particular hens, formerly my pets. I
+reflected that they had fed me with eggs and broth, and now were going
+to make my bed so soft; while I had done nothing for them but throw
+them a handful of oats now and then, or chase them about, or spoil
+their nests. I was not ashamed of my part; I knew that if I were a hen
+I should do as a hen does. I just liked to think about things in my
+idle way.
+
+Itke, the housemaid, was always the one to break in upon my
+reflections. She was sure to have a fit of sneezing just when the heap
+on the table was highest, sending clouds of feathers into the air,
+like a homemade snowstorm. After that the evening was finished by our
+picking the feathers from each other's hair.
+
+Sometimes we played cards or checkers, munching frost-bitten apples
+between moves. Sometimes the women sewed, and we children wound yarn
+or worsted for grandmother's knitting. If somebody had a story to tell
+while the rest worked, the evening passed with a pleasant sense of
+semi-idleness for all.
+
+On a Saturday night, the Sabbath being just departed, ghost stories
+were particularly in favor. After two or three of the creepy legends
+we began to move closer together under the lamp. At the end of an hour
+or so we started and screamed if a spool fell, or a window rattled. At
+bedtime nobody was willing to make the round of doors and windows, and
+we were afraid to bring a candle into a dark room.
+
+I was just as much afraid as anybody. I am afraid now to be alone in
+the house at night. I certainly was afraid that Saturday night when
+somebody, in bravado, suggested fresh-baked buns, as a charm to dispel
+the ghosts. The baker who lived next door always baked on Saturday
+night. Who would go and fetch the buns? Nobody dared to venture
+outdoors. It had snowed all evening; the frosted windows prevented a
+preliminary survey of the silent night. _Brr-rr!_ Nobody would take
+the dare.
+
+Nobody but me. Oh, how the creeps ran up and down my back! and oh! how
+I loved to distinguish myself! I let them bundle me up till I was
+nearly smothered. I paused with my mittened hand on the latch. I
+shivered, though I could have sat the night out with a Polar bear
+without another shawl. I opened the door, and then turned back, to
+make a speech.
+
+"I am not afraid," I said, in the noble accents of courage. "I am not
+afraid to go. God goes with me."
+
+Pride goeth before a fall. On the step outside I slid down into a
+drift, just on the eve of triumph. They picked me up; they brought me
+in. They found all of me inside my wrappings. They gave me a piece of
+sugar and sent me to bed. And I was very glad. I did hate to go all
+the way next door and all the way back, through the white snow, under
+the white stars, invisible company keeping step with me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And I remember my playmates.
+
+There was always a crowd of us girls. We were a mixed set,--rich
+little girls, well-to-do little girls, and poor little girls,--but not
+because we were so democratic. Rather it came about, if my sister and
+I are considered the centre of the ring, because we had suffered the
+several grades of fortune. In our best days no little girls had to
+stoop to us; in our humbler days we were not so proud that we had to
+condescend to our chance neighbors. The granddaughters of Raphael the
+Russian, in retaining their breeding and manners, retained a few of
+their more exalted friends, and became a link between them and those
+whom they later adopted through force of propinquity.
+
+We were human little girls, so our amusements mimicked the life about
+us. We played house, we played soldiers, we played Gentiles, we
+celebrated weddings and funerals. We copied the life about us
+literally. We had not been to a Froebel kindergarten, and learned to
+impersonate butterflies and stones. Our elders would have laughed at
+us for such nonsense. I remember once standing on the river bank with
+a little boy, when a quantity of lumber was floating down on its way
+to the distant sawmill. A log and a board crowded each other near
+where we stood. The board slipped by first, but presently it swerved
+and swung partly around. Then it righted itself with the stream and
+kept straight on, the lazy log following behind. Said Zalmen to me,
+interpreting: "The board looks back and says, 'Log, log, you will not
+go with me? Then I will go on by myself.'" That boy was called simple,
+on account of such speeches as this. I wonder in what language he is
+writing poetry now.
+
+We had very few toys. Neither Fetchke nor I cared much for dolls. A
+rag baby apiece contented us, and if we had a set of jackstones we
+were perfectly happy. Our jackstones, by the way, were not stones but
+bones. We used the knuckle bones of sheep, dried and scraped; every
+little girl cherished a set in her pocket.
+
+I did not care much for playing house. I liked soldiers better, but it
+was not much fun without boys. Boys and girls always played apart.
+
+I was very fond of playing Gentiles. I am afraid I liked everything
+that was a little risky. I particularly enjoyed being the corpse in a
+Gentile funeral. I was laid across two chairs, and my playmates, in
+borrowed shawls and long calicoes, with their hair loose and with
+candlesticks in their hands, marched around me, singing unearthly
+songs, and groaning till they scared themselves. As I lay there,
+covered over with a black cloth, I felt as dead as dead could be; and
+my playmates were the unholy priests in gorgeous robes of velvet and
+silk and gold. Their candlesticks were the crosiers that were carried
+in Christian funeral processions, and their chantings were hideous
+incantations to the arch enemy, the Christian God of horrible images.
+As I imagined the bareheaded crowds making way for my funeral to pass,
+my flesh crept, not because I was about to be buried, but because the
+people _crossed themselves_. But our procession stopped outside the
+church, because we did not dare to carry even our make-believe across
+that accursed threshold. Besides, none of us had ever been
+inside,--God forbid!--so we did not know what did happen next.
+
+When I arose from my funeral I was indeed a ghost. I felt unreal and
+lost and hateful. I don't think we girls liked each other much after
+playing funeral. Anyway, we never played any more on the same day; or
+if we did, we soon quarrelled. Such was the hold which our hereditary
+terrors and hatreds had upon our childish minds that if we only mocked
+a Christian procession in our play, we suffered a mutual revulsion of
+feeling, as if we had led each other into sin.
+
+We gathered oftener at our house than anywhere else. On Sabbath days
+we refrained, of course, from soldiering and the like, but we had just
+as good a time, going off to promenade, two and two, in our very best
+dresses; whispering secrets and telling stories. We had a few stories
+in the circle--I do not know how they came to us--and these were told
+over and over. Gutke knew the best story of all. She told the story of
+Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and she told it well. It was her
+story, and nobody else ever attempted it, though I, for one, soon had
+it by heart. Gutke's version of the famous tale was unlike any I have
+since read, but it was essentially the story of Aladdin, so that I was
+able to identify it later when I found it in a book. Names, incidents,
+and "local color" were slightly Hebraized, but the supernatural
+wonders of treasure caves, jewelled gardens, genii, princesses, and
+all, were not in the least marred or diminished. Gutke would spin the
+story out for a long afternoon, and we all listened entranced, even at
+the hundredth rehearsal. We had a few other fairy stories,--I later
+identified them with stories of Grimm's or of Andersen's,--but for the
+most part the tales we told were sombre and unimaginative; tales our
+nurses used to tell to frighten us into good behavior.
+
+Sometimes we spent a whole afternoon in dancing. We made our own
+music, singing as we danced, or somebody blew on a comb with a bit of
+paper over its teeth; and comb music is not to be despised when there
+is no other sort. We knew the polka and the waltz, the mazurka, the
+quadrille, and the lancers, and several fancy dances. We did not
+hesitate to invent new steps or figures, and we never stopped till we
+were out of breath. I was one of the most enthusiastic dancers. I
+danced till I felt as if I could fly.
+
+Sometimes we sat in a ring and sang all the songs we knew. None of us
+were trained,--we had never seen a sheet of music--but some of us
+could sing any tune that was ever heard in Polotzk, and the others
+followed half a bar behind. I enjoyed these singing-bees. We had
+Hebrew songs and Jewish and Russian; solemn songs, and jolly songs,
+and songs unfit for children, but harmless enough on our innocent
+lips. I enjoyed the play of moods in these songs--I liked to be
+harrowed one minute and tickled the next. I threw all my heart into
+the singing, which was only fair, as I had very little voice to throw
+in.
+
+Although I always joined the crowd when any fun was on foot, I think I
+had the best times by myself. My sister was fond of housework, but
+I--I was fond of idleness. While Fetchke pottered in the kitchen
+beside the maid or trotted all about the house after my grandmother, I
+wasted time in some window corner, or studied the habits of the cow
+and the chickens in the yard. I always found something to do that was
+of no use to anybody. I had no particular fondness for animals; I
+liked to see what they did, merely because they were curious. The red
+cow would go to meet my grandmother as she came out of the kitchen
+with a bucket of bran for her. She drank it up in no time, the greedy
+creature, in great loud gulps; and then she stood with dripping
+nostrils over the empty bucket, staring at me on the other side. I
+teased grandmother to give the cow more, because I enjoyed her
+enjoyment of it. I wondered, if I ate from a bucket instead of a
+plate, should I take so much more pleasure in my dinner? That red cow
+liked everything. She liked going to pasture, and she liked coming
+back, and she stood still to be milked, as if she liked that too.
+
+The chickens were not all alike. Some of them would not let me catch
+them, while others stood still till I took them up. There were two
+that were particularly tame, a white hen and a speckled one. In
+winter, when they were kept in the house, my sister and I had these
+two for our pets. They let us handle them by the hour, and stayed just
+where we put them. The white hen laid her eggs in a linen chest made
+of bark. We would take the warm egg to grandmother, who rolled it on
+our eyes, repeating this charm: "As this egg is fresh, so may your
+eyes be fresh. As this egg is sound, so may your eyes be sound." I
+still like to touch my eyelids with a fresh-laid egg, whenever I am so
+happy as to possess one.
+
+On the horses in the barn I bestowed the same calm attention as on the
+cow, speculative rather than affectionate. I was not a very
+tender-hearted infant. If I have been a true witness of my own growth,
+I was slower to love than I was to think. I do not know when the
+change was wrought, but to-day, if you ask my friends, they will tell
+you that I know how to love them better than to solve their problems.
+And if you will call one more witness, and ask me, I shall say that if
+you set me down before a noble landscape, I feel it long before I
+begin to see it.
+
+Idle child though I was, the day was not long enough sometimes for my
+idleness. More than once in the pleasant summer I stole out of bed
+when even the cow was still drowsing, and went barefoot through the
+dripping grass and stood at the gate, awaiting the morning. I found a
+sense of adventure in being conscious when all other people were
+asleep. There was not much of a prospect from the gateway, but in
+that early hour everything looked new and large to me, even the little
+houses that yesterday had been so familiar. The houses, when creatures
+went in and out of them, were merely conventional objects; in the soft
+gray morning they were themselves creatures. Some stood up straight,
+and some leaned, and some looked as if they saw me. And then over the
+dewy gardens rose the sun, and the light spread and grew over
+everything, till it shone on my bare feet. And in my heart grew a
+great wonder, and I was ready to cry, my world was so strange and
+sweet about me. In those moments, I think, I could have loved somebody
+as well as I loved later--somebody who cared to get up secretly, and
+stand and see the sun come up.
+
+Was there not somebody who got up before the sun? Was there not Mishka
+the shepherd? Aye, that was an early riser; but I knew he was no
+sun-worshipper. Before the chickens stirred, before the lazy maid let
+the cow out of the barn, I heard his rousing horn, its distant notes
+harmonious with the morning. Barn doors creaked in response to
+Mishka's call, and soft-eyed cattle went willingly out to meet him,
+and stood in groups in the empty square, licking and nosing each
+other; till Mishka's little drove was all assembled, and he tramped
+out of town behind them, in a cloud of dust.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+History shows that in all countries where Jews have equal rights with
+the rest of the people, they lose their fear of secular science, and
+learn how to take their ancient religion with them from century to
+awakening century, dropping nothing by the way but what their growing
+spirit has outgrown. In countries where progress is to be bought only
+at the price of apostasy, they shut themselves up in their synagogues,
+and raise the wall of extreme separateness between themselves and
+their Gentile neighbors. There is never a Jewish community without its
+scholars, but where Jews may not be both intellectuals and Jews, they
+prefer to remain Jews.
+
+The survival in Russia of mediæval injustice to Jews was responsible
+for the narrowness of educational standards in the Polotzk of my time.
+Jewish scholarship, as we have seen, was confined to a knowledge of
+the Hebrew language and literature, and even these limited stores of
+learning were not equally divided between men and women. In the
+mediæval position of the women of Polotzk education really had no
+place. A girl was "finished" when she could read her prayers in
+Hebrew, following the meaning by the aid of the Yiddish translation
+especially prepared for women. If she could sign her name in Russian,
+do a little figuring, and write a letter in Yiddish to the parents of
+her betrothed, she was called _wohl gelehrent_--well educated.
+
+Fortunately for me, my parents' ideals soared beyond all this. My
+mother, although she had not stirred out of Polotzk, readily adopted
+the notion of a liberal education imported by my father from cities
+beyond the Pale. She heartily supported him in all his plans for us
+girls. Fetchke and I were to learn to translate as well as pronounce
+Hebrew, the same as our brother. We were to study Russian and German
+and arithmetic. We were to go to the best _pension_ and receive a
+thorough secular education. My father's ambition, after several years'
+sojourn in enlightened circles, reached even beyond the _pension_; but
+that was flying farther than Polotzk could follow him with the naked
+eye.
+
+I do not remember our first teacher. When our second teacher came we
+were already able to read continuous passages. Reb' Lebe was no great
+scholar. Great scholars would not waste their learning on mere girls.
+Reb' Lebe knew enough to teach girls Hebrew. Tall and lean was the
+rebbe, with a lean, pointed face and a thin, pointed beard. The beard
+became pointed from much stroking and pulling downwards. The hands of
+Reb' Lebe were large, and his beard was not half a handful. The
+fingers of the rebbe were long, and the nails, I am afraid, were not
+very clean. The coat of Reb' Lebe was rusty, and so was his skull-cap.
+Remember, Reb' Lebe was only a girls' teacher, and nobody would pay
+much for teaching girls. But lean and rusty as he was, the rebbe's
+pupils regarded him with entire respect, and followed his pointer with
+earnest eyes across the limp page of the alphabet, or the thumbed page
+of the prayer-book.
+
+For a short time my sister and I went for our lessons to Reb' Lebe's
+heder, in the bare room off the women's gallery, up one flight of
+stairs, in a synagogue. The place was as noisy as a reckless
+expenditure of lung power could make it. The pupils on the bench
+shouted their way from _aleph_ to _tav_, cheered and prompted by the
+growl of the rebbe; while the children in the corridor waiting their
+turn played "puss in the corner" and other noisy games.
+
+Fetchke and I, however, soon began to have our lessons in private, at
+our own home. We sat one on each side of the rebbe, reading the Hebrew
+sentences turn and turn about.
+
+When we left off reading by rote and Reb' Lebe began to reveal the
+mysteries to us, I was so eager to know all that was in my book that
+the lesson was always too short. I continued reading by the hour,
+after the rebbe was gone, though I understood about one word in ten.
+My favorite Hebrew reading was the Psalms. Verse after verse I chanted
+to the monotonous tune taught by Reb' Lebe, rocking to the rhythm of
+the chant, just like the rebbe. And so ran the song of David, and so
+ran the hours by, while I sat by the low window, the world erased from
+my consciousness.
+
+What I thought I do not remember; I only know that I loved the sound
+of the words, the full, dense, solid sound of them, to the meditative
+chant of Reb' Lebe. I pronounced Hebrew very well, and I caught some
+mechanical trick of accent and emphasis, which was sufficiently like
+Reb' Lebe's to make my reading sound intelligent. I had a clue to the
+general mood of the subject from the few Psalms I had actually
+translated, and drawing on my imagination for details, I was able to
+read with so much spirit that ignorant listeners were carried away by
+my performance. My mother tells me, indeed, that people used to stop
+outside my window to hear me read. Of this I have not the slightest
+recollection, so I suppose I was an unconscious impostor. Certain I am
+that I thought no ignoble thoughts as I chanted the sacred words; and
+who can say that my visions were not as inspiring as David's? He was a
+shepherd before he became a king. I was an ignorant child in the
+Ghetto, but I was admitted at last to the society of the best; I was
+given the freedom of all America. Perhaps the "stuff that dreams are
+made of" is the same for all dreamers.
+
+When we came to read Genesis I had the great advantage of a complete
+translation in Yiddish. I faithfully studied the portion assigned in
+Hebrew, but I need no longer wait for the next lesson to know how the
+story ends. I could read while daylight lasted, if I chose, in the
+Yiddish. Well I remember that Pentateuch, a middling thick octavo
+volume, in a crumbly sort of leather cover; and how the book opened of
+itself at certain places, where there were pictures. My father tells
+me that when I was just learning to translate single words, he found
+me one evening poring over the _humesh_ and made fun of me for
+pretending to read; whereupon I gave him an eager account, he says, of
+the stories of Jacob, Benjamin, Moses, and others, which I had puzzled
+out from the pictures, by the help of a word here and there that I was
+able to translate.
+
+It was inevitable, as we came to Genesis, that I should ask questions.
+
+Rebbe, translating: "In the beginning God created the earth."
+
+Pupil, repeating: "In the beginning--Rebbe, when was the beginning?"
+
+Rebbe, losing the place in amazement: "'S _gehert a kasse_? (Ever
+hear such a question?) The beginning was--the beginning--the beginning
+was in the beginning, of course! _Nu! nu!_ Go on."
+
+Pupil, resuming: "In the beginning God made the earth.--Rebbe, what
+did He make it out of?"
+
+Rebbe, dropping his pointer in astonishment: "What did--? What sort of
+a girl is this, that asks questions? Go on, go on!"
+
+The lesson continues to the end. The book is closed, the pointer put
+away. The rebbe exchanges his skull-cap for his street cap, is about
+to go.
+
+Pupil, timidly, but determinedly, detaining him: "Reb' Lebe, _who made
+God_?"
+
+The rebbe regards the pupil in amazement mixed with anxiety. His
+emotion is beyond speech. He turns and leaves the room. In his
+perturbation he even forgets to kiss the _mezuzah_[2] on the doorpost.
+The pupil feels reproved and yet somehow in the right. Who _did_ make
+God? But if the rebbe will not tell--will not tell? Or, perhaps, he
+does not know? The rebbe--?
+
+It was some time after this conflict between my curiosity and his
+obtuseness that I saw my teacher act a ridiculous part in a trifling
+comedy, and then I remember no more of him.
+
+Reb' Lebe lingered one day after the lesson. A guest who was about to
+depart, wishing to fortify himself for his journey, took a roll of
+hard sausage from his satchel and laid it, with his clasp knife, on
+the table. He cut himself a slice and ate it standing; and then,
+noticing the thin, lean rebbe, he invited him, by a gesture, to help
+himself to the sausage. The rebbe put his hands behind his coat tails,
+declining the traveller's hospitality. The traveller forgot the other,
+and walked up and down, ready in his fur coat and cap, till his
+carriage should arrive. The sausage remained on the table, thick and
+spicy and brown. No such sausage was known in Polotzk. Reb' Lebe
+looked at it. Reb' Lebe continued to look. The stranger stopped to cut
+another slice, and repeated his gesture of invitation. Reb' Lebe moved
+a step towards the table, but his hands stuck behind his coat tails.
+The traveller resumed his walk. Reb' Lebe moved another step. The
+stranger was not looking. The rebbe's courage rose, he advanced
+towards the table; he stretched out his hand for the knife. At that
+instant the door opened, the carriage was announced. The eager
+traveller, without noticing Reb' Lebe, swept up sausage and knife,
+just at the moment when the timid rebbe was about to cut himself a
+delicious slice. I saw his discomfiture from my corner, and I am
+obliged to confess that I enjoyed it. His face always looked foolish
+to me after that; but, fortunately for us both, we did not study
+together much longer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two little girls dressed in their best, shining from their curls to
+their shoes. One little girl has rosy cheeks, the other has staring
+eyes. Rosy-Cheeks carries a carpet bag; Big-Eyes carries a new slate.
+Hand in hand they go into the summer morning, so happy and pretty a
+pair that it is no wonder people look after them, from window and
+door; and that other little girls, not dressed in their best and
+carrying no carpet bags, stand in the street gaping after them.
+
+Let the folks stare; no harm can come to the little sisters. Did not
+grandmother tie pepper and salt into the corners of their pockets, to
+ward off the evil eye? The little maids see nothing but the road
+ahead, so eager are they upon their errand. Carpet bag and slate
+proclaim that errand: Rosy-Cheeks and Big-Eyes are going to school.
+
+I have no words to describe the pride with which my sister and I
+crossed the threshold of Isaiah the Scribe. Hitherto we had been to
+heder, to a rebbe; now we were to study with a _lehrer_, a secular
+teacher. There was all the difference in the world between the two.
+The one taught you Hebrew only, which every girl learned; the other
+could teach Yiddish and Russian and, some said, even German; and how
+to write a letter, and how to do sums without a counting-frame, just
+on a piece of paper; accomplishments which were extremely rare among
+girls in Polotzk. But nothing was too high for the grandchildren of
+Raphael the Russian; they had "good heads," everybody knew. So we were
+sent to Reb' Isaiah.
+
+My first school, where I was so proud to be received, was a hovel on
+the edge of a swamp. The schoolroom was gray within and without. The
+door was so low that Reb' Isaiah had to stoop in passing. The little
+windows were murky. The walls were bare, but the low ceiling was
+decorated with bundles of goose quills stuck in under the rafters. A
+rough table stood in the middle of the room, with a long bench on
+either side. That was the schoolroom complete. In my eyes, on that
+first morning, it shone with a wonderful light, a strange glory that
+penetrated every corner, and made the stained logs fair as tinted
+marble; and the windows were not too small to afford me a view of a
+large new world.
+
+Room was made for the new pupils on the bench, beside the teacher. We
+found our inkwells, which were simply hollows scooped out in the thick
+table top. Reb' Isaiah made us very serviceable pens by tying the pen
+points securely to little twigs; though some of the pupils used
+quills. The teacher also ruled our paper for us, into little squares,
+like a surveyor's notebook. Then he set us a copy, and we copied, one
+letter in each square, all the way down the page. All the little girls
+and the middle-sized girls and the pretty big girls copied letters in
+little squares, just so. There were so few of us that Reb' Isaiah
+could see everybody's page by just leaning over. And if some of our
+cramped fingers were clumsy, and did not form the loops and curves
+accurately, all he had to do was to stretch out his hand and rap with
+his ruler on our respective knuckles. It was all very cosey, with the
+inkwells that could not be upset, and the pens that grew in the woods
+or strutted in the dooryard, and the teacher in the closest touch with
+his pupils, as I have just told. And as he labored with us, and the
+hours drew themselves out, he was comforted by the smell of his dinner
+cooking in some little hole adjoining the schoolroom, and by the sound
+of his good Leah or Rachel or Deborah (I don't remember her name)
+keeping order among his little ones. She kept very good order, too, so
+that most of the time you could hear the scratching of the laborious
+pens accompanied by the croaking of the frogs in the swamp.
+
+Although my sister and I began our studies at the same time, and
+progressed together, my parents did not want me to take up new
+subjects as fast as Fetchke did. They thought my health too delicate
+for much study. So when Fetchke had her Russian lesson I was told to
+go and play. I am sorry to say that I was disobedient on these
+occasions, as on many others. I did not go and play; I looked on, I
+listened, when Fetchke rehearsed her lesson at home. And one evening I
+stole the Russian primer and repaired to a secret place I knew of. It
+was a storeroom for broken chairs and rusty utensils and dried apples.
+Nobody would look for me in that dusty hole. Nobody did look there,
+but they looked everywhere else, in the house, and in the yard, and in
+the barn, and down the street, and at our neighbors'; and while
+everybody was searching and calling for me, and telling each other
+when I was last seen, and what I was then doing, I, Mashke, was
+bending over the stolen book, rehearsing A, B, C, by the names my
+sister had given them; and before anybody hit upon my retreat, I could
+spell B-O-G, _Bog_ (God) and K-A-Z-A, _Kaza_ (goat). I did not mind in
+the least being caught, for I had my new accomplishment to show off.
+
+I remember the littered place, and the high chest that served as my
+table, and the blue glass lamp that lighted my secret efforts. I
+remember being brought from there into the firelit room where the
+family was assembled, and confusing them all by my recital of the
+simple words, B-O-G, _Bog_, and K-A-Z-A, _Kaza_. I was not reproached
+for going into hiding at bedtime, and the next day I was allowed to
+take part in the Russian lesson.
+
+Alas! there were not many lessons more. Long before we had exhausted
+Reb' Isaiah's learning, my sister and I had to give up our teacher,
+because the family fortunes began to decline, and luxuries, such as
+schooling, had to be cut off. Isaiah the Scribe taught us, in all,
+perhaps two terms, in which time we learned Yiddish and Russian, and a
+little arithmetic. But little good we had from our ability to read,
+for there were no books in our house except prayer-books and other
+religious writings, mostly in Hebrew. For our skill in writing we had
+as little use, as letter-writing was not an everyday exercise, and
+idle writing was not thought of. Our good teacher, however, who had
+taken pride in our progress, would not let us lose all that we had
+learned from him. Books he could not lend us, because he had none
+himself; but he could, and he did, write us out a beautiful "copy"
+apiece, which we could repeat over and over, from time to time, and so
+keep our hands in.
+
+I wonder that I have forgotten the graceful sentences of my "copy";
+for I wrote them out just about countless times. It was in the form of
+a letter, written on lovely pink paper (my sister's was blue), the
+lines taking the shape of semicircles across the page; and that
+without any guide lines showing. The script, of course, was
+perfect--in the best manner of Isaiah the Scribe--and the sentiments
+therein expressed were entirely noble. I was supposed to be a
+high-school pupil away on my vacation; and I was writing to my
+"Respected Parents," to assure them of my welfare, and to tell them
+how, in the midst of my pleasures, I still longed for my friends, and
+looked forward with eagerness to the renewal of my studies. All this,
+in phrases half Yiddish, half German, and altogether foreign to the
+ears of Polotzk. At least, I never heard such talk in the market, when
+I went to buy a kopeck's worth of sunflower seeds.
+
+This was all the schooling I had in Russia. My father's plans fell to
+the ground, on account of the protracted illness of both my parents.
+All his hopes of leading his children beyond the intellectual limits
+of Polotzk were trampled down by the monster poverty who showed his
+evil visage just as my sister and I were fairly started on a broader
+path.
+
+One chance we had, and that was quickly snatched away, of continuing
+our education in spite of family difficulties. Lozhe the Rav, hearing
+from various sources that Pinchus, son-in-law of Raphael the Russian,
+had two bright little girls, whose talents were going to waste for
+want of training, became much interested, and sent for the children,
+to see for himself what the gossip was worth. By a strange trick of
+memory I recall nothing of this important interview, nor indeed of the
+whole matter, although a thousand trifles of that period recur to me
+on the instant; so I report this anecdote on the authority of my
+parents.
+
+They tell me how the rav lifted me up on a table in front of him, and
+asked me many questions, and encouraged me to ask questions in my
+turn. Reb' Lozhe came to the conclusion, as a result of this
+interview, that I ought by all means to be put to school. There was no
+public school for girls, as we know, but a few pupils were maintained
+in a certain private school by irregular contributions from city
+funds. Reb' Lozhe enlisted in my cause the influence of his son, who,
+by virtue of some municipal office which he held, had a vote in fixing
+this appropriation. But although he pleaded eloquently for my
+admission as a city pupil, the rav's son failed to win the consent of
+his colleagues, and my one little crack of opportunity was tightly
+stopped.
+
+My father does not remember on what technicality my application was
+dismissed. My mother is under the impression that it was plainly
+refused on account of my religion, the authorities being unwilling to
+appropriate money for the tuition of a Jewish child. But little it
+matters now what the reason was; the result is what affected me. I was
+left without teacher or book just when my mind was most active. I was
+left without food just when the hunger of growth was creeping up. I
+was left to think and think, without direction; without the means of
+grappling with the contents of my own thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a community which was isolated from the mass of the people on
+account of its religion; which was governed by special civil laws in
+recognition of that fact; in whose calendar there were twoscore days
+of religious observance; whose going and coming, giving and taking,
+living and dying, to the minutest details of social conduct, to the
+most intimate particulars of private life, were regulated by sacred
+laws, there could be no question of personal convictions in religion.
+One was a Jew, leading a righteous life; or one was a Gentile,
+existing to harass the Jews, while making a living off Jewish
+enterprise. In the vocabulary of the more intelligent part of Polotzk,
+it is true, there were such words as freethinker and apostate; but
+these were the names of men who had forsaken the Law in distant times
+or in distant parts, and whose evil fame had reached Polotzk by the
+circuitous route of tradition. Nobody looked for such monsters in his
+neighborhood. Polotzk was safely divided into Jews and Gentiles.
+
+If any one in Polotzk had been idle and curious enough to inquire into
+the state of mind of a little child, I wonder if his findings would
+not have disturbed this simple classification.
+
+There used to be a little girl in Polotzk who recited the long Hebrew
+prayers, morning and evening, before and after meals, and never
+skipped a word; who kissed the _mezuzah_ when going or coming; who
+abstained from food and drink on fast days when she was no bigger than
+a sacrificial hen; who spent Sabbath mornings over the lengthy ritual
+for the day, and read the Psalms till daylight failed.
+
+This pious child could give as good an account of the Creation as any
+boy of her age. She knew how God made the world. Undeterred by the
+fate of Eve, she wanted to know more. She asked her wise rebbe how God
+came to be in His place, and where He found the stuff to make the
+world of, and what was doing in the universe before God undertook His
+task. Finding from his unsatisfying replies that the rebbe was but a
+barren branch on the tree of knowledge, the good little girl never
+betrayed to the world, by look or word, her discovery of his
+limitations, but continued to accord him, outwardly, all the courtesy
+due to his calling.
+
+Her teacher having failed her, the young student, with admirable
+persistence, carried her questions from one to another of her
+acquaintances, putting their answers to the test whenever it was
+possible. She established by this means two facts: first, that she
+knew as much as any of those who undertook to instruct her; second,
+that her oracles sometimes gave false answers. Did the little
+inquisitor charge her betrayers with the lie? Magnanimous creature,
+she kept their falseness a secret, and ceased to probe their shallow
+depths.
+
+What you would know, find out for yourself: this became our student's
+motto; and she passed from the question to the experiment. Her
+grandmother told her that if she handled "blind flowers" she would be
+stricken blind. She found by test that the pretty flowers were
+harmless. She tested everything that could be tested, till she hit at
+last on an impious plan to put God Himself to the proof.
+
+The pious little girl arose one Sabbath afternoon from her religious
+meditations, when all the house was taking its after-dinner nap, and
+went out in the yard, and stopped at the gate. She took out her pocket
+handkerchief. She looked at it. Yes, that would do for the experiment.
+She put it back into her pocket. She did not have to rehearse mentally
+the sacred admonition not to carry anything beyond the house-limits on
+the Sabbath day. She knew it as she knew that she was alive. And with
+her handkerchief in her pocket the audacious child stepped into the
+street!
+
+She stood a moment, her heart beating so that it pained. Nothing
+happened! She walked quite across the street. The Sabbath peace still
+lay on everything. She felt again of the burden in her pocket. Yes,
+she certainly was committing a sin. With an access of impious
+boldness, the sinner walked--she ran as far as the corner, and stood
+still, fearfully expectant. What form would the punishment take? She
+stood breathing painfully for an eternity. How still everything
+was--how close and still the air! Would it be a storm? Would a sudden
+bolt strike her? She stood and waited. She could not bring her hand to
+her pocket again, but she felt that it bulged monstrously. She stood
+with no thought of moving again. Where were the thunders of Jehovah?
+No sacred word of all her long prayers came to her tongue--not even
+"Hear, O Israel." She felt that she was in direct communication with
+God--awful thought!--and He would read her mind and would send His
+answer.
+
+   [Illustration: SABBATH LOAVES FOR SALE (BREAD MARKET, POLOTZK)]
+
+An age passed in blank expectancy. Nothing happened! Where was the
+wrath of God? _Where was God?_
+
+When she turned to go home, the little philosopher had her
+handkerchief tied around her wrist in the proper way. The experiment
+was over, though the result was not clear. God had not punished her,
+but nothing was proved by His indifference. Either the act was no sin,
+and her preceptors were all deceivers; or it was indeed a sin in the
+eyes of God, but He refrained from stern justice for high reasons of
+His own. It was not a searching experiment she had made. She was
+bitterly disappointed, and perhaps that was meant as her punishment:
+God refused to give her a reply. She intended no sin for the sake of
+sin; so, being still in doubt, she tied her handkerchief around her
+wrist. Her eyes stared more than ever,--this was the child with the
+staring eyes,--but that was the only sign she gave of a consciousness
+suddenly expanded, of a self-consciousness intensified.
+
+When she went back into the house, she gazed with a new curiosity at
+her mother, at her grandmother, dozing in their chairs. They looked
+_different_. When they awoke and stretched themselves and adjusted wig
+and cap, they looked _very_ strange. As she went to get her
+grandmother her Bible, and dropped it accidentally, she kissed it by
+way of atonement just as a proper child should.
+
+How, I wonder, would this Psalm-singing child have be enlabelled by
+the investigator of her mind? Would he have called her a Jew? She was
+too young to be called an apostate. Perhaps she would have been
+dismissed as a little fraud; and I should be content with that
+classification, if slightly modified. I should say the child was a
+piteously puzzled little fraud.
+
+To return to the honest first person, I _was_ something of a fraud.
+The days when I believed everything I was told did not run much beyond
+my teething time. I soon began to question if fire was really hot, if
+the cat would really scratch. Presently, as we have seen, I questioned
+God. And in those days my religion depended on my mood. I could
+believe anything I wanted to believe. I did believe, in all my moods,
+that there was a God who had made the world, in some fashion
+unexplained, and who knew about me and my doings; for there was the
+world all about me, and somebody must have made it. And it was
+conceivable that a being powerful enough to do such work could be
+aware of my actions at all times, and yet continue to me invisible.
+The question remained, what did He think of my conduct? Was He really
+angry when I broke the Sabbath, or pleased when I fasted on the Day of
+Atonement? My belief as to these matters wavered. When I swung the
+sacrifice around my head on Atonement Eve, repeating, "Be thou my
+sacrifice," etc., I certainly believed that I was bargaining with the
+Almighty for pardon, and that He was interested in the matter. But
+next day, when the fast was over, and I enjoyed all of my chicken that
+I could eat, I believed as certainly that God could not be party to
+such a foolish transaction, in which He got nothing but words, while I
+got both the feast and the pardon. The sacrifice of money, to be spent
+for the poor, seemed to me a more reliable insurance against
+damnation. The well-to-do pious offered up both living sacrifice and
+money for the poor-box, but it was a sign of poverty to offer only
+money. Even a lean rooster, to be killed, roasted, and garnished for
+the devotee's own table at the breaking of the fast, seemed to be
+considered a more respectable sacrifice than a groschen to increase
+the charity fund. All this was so illogical that it unsettled my faith
+in minor points of doctrine, and on these points I was quite happy to
+believe to-day one thing, to-morrow another.
+
+As unwaveringly as I believed that we Jews had a God who was powerful
+and wise, I believed that the God of my Christian neighbors was
+impotent, cruel, and foolish. I understood that the god of the
+Gentiles was no better than a toy, to be dressed up in gaudy stuffs
+and carried in processions. I saw it often enough, and turned away in
+contempt. While the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--my God--enjoined
+on me honesty and kindness, the god of Vanka bade him beat me and spit
+on me whenever he caught me alone. And what a foolish god was that who
+taught the stupid Gentiles that we drank the blood of a murdered child
+at our Passover feast! Why, I, who was only a child, knew better. And
+so I hated and feared and avoided the great white church in the Platz,
+and hated every sign and symbol of that monstrous god who was kept
+there and hated my own person, when, in our play of a Christian
+funeral, I imagined my body to be the corpse, over which was carried
+the hideous cross.
+
+Perhaps I have established that I was more Jew than Gentile, though I
+can still prove that I was none the less a fraud. For instance, I
+remember how once, on the eve of the Ninth of Ab--the anniversary of
+the fall of the Temple--I was looking on at the lamentations of the
+women. A large circle had gathered around my mother, who was the only
+good reader among them, to listen to the story of the cruel
+destruction. Sitting on humble stools, in stocking feet, shabby
+clothes, and dishevelled hair, weeping in chorus, and wringing their
+hands, as if it was but yesterday that the sacred edifice fell and
+they were in the very dust and ashes of the ruin, the women looked to
+me enviously wretched and pious. I joined the circle in the
+candlelight. I wrung my hands, I moaned; but I was always slow of
+tears--I could not weep. But I wanted to look like the others. So I
+streaked my cheeks with the only moisture at hand.
+
+Alas for my pious ambition! alas for the noble lament of the women!
+Somebody looked up and caught me in the act of manufacturing tears. I
+grinned, and she giggled. Another woman looked up. I grinned, and they
+giggled. Demoralization swept around the circle. Honest laughter
+snuffed out artificial grief. My mother at last looked up, with red
+and astonished eyes, and I was banished from the feast of tears.
+
+I returned promptly to my playmates in the street, who were amusing
+themselves, according to the custom on that sad anniversary, by
+pelting each other with burrs. Here I was distinguished, more than I
+had been among my elders. My hair being curly, it caught a generous
+number of burrs, so that I fairly bristled with these emblems of
+mortification and woe.
+
+Not long after that sinful experiment with the handkerchief I
+discovered by accident that I was not the only doubter in Polotzk. One
+Friday night I lay wakeful in my little bed, staring from the dark
+into the lighted room adjoining mine. I saw the Sabbath candles
+sputter and go out, one by one,--it was late,--but the lamp hanging
+from the ceiling still burned high. Everybody had gone to bed. The
+lamp would go out before morning if there was little oil; or else it
+would burn till Natasha, the Gentile chorewoman, came in the morning
+to put it out, and remove the candlesticks from the table, and unseal
+the oven, and do the dozen little tasks which no Jew could perform on
+the Sabbath. The simple prohibition to labor on the Sabbath day had
+been construed by zealous commentators to mean much more. One must not
+even touch any instrument of labor or commerce, as an axe or a coin.
+It was forbidden to light a fire, or to touch anything that contained
+a fire, or had contained fire, were it only a cold candlestick or a
+burned match. Therefore the lamp at which I was staring must burn till
+the Gentile woman came to put it out.
+
+The light did not annoy me in the least; I was not thinking about it.
+But apparently it troubled somebody else. I saw my father come from
+his room, which also adjoined the living-room. What was he going to
+do? What was this he was doing? Could I believe my eyes? My father
+touched the lighted lamp!--yes, he shook it, as if to see how much oil
+there was left.
+
+I was petrified in my place. I could neither move nor make a sound. It
+seemed to me he must feel my eyes bulging at him out of the dark. But
+he did not know that I was looking; he thought everybody was asleep.
+He turned down the light a very little, and waited. I did not take my
+eyes from him. He lowered the flame a little more, and waited again. I
+watched. By the slightest degrees he turned the light down. I
+understood. In case any one were awake, it would appear as if the lamp
+was going out of itself. I was the only one who lay so as to be able
+to see him, and I had gone to bed so early that he could not suppose I
+was awake. The light annoyed him, he wanted to put it out, but he
+would not risk having it known.
+
+I heard my father find his bed in the dark before I dared to draw a
+full breath. The thing he had done was a monstrous sin. If his mother
+had seen him do it, it would have broken her heart--his mother who
+fasted half the days of the year, when he was a boy, to save his
+teacher's fee; his mother who walked almost barefoot in the cruel snow
+to carry him on her shoulders to school when she had no shoes for him;
+his mother who made it her pious pride to raise up a learned son, that
+most precious offering in the eyes of the great God, from the hand of
+a poor struggling woman. If my mother had seen it, it would have
+grieved her no less--my mother who was given to him, with her youth
+and good name and her dowry, in exchange for his learning and piety;
+my mother who was taken from her play to bear him children and feed
+them and keep them, while he sat on the benches of the scholars and
+repaid her labors with the fame of his learning. I did not put it to
+myself just so, but I understood that learning and piety were the
+things most valued in our family, that my father was a scholar, and
+that piety, of course, was the fruit of sacred learning. And yet my
+father had deliberately violated the Sabbath.
+
+His act was not to be compared with my carrying the handkerchief. The
+two sins were of the same kind, but the sinners and their motives were
+different. I was a child, a girl at that, not yet of the age of moral
+responsibility. He was a man full grown, passing for one of God's
+elect, and accepting the reverence of the world as due tribute to his
+scholarly merits. I had by no means satisfied myself, by my secret
+experiment, that it was not sinful to carry a burden on the Sabbath
+day. If God did not punish me on the spot, perhaps it was because of
+my youth or perhaps it was because of my motive.
+
+According to my elders, my father, by turning out the lamp, committed
+the sin of Sabbath-breaking. What did my father intend? I could not
+suppose that his purpose was similar to mine. Surely he, who had lived
+so long and studied so deeply, had by this time resolved all his
+doubts. Surely God had instructed _him_. I could not believe that he
+did wrong knowingly, so I came to the conclusion that he did not hold
+it a sin to touch a lighted lamp on Sabbath. Then why was he so secret
+in his action? That, too, became clear to me. I myself had
+instinctively adopted secret methods in all my little investigations,
+and had kept the results to myself. The way in which my questions were
+received had taught me much. I had a dim, inarticulate understanding
+of the horror and indignation which my father would excite if he,
+supposedly a man of piety, should publish the heretical opinion that
+it was not wrong to handle fire on the Sabbath. To see what remorse my
+mother suffered, or my father's mother, if by some accident she failed
+in any point of religious observance, was to know that she could never
+be brought to doubt the sacred importance of the thousand minutiæ of
+ancient Jewish practice. That which had been taught them as the truth
+by their fathers and mothers was the whole truth to my good friends
+and neighbors--that and nothing else. If there were any people in
+Polotzk who had strange private opinions, such as I concluded my
+father must hold, it was possible that he had a secret acquaintance
+with them. But it would never do, it was plain to me, to make public
+confession of his convictions. Such an act would not only break the
+hearts of his family, but it would also take the bread from the mouths
+of his children, and ruin them forever. My sister and my brother and
+I would come to be called the children of Israel the Apostate, just as
+Gutke, my playmate, was called the granddaughter of Yankel the
+Informer. The most innocent of us would be cursed and shunned for the
+sin of our father.
+
+All this I came to understand, not all at once, but by degrees, as I
+put this and that together, and brought my childish thoughts to order.
+I was by no means absorbed in this problem. I played and danced with
+the other children as heartily as ever, but I brooded in my window
+corner when there was nothing else to do. I had not the slightest
+impulse to go to my father, charge him with his unorthodox conduct,
+and demand an explanation of him. I was quite satisfied that I
+understood him, and I had not the habit of confidences. I was still in
+the days when I was content to _find out_ things, and did not long to
+communicate my discoveries. Moreover, I was used to living in two
+worlds, a real world and a make-believe one, without ever knowing
+which was which. In one world I had much company--father and mother
+and sister and friends--and did as others did, and took everything for
+granted. In the other world I was all alone, and I had to discover
+ways for myself; and I was so uncertain that I did not attempt to
+bring a companion along. And did I find my own father treading in the
+unknown ways? Then perhaps some day he would come across me, and take
+me farther than I had yet been; but I would not be the first to
+whisper that I was there. It seems strange enough to me now that I
+should have been so uncommunicative; but I remind myself that I have
+been thoroughly made over, at least once, since those early days.
+
+I recall with sorrow that I was sometimes as weak in morals as I was
+in religion. I remember stealing a piece of sugar. It was long
+ago--almost as long ago as anything that I remember. We were still
+living in my grandfather's house when this dreadful thing happened and
+I was only four or five years old when we moved from there. Before my
+mother figured this out for me I scarcely had the courage to confess
+my sin.
+
+And it was thus: In a corner of a front room, by a window, stood a
+high chest of drawers. On top of the chest stood a tin box, decorated
+with figures of queer people with queer flat parasols; a Chinese
+tea-box, in a word. The box had a lid. The lid was shut tight. But I
+knew what was in that gorgeous box and I coveted it. I was very
+little--I never could reach anything. There stood a chair suggestively
+near the chest. I pushed the chair a little and mounted it. By
+standing on tiptoe I could now reach the box. I opened it and took out
+an irregular lump of sparkling sugar. I stood on the chair admiring
+it. I stood too long. My grandmother came in--or was it Itke, the
+housemaid?--and found me with the stolen morsel.
+
+I saw that I was fairly caught. How could I hope to escape my captor,
+when I was obliged to turn on my stomach in order to descend safely,
+thus presenting my jailer with the most tempting opportunity for
+immediate chastisement? I took in the situation before my grandmother
+had found her voice for horror. Did I rub my eyes with my knuckles and
+whimper? I wish I could report that I was thus instantly struck with a
+sense of my guilt. I was impressed only with the absolute certainty of
+my impending doom, and I promptly seized on a measure of compensation.
+While my captor--I really think it was a grandmother--rehearsed her
+entire vocabulary of reproach, from a distance sufficient to enable
+her to hurl her voice at me with the best effect, I stuffed the lump
+of sugar into my mouth and munched it as fast as I could. And I had
+eaten it all, and had licked my sticky lips, before the avenging rod
+came down.
+
+I remember no similar lapses from righteousness, but I sinned in
+lesser ways more times than there are years in my life. I sinned, and
+more than once I escaped punishment by some trick or sly speech. I do
+not mean that I lied outright, though that also I did, sometimes; but
+I would twist my naughty speech, if forced to repeat it, in such an
+artful manner, or give such ludicrous explanation of my naughty act,
+that justice was overcome by laughter and threw me, as often as not, a
+handful of raisins instead of a knotted strap. If by such successes I
+was encouraged to cultivate my natural slyness and duplicity, I throw
+the blame on my unwise preceptors, and am glad to be rid of the burden
+for once.
+
+I have said that I used to lie. I recall no particular occasion when a
+lie was the cause of my disgrace; but I know that it was always my
+habit, when I had some trifling adventure to report, to garnish it up
+with so much detail and circumstance that nobody who had witnessed my
+small affair could have recognized it as the same, had I not insisted
+on my version with such fervid conviction. The truth is that
+everything that happened to me really loomed great and shone splendid
+in my eyes, and I could not, except by conscious effort, reduce my
+visions to their actual shapes and colors. If I saw a pair of geese
+leading about a lazy goose girl, they went through all sorts of antics
+before my eyes that fat geese are not known to indulge in. If I met
+poor Blind Munye with a frown on his face, I thought that a cloud of
+wrath overspread his countenance; and I ran home to relate, panting,
+how narrowly I had escaped his fury. I will not pretend that I was
+absolutely unconscious of my exaggerations; but if you insist, I will
+say that things as I reported them might have been so, and would have
+been much more interesting had they been so.
+
+The noble reader who never told a lie, or never confessed one, will be
+shocked at these revelations of my childish depravity. What proof has
+he, he will cry, that I am not lying on every page of this chronicle,
+if, by my own confession, my childhood was spent in a maze of lies and
+dreams? I shall say to the saint, when I am challenged, that the proof
+of my conversion to veracity is engraven in his own soul. Do you not
+remember, you spotless one, how you used to steal and lie and cheat
+and rob? Oh, not with your own hand, of course! It was your remote
+ancestor who lived by plunder, and was honored for the blood upon his
+hairy hands. By and by he discovered that cunning was more effective
+than violence, and less troublesome. Still later he became convinced
+that the greatest cunning was virtue, and made him a moral code, and
+subdued the world. Then, when you came along, stumbling through the
+wilderness of cast-off errors, your wise ancestor gave you a thrust
+that landed you in the clearing of modernity, at the same time
+bellowing in your ear, "Now be good! It pays!"
+
+This is the whole history of your saintliness. But all people do not
+take up life at the same point of human development. Some are backward
+at birth, and have to make up, in the brief space of their individual
+history, the stages they missed on their way out of the black past.
+With me, for example, it actually comes to this: that I have to
+recapitulate in my own experience all the slow steps of the progress
+of the race. I seem to learn nothing except by the prick of life on my
+own skin. I am saved from living in ignorance and dying in darkness
+only by the sensitiveness of my skin. Some men learn through borrowed
+experience. Shut them up in a glass tower, with an unobstructed view
+of the world, and they will go through every adventure of life by
+proxy, and be able to furnish you with a complete philosophy of life;
+and you may safely bring up your children by it. But I am not of that
+godlike organization. I am a thinking animal. Things are as important
+to me as ideas. I imbibe wisdom through every pore of my body. There
+are times, indeed, when the doctor in his study is less intelligible
+to me than a cricket far off in the field. The earth was my mother,
+the earth is my teacher. I am a dutiful pupil: I listen ever with my
+ear close to her lips. It seems to me I do not know a single thing
+that I did not learn, more or less directly, through the corporal
+senses. As long as I have my body, I need not despair of salvation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] A piece of parchment inscribed with a passage of Scripture, rolled
+in a case and tacked to the doorpost. The pious touch or kiss this
+when leaving or entering a house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH
+
+
+The long chapter of troubles which led to my father's emigration to
+America began with his own illness. The doctors sent him to Courland
+to consult expensive specialists, who prescribed tedious courses of
+treatment. He was far from cured when my mother also fell ill, and my
+father had to return to Polotzk to look after the business.
+
+Trouble begets trouble. After my mother took to her bed everything
+continued to go wrong. The business gradually declined, as too much
+money was withdrawn to pay the doctors' and apothecaries' bills; and
+my father, himself in poor health, and worried about my mother, was
+not successful in coping with the growing difficulties. At home, the
+servants were dismissed, for the sake of economy, and all the
+housework and the nursing fell on my grandmother and my sister.
+Fetchke, as a result, was overworked, and fell ill of a fever. The
+baby, suffering from unavoidable neglect, developed the fractious
+temper of semi-illness. And by way of a climax, the old cow took it
+into her head to kick my grandmother, who was laid up for a week with
+a bruised leg.
+
+Neighbors and cousins pulled us through till grandma got up, and after
+her, Fetchke. But my mother remained on her bed. Weeks, months, a year
+she lay there, and half of another year. All the doctors in Polotzk
+attended her in turn, and one doctor came all the way from Vitebsk.
+Every country practitioner for miles around was consulted, every
+quack, every old wife who knew a charm. The apothecaries ransacked
+their shops for drugs the names of which they had forgotten, and kind
+neighbors brought in their favorite remedies. There were midnight
+prayers in the synagogue for my mother, and petitions at the graves of
+her parents; and one awful night when she was near death, three pious
+mothers who had never lost a child came to my mother's bedside and
+bought her, for a few kopecks, for their own, so that she might gain
+the protection of their luck, and so be saved.
+
+Still my poor mother lay on her bed, suffering and wasting. The house
+assumed a look of desolation. Everybody went on tiptoe; we talked in
+whispers; for weeks at a time there was no laughter in our home. The
+ominous night lamp was never extinguished. We slept in our clothes
+night after night, so as to wake the more easily in case of sudden
+need. We watched, we waited, but we scarcely hoped.
+
+Once in a while I was allowed to take a short turn in the sick-room.
+It was awful to sit beside my mother's bed in the still night and see
+her helplessness. She had been so strong, so active. She used to lift
+sacks and barrels that were heavy for a man, and now she could not
+raise a spoon to her mouth. Sometimes she did not know me when I gave
+her the medicine, and when she knew me, she did not care. Would she
+ever care any more? She looked strange and small in the shadows of the
+bed. Her hair had been cut off after the first few months; her short
+curls were almost covered by the ice bag. Her cheeks were red, red,
+but her hands were so white as they had never been before. In the
+still night I wondered if she cared to live.
+
+The night lamp burned on. My father grew old. He was always figuring
+on a piece of paper. We children knew the till was empty when the
+silver candlesticks were taken away to be pawned. Next, superfluous
+featherbeds were sold for what they would bring, and then there came a
+day when grandma, with eyes blinded by tears, groped in the big
+wardrobe for my mother's satin dress and velvet mantle; and after that
+it did not matter any more what was taken out of the house.
+
+Then everything took a sudden turn. My mother began to improve, and at
+the same time my father was offered a good position as superintendent
+of a gristmill.
+
+As soon as my mother could be moved, he took us all out to the mill,
+about three versts out of town, on the Polota. We had a pleasant
+cottage there, with the miller's red-headed, freckled family for our
+only neighbors. If our rooms were barer than they used to be, the sun
+shone in at all the windows; and as the leaves on the trees grew
+denser and darker, my mother grew stronger on her feet, and laughter
+returned to our house as the song bird to the grove.
+
+We children had a very happy summer. We had never lived in the country
+before, and we liked the change. It was endless fun to explore the
+mill; to squeeze into forbidden places, and be pulled out by the angry
+miller; to tyrannize over the mill hands, and be worshipped by them in
+return; to go boating on the river, and discover unvisited nooks, and
+search the woods and fields for kitchen herbs, and get lost, and be
+found, a hundred times a week. And what an adventure it was to walk
+the three versts into town, leaving a trail of perfume from the
+wild-flower posies we carried to our city friends!
+
+But these things did not last. The mill changed hands, and the new
+owner put a protégé of his own in my father's place. So, after a short
+breathing spell, we were driven back into the swamp of growing poverty
+and trouble.
+
+The next year or so my father spent in a restless and fruitless search
+for a permanent position. My mother had another serious illness, and
+his own health remained precarious. What he earned did not more than
+half pay the bills in the end, though we were living very humbly now.
+Polotzk seemed to reject him, and no other place invited him.
+
+Just at this time occurred one of the periodic anti-Semitic movements
+whereby government officials were wont to clear the forbidden cities
+of Jews, whom, in the intervals of slack administration of the law,
+they allowed to maintain an illegal residence in places outside the
+Pale, on payment of enormous bribes and at the cost of nameless risks
+and indignities.
+
+It was a little before Passover that the cry of the hunted thrilled
+the Jewish world with the familiar fear. The wholesale expulsion of
+Jews from Moscow and its surrounding district at cruelly short notice
+was the name of this latest disaster. Where would the doom strike
+next? The Jews who lived illegally without the Pale turned their
+possessions into cash and slept in their clothes, ready for immediate
+flight. Those who lived in the comparative security of the Pale
+trembled for their brothers and sisters without, and opened wide their
+doors to afford the fugitives refuge. And hundreds of fugitives,
+preceded by a wail of distress, flocked into the open district,
+bringing their trouble where trouble was never absent, mingling their
+tears with the tears that never dried.
+
+The open cities becoming thus suddenly crowded, every man's chance of
+making a living was diminished in proportion to the number of
+additional competitors. Hardship, acute distress, ruin for many: thus
+spread the disaster, ring beyond ring, from the stone thrown by a
+despotic official into the ever-full river of Jewish persecution.
+
+Passover was celebrated in tears that year. In the story of the Exodus
+we would have read a chapter of current history, only for us there was
+no deliverer and no promised land.
+
+But what said some of us at the end of the long service? Not "May we
+be next year in Jerusalem," but "Next year--in America!" So there was
+our promised land, and many faces were turned towards the West. And if
+the waters of the Atlantic did not part for them, the wanderers rode
+its bitter flood by a miracle as great as any the rod of Moses ever
+wrought.
+
+My father was carried away by the westward movement, glad of his own
+deliverance, but sore at heart for us whom he left behind. It was the
+last chance for all of us. We were so far reduced in circumstances
+that he had to travel with borrowed money to a German port, whence he
+was forwarded to Boston, with a host of others, at the expense of an
+emigrant aid society.
+
+I was about ten years old when my father emigrated. I was used to his
+going away from home, and "America" did not mean much more to me than
+"Kherson," or "Odessa," or any other names of distant places. I
+understood vaguely, from the gravity with which his plans were
+discussed, and from references to ships, societies, and other
+unfamiliar things, that this enterprise was different from previous
+ones; but my excitement and emotion on the morning of my father's
+departure were mainly vicarious.
+
+I know the day when "America" as a world entirely unlike Polotzk
+lodged in my brain, to become the centre of all my dreams and
+speculations. Well I know the day. I was in bed, sharing the measles
+with some of the other children. Mother brought us a thick letter from
+father, written just before boarding the ship. The letter was full of
+excitement. There was something in it besides the description of
+travel, something besides the pictures of crowds of people, of foreign
+cities, of a ship ready to put out to sea. My father was travelling at
+the expense of a charitable organization, without means of his own,
+without plans, to a strange world where he had no friends; and yet he
+wrote with the confidence of a well-equipped soldier going into
+battle. The rhetoric is mine. Father simply wrote that the emigration
+committee was taking good care of everybody, that the weather was
+fine, and the ship comfortable. But I heard something, as we read the
+letter together in the darkened room, that was more than the words
+seemed to say. There was an elation, a hint of triumph, such as had
+never been in my father's letters before. I cannot tell how I knew it.
+I felt a stirring, a straining in my father's letter. It was there,
+even though my mother stumbled over strange words, even though she
+cried, as women will when somebody is going away. My father was
+inspired by a vision. He saw something--he promised us something. It
+was this "America." And "America" became my dream.
+
+While it was nothing new for my father to go far from home in search
+of his fortune, the circumstances in which he left us were unlike
+anything we had experienced before. We had absolutely no reliable
+source of income, no settled home, no immediate prospects. We hardly
+knew where we belonged in the simple scheme of our society. My mother,
+as a bread-winner, had nothing like her former success. Her health was
+permanently impaired, her place in the business world had long been
+filled by others, and there was no capital to start her anew. Her
+brothers did what they could for her. They were well-to-do, but they
+all had large families, with marriageable daughters and sons to be
+bought out of military service. The allowance they made her was
+generous compared to their means,--affection and duty could do no
+more,--but there were four of us growing children, and my mother was
+obliged to make every effort within her power to piece out her income.
+
+How quickly we came down from a large establishment, with servants and
+retainers, and a place among the best in Polotzk, to a single room
+hired by the week, and the humblest associations, and the averted
+heads of former friends! But oftenest it was my mother who turned away
+her head. She took to using the side streets to avoid the pitiful eyes
+of the kind, and the scornful eyes of the haughty. Both were turned on
+her as she trudged from store to store, and from house to house,
+peddling tea or other ware; and both were hard to bear. Many a winter
+morning she arose in the dark, to tramp three or four miles in the
+gripping cold, through the dragging snow, with a pound of tea for a
+distant customer; and her profit was perhaps twenty kopecks. Many a
+time she fell on the ice, as she climbed the steep bank on the far
+side of the Dvina, a heavy basket on each arm. More than once she
+fainted at the doors of her customers, ashamed to knock as suppliant
+where she had used to be received as an honored guest. I hope the
+angels did not have to count the tears that fell on her frost-bitten,
+aching hands as she counted her bitter earnings at night.
+
+And who took care of us children while my mother tramped the streets
+with her basket? Why, who but Fetchke? Who but the little housewife of
+twelve? Sure of our safety was my mother with Fetchke to watch; sure
+of our comfort with Fetchke to cook the soup and divide the scrap of
+meat and remember the next meal. Joseph was in heder all day; the baby
+was a quiet little thing; Mashke was no worse than usual. But still
+there was plenty to do, with order to keep in a crowded room, and the
+washing, and the mending. And Fetchke did it all. She went to the
+river with the women to wash the clothes, and tucked up her dress and
+stood bare-legged in the water, like the rest of them, and beat and
+rubbed with all her might, till our miserable rags gleamed white
+again.
+
+And I? I usually had a cold, or a cough, or something to disable me;
+and I never had any talent for housework. If I swept and sanded the
+floor, polished the samovar, and ran errands, I was doing much. I
+minded the baby, who did not need much minding. I was willing enough,
+I suppose, but the hard things were done without my help.
+
+Not that I mean to belittle the part that I played in our reduced
+domestic economy. Indeed, I am very particular to get all the credit
+due me. I always remind my sister Deborah, who was the baby of those
+humble days, that it was I who pierced her ears. Earrings were a
+requisite part of a girl's toilet. Even a beggar girl must have
+earrings, were they only loops of thread with glass beads. I heard my
+mother bemoan the baby because she had not time to pierce her ears.
+Promptly I armed myself with a coarse needle and a spool of thread,
+and towed Deborah out into the woodshed. The operation was entirely
+successful, though the baby was entirely ungrateful. And I am proud to
+this day of the unflinching manner in which I did what I conceived to
+be my duty. If Deborah chooses to go with ungarnished ears, it is her
+affair; my conscience is free of all reproach.
+
+    [Illustration: WINTER SCENE ON THE DVINA]
+
+I had a direct way in everything. I rushed right in--I spoke right
+out. My mother sent me sometimes to deliver a package of tea, and I
+was proud to help in business. One day I went across the Dvina and far
+up "the other side." It was a good-sized expedition for me to make
+alone, and I was not a little pleased with myself when I delivered my
+package, safe and intact, into the hands of my customer. But the
+storekeeper was not pleased at all. She sniffed and sniffed, she
+pinched the tea, she shook it all out on the counter.
+
+"_Na_, take it back," she said in disgust; "this is not the tea I
+always buy. It's a poorer quality."
+
+I knew the woman was mistaken. I was acquainted with my mother's
+several grades of tea. So I spoke up manfully.
+
+"Oh, no," I said; "this is the tea my mother always sends you. There
+is no worse tea."
+
+Nothing in my life ever hurt me more than that woman's answer to my
+argument. She laughed--she simply laughed. But I understood, even
+before she controlled herself sufficiently to make verbal remarks,
+that I had spoken like a fool, had lost my mother a customer. I had
+only spoken the truth, but I had not expressed it diplomatically.
+That was no way to make business.
+
+I felt very sore to be returning home with the tea still in my hand,
+but I forgot my trouble in watching a summer storm gather up the
+river. The few passengers who took the boat with me looked scared as
+the sky darkened, and the boatman grasped his oars very soberly. It
+took my breath away to see the signs, but I liked it; and I was much
+disappointed to get home dry.
+
+When my mother heard of my misadventure she laughed, too; but that was
+different, and I was able to laugh with her.
+
+This is the way I helped in the housekeeping and in business. I hope
+it does not appear as if I did not take our situation to heart, for I
+did--in my own fashion. It was plain, even to an idle dreamer like me,
+that we were living on the charity of our friends, and barely living
+at that. It was plain, from my father's letters, that he was scarcely
+able to support himself in America, and that there was no immediate
+prospect of our joining him. I realized it all, but I considered it
+temporary, and I found plenty of comfort in writing long letters to my
+father--real, original letters this time, not copies of Reb' Isaiah's
+model--letters which my father treasured for years.
+
+As an instance of what I mean by my own fashion of taking trouble to
+heart, I recall the day when our household effects were attached for a
+debt. We had plenty of debts, but the stern creditor who set the law
+on us this time was none of ours. The claim was against a family to
+whom my mother sublet two of our three rooms, furnished with her own
+things. The police officers, who swooped down upon us without warning,
+as was their habit, asked no questions and paid no heed to
+explanations. They affixed a seal to every lame chair and cracked
+pitcher in the place; aye, to every faded petticoat found hanging in
+the wardrobe. These goods, comprising all our possessions and all our
+tenant's, would presently be removed, to be sold at auction, for the
+benefit of the creditor.
+
+Lame chairs and faded petticoats, when they are the last one has, have
+a vital value in the owner's eyes. My mother moved about, weeping
+distractedly, all the while the officers were in the house. The
+frightened children cried. Our neighbors gathered to bemoan our
+misfortune. And over everything was the peculiar dread which only Jews
+in Russia feel when agents of the Government invade their homes.
+
+The fear of the moment was in my heart, as in every other heart there.
+It was a horrid, oppressive fear. I retired to a quiet corner to
+grapple with it. I was not given to weeping, but I must think things
+out in words. I repeated to myself that the trouble was all about
+money. Somebody wanted money from our tenant, who had none to give.
+Our furniture was going to be sold to make this money. It was a
+mistake, but then the officers would not believe my mother. Still, it
+was only about money. Nobody was dead, nobody was ill. It was all
+about _money_. Why, there was plenty of money in Polotzk! My own uncle
+had many times as much as the creditor claimed. He could buy all our
+things back, or somebody else could. What did it matter? It was only
+_money_, and money was got by working, and we were all willing to
+work. There was nothing gone, nothing lost, as when somebody died.
+This furniture could be moved from place to place, and so could money
+be moved, and nothing was lost out of the world by the transfer.
+_That_ was all. If anybody--
+
+Why, what do I see at the window? Breine Malke, our next-door
+neighbor, is--yes, she is smuggling something out of the window! If
+she is caught--! Oh, I must help! Breine Malke beckons. She wants me
+to do something. I see--I understand. I must stand in the doorway, to
+obstruct the view of the officers, who are all engaged in the next
+room just now. I move readily to my post, but I cannot resist my
+curiosity. I must look over my shoulder a last time, to see what it is
+Breine Malke wants to smuggle out.
+
+I can scarcely stifle my laughter. Of all our earthly goods, our
+neighbor has chosen for salvation a dented bandbox containing a
+moth-eaten bonnet from my mother's happier days! And I laugh not only
+from amusement but also from lightness of heart. For I have succeeded
+in reducing our catastrophe to its simplest terms, and I find that it
+is only a trifle, and no matter of life and death.
+
+I could not help it. That was the way it looked to me.
+
+I am sure I made as serious efforts as anybody to prepare myself for
+life in America on the lines indicated in my father's letters. In
+America, he wrote, it was no disgrace to work at a trade. Workmen and
+capitalists were equal. The employer addressed the employee as _you_,
+not, familiarly, as _thou_. The cobbler and the teacher had the same
+title, "Mister." And all the children, boys and girls, Jews and
+Gentiles, went to school! Education would be ours for the asking, and
+economic independence also, as soon as we were prepared. He wanted
+Fetchke and me to be taught some trade; so my sister was apprenticed
+to a dressmaker and I to a milliner.
+
+Fetchke, of course, was successful, and I, of course, was not. My
+sister managed to learn her trade, although most of the time at the
+dressmaker's she had to spend in sweeping, running errands, and
+minding the babies; the usual occupations of the apprentice in any
+trade.
+
+But I--I had to be taken away from the milliner's after a couple of
+months. I did try, honestly. With all my eyes I watched my mistress
+build up a chimney pot of straw and things. I ripped up old bonnets
+with enthusiasm. I picked up everybody's spools and thimbles, and
+other far-rolling objects. I did just as I was told, for I was
+determined to become a famous milliner, since America honored the
+workman so. But most of the time I was sent away on errands--to the
+market to buy soup greens, to the corner store to get change, and all
+over town with bandboxes half as round again as I. It was winter, and
+I was not very well dressed. I froze; I coughed; my mistress said I
+was not of much use to her. So my mother kept me at home, and my
+career as a milliner was blighted.
+
+This was during our last year in Russia, when I was between twelve and
+thirteen years of age. I was old enough to be ashamed of my failures,
+but I did not have much time to think about them, because my Uncle
+Solomon took me with him to Vitebsk.
+
+It was not my first visit to that city. A few years before I had spent
+some days there, in the care of my father's cousin Rachel, who
+journeyed periodically to the capital of the province to replenish her
+stock of spools and combs and like small wares, by the sale of which
+she was slowly earning her dowry.
+
+On that first occasion, Cousin Rachel, who had developed in business
+that dual conscience, one for her Jewish neighbors and one for the
+Gentiles, decided to carry me without a ticket. I was so small, though
+of an age to pay half-fare, that it was not difficult. I remember her
+simple stratagem from beginning to end. When we approached the ticket
+office she whispered to me to stoop a little, and I stooped. The
+ticket agent passed me. In the car she bade me curl up in the seat,
+and I curled up. She threw a shawl over me and bade me pretend to
+sleep, and I pretended to sleep. I heard the conductor collect the
+tickets. I knew when he was looking at me. I heard him ask my age and
+I heard Cousin Rachel lie about it. I was allowed to sit up when the
+conductor was gone, and I sat up and looked out of the window and saw
+everything, and was perfectly, perfectly happy. I was fond of my
+cousin, and I smiled at her in perfect understanding and admiration of
+her cleverness in beating the railroad company.
+
+I knew then, as I know now, beyond a doubt, that my Uncle David's
+daughter was an honorable woman. With the righteous she dealt
+squarely; with the unjust, as best she could. She was in duty bound to
+make all the money she could, for money was her only protection in the
+midst of the enemy. Every kopeck she earned or saved was a scale in
+her coat of armor. We learned this code early in life, in Polotzk; so
+I was pleased with the success of our ruse on this occasion, though I
+should have been horrified if I had seen Cousin Rachel cheat a Jew.
+
+We made our headquarters in that part of Vitebsk where my father's
+numerous cousins and aunts lived, in more or less poverty, or at most
+in the humblest comfort; but I was taken to my Uncle Solomon's to
+spend the Sabbath. I remember a long walk, through magnificent
+avenues and past splendid shops and houses and gardens. Vitebsk was a
+metropolis beside provincial Polotzk; and I was very small, even
+without stooping.
+
+Uncle Solomon lived in the better part of the city, and I found his
+place very attractive. Still, after a night's sleep, I was ready for
+further travel and adventures, and I set out, without a word to
+anybody, to retrace my steps clear across the city.
+
+The way was twice as long as on the preceding day, perhaps because
+such small feet set the pace, perhaps because I lingered as long as I
+pleased at the shop windows. At some corners, too, I had to stop and
+study my route. I do not think I was frightened at all, though I
+imagine my back was very straight and my head very high all the way;
+for I was well aware that I was out on an adventure.
+
+I did not speak to any one till I reached my Aunt Leah's; and then I
+hardly had a chance to speak, I was so much hugged and laughed over
+and cried over, and questioned and cross-questioned, without anybody
+waiting to hear my answers. I had meant to surprise Cousin Rachel, and
+I had frightened her. When she had come to Uncle Solomon's to take me
+back, she found the house in an uproar, everybody frightened at my
+disappearance. The neighborhood was searched, and at last messengers
+were sent to Aunt Leah's. The messengers in their haste quite
+overlooked me. It was their fault if they took a short cut unknown to
+me. I was all the time faithfully steering by the sign of the tobacco
+shop, and the shop with the jumping-jack in the window, and the garden
+with the iron fence, and the sentry box opposite a drug store, and all
+the rest of my landmarks, as carefully entered on my mental chart the
+day before.
+
+All this I told my scared relatives as soon as they let me, till they
+were convinced that I was not lost, nor stolen by the gypsies, nor
+otherwise done away with. Cousin Rachel was so glad that she would not
+have to return to Polotzk empty-handed that she would not let anybody
+scold me. She made me tell over and over what I had seen on the way,
+till they all laughed and praised my acuteness for seeing so much more
+than they had supposed there was to see. Indeed, I was made a heroine,
+which was just what I intended to be when I set out on my adventure.
+And thus ended most of my unlawful escapades; I was more petted than
+scolded for my insubordination.
+
+My second journey to Vitebsk, in the company of Uncle Solomon, I
+remember as well as the first. I had been up all night, dancing at a
+wedding, and had gone home only to pick up my small bundle and be
+picked up, in turn, by my uncle. I was a little taller now, and had my
+own ticket, like a real traveller.
+
+It was still early in the morning when the train pulled out of the
+station, or else it was a misty day. I know the fields looked soft and
+gray when we got out into the country, and the trees were blurred. I
+did not want to sleep. A new day had begun--a new adventure. I would
+not miss any of it.
+
+But the last day, so unnaturally prolonged, was entangled in the
+skirts of the new. When did yesterday end? Why was not this new day
+the same day continued? I looked up at my uncle, but he was smiling at
+me in that amused way of his--he always seemed to be amused at me, and
+he would make me talk and then laugh at me--so I did not ask my
+question. Indeed, I could not formulate it, so I kept staring out on
+the dim country, and thinking, and thinking; and all the while the
+engine throbbed and lurched, and the wheels ground along, and I was
+astonished to hear that they were keeping perfectly the time of the
+last waltz I had danced at the wedding. I sang it through in my head.
+Yes, that was the rhythm. The engine knew it, the whole machine
+repeated it, and sent vibrations through my body that were just like
+the movements of the waltz. I was so much interested in this discovery
+that I forgot the problem of the Continuity of Time; and from that day
+to this, whenever I have heard that waltz,--one of the sweet Danube
+waltzes,--I have lived through that entire experience; the festive
+night, the misty morning, the abnormal consciousness of time, as if I
+had existed forever, without a break; the journey, the dim landscape,
+and the tune singing itself in my head. Never can I hear that waltz
+without the accompaniment of engine wheels grinding rhythmically along
+speeding tracks.
+
+I remained in Vitebsk about six months. I do not believe I was ever
+homesick during all that time. I was too happy to be homesick. The
+life suited me extremely well. My life in Polotzk had grown meaner and
+duller, as the family fortunes declined. For years there had been no
+lessons, no pleasant excursions, no jolly gatherings with uncles and
+aunts. Poverty, shadowed by pride, trampled down our simple ambitions
+and simpler joys. I cannot honestly say that I was very sensitive to
+our losses. I do not remember suffering because there was no jam on my
+bread, and no new dress for the holidays. I do not know whether I was
+hurt when some of our playmates abandoned us. I remember myself
+oftener in the attitude of an onlooker, as on the occasion of the
+attachment of our furniture, when I went off into a corner to think
+about it. Perhaps I was not able to cling to negations. The possession
+of the bread was a more absorbing fact than the loss of the jam. If I
+were to read my character backwards, I ought to believe that I did
+miss what I lacked in our days of privation; for I know, to my shame,
+that in more recent years I have cried for jam. But I am trying not to
+reason, only to remember; and from many scattered and shadowy
+memories, that glimmer and fade away so fast that I cannot fix them on
+this page, I form an idea, almost a conviction, that it was with me as
+I say.
+
+However indifferent I may have been to what I had not, I was fully
+alive to what I had. So when I came to Vitebsk I eagerly seized on the
+many new things that I found around me; and these new impressions and
+experiences affected me so much that I count that visit as an epoch in
+my Russian life.
+
+I was very much at home in my uncle's household. I was a little afraid
+of my aunt, who had a quick temper, but on the whole I liked her. She
+was fair and thin and had a pretty smile in the wake of her tempers.
+Uncle Solomon was an old friend. I was fond of him and he made much of
+me. His fine brown eyes were full of smiles, and there always was a
+pleasant smile for me, or a teasing one.
+
+Uncle Solomon was comparatively prosperous, so I soon forgot whatever
+I had known at home of sordid cares. I do not remember that I was ever
+haunted by the thought of my mother, who slaved to keep us in bread;
+or of my sister, so little older than myself, who bent her little back
+to a woman's work. I took up the life around me as if there were no
+other life. I did not play all the time, but I enjoyed whatever work I
+found because I was so happy. I helped my Cousin Dinke help her
+mother with the housework. I put it this way because I think my aunt
+never set me any tasks; but Dinke was glad to have me help wash dishes
+and sweep and make beds. My cousin was a gentle, sweet girl, blue-eyed
+and fair, and altogether attractive. She talked to me about grown-up
+things, and I liked it. When her friends came to visit her she did not
+mind having me about, although my skirts were so short.
+
+My helping hand was extended also to my smaller cousins, Mendele and
+Perele. I played lotto with Mendele and let him beat me; I found him
+when he was lost, and I helped him play tricks on our elders. Perele,
+the baby, was at times my special charge, and I think she did not
+suffer in my hands. I was a good nurse, though my methods were
+somewhat original.
+
+Uncle Solomon was often away on business, and in his absence Cousin
+Hirshel was my hero. Hirshel was only a little older than I, but he
+was a pupil in the high school, and wore the student's uniform, and
+knew nearly as much as my uncle, I thought. When he buckled on his
+satchel of books in the morning, and strode away straight as a
+soldier,--no heder boy ever walked like that,--I stood in the doorway
+and worshipped his retreating steps. I met him on his return in the
+late afternoon, and hung over him when he laid out his books for his
+lessons. Sometimes he had long Russian pieces to commit to memory. He
+would walk up and down repeating the lines out loud, and I learned as
+fast as he. He would let me hold the book while he recited, and a
+proud girl was I if I could correct him.
+
+My interest in his lessons amused him; he did not take me seriously.
+He looked much like his father, and twinkled his eyes at me in the
+same way and made fun of me, too. But sometimes he condescended to set
+me a lesson in spelling or arithmetic,--in reading I was as good as
+he,--and if I did well, he praised me and went and told the family
+about it; but lest I grow too proud of my achievements, he would sit
+down and do mysterious sums--I now believe it was algebra--to which I
+had no clue whatever, and which duly impressed me with a sense of my
+ignorance.
+
+There were other books in the house than school-books. The Hebrew
+books, of course, were there, as in other Jewish homes; but I was no
+longer devoted to the Psalms. There were a few books about in Russian
+and in Yiddish, that were neither works of devotion nor of
+instruction. These were story-books and poems. They were a great
+surprise to me and a greater delight. I read them hungrily, all there
+were--a mere handful, but to me an overwhelming treasure. Of all those
+books I remember by name only "Robinson Crusoe." I think I preferred
+the stories to the poems, though poetry was good to recite, walking up
+and down, like Cousin Hirshel. That was my introduction to secular
+literature, but I did not understand it at the time.
+
+When I had exhausted the books, I began on the old volumes of a
+Russian periodical which I found on a shelf in my room. There was a
+high stack of these paper volumes, and I was so hungry for books that
+I went at them greedily, fearing that I might not get through before I
+had to return to Polotzk.
+
+I read every spare minute of the day, and most of the night. I
+scarcely ever stopped at night until my lamp burned out. Then I would
+creep into bed beside Dinke, but often my head burned so from
+excitement that I did not sleep at once. And no wonder. The violent
+romances which rushed through the pages of that periodical were fit to
+inflame an older, more sophisticated brain than mine. I must believe
+that it was a thoroughly respectable magazine, because I found it in
+my Uncle Solomon's house; but the novels it printed were certainly
+sensational, if I dare judge from my lurid recollections. These
+romances, indeed, may have had their literary qualities, which I was
+too untrained to appreciate. I remember nothing but startling
+adventures of strange heroes and heroines, violent catastrophes in
+every chapter, beautiful maidens abducted by cruel Cossacks, inhuman
+mothers who poisoned their daughters for jealousy of their lovers; and
+all these unheard-of things happening in a strange world, the very
+language of which was unnatural to me. I was quick enough to fix
+meanings to new words, however, so keen was my interest in what I
+read. Indeed, when I recall the zest with which I devoured those
+fearful pages, the thrill with which I followed the heartless mother
+or the abused maiden in her adventures, my heart beating in my throat
+when my little lamp began to flicker; and then, myself, big-eyed and
+shivery in the dark, stealing to bed like a guilty ghost,--when I
+remember all this, I have an unpleasant feeling, as of one hearing of
+another's debauch; and I would be glad to shake the little bony
+culprit that I was then.
+
+My uncle was away so much of the time that I doubt if he knew how I
+spent my nights. My aunt, poor hard-worked housewife, knew too little
+of books to direct my reading. My cousins were not enough older than
+myself to play mentors to me. Besides all this, I think it was tacitly
+agreed, at my uncle's as at home, that Mashke was best let alone in
+such matters. So I burnt my midnight lamp, and filled my mind with a
+conglomeration of images entirely unsuited to my mental digestion; and
+no one can say what they would have bred in me, besides headache and
+nervousness, had they not been so soon dispelled and superseded by a
+host of strong new impressions. For these readings ended with my
+visit, which was closely followed by the preparations for our
+emigration.
+
+On the whole, then, I do not feel that I was seriously harmed by my
+wild reading. I have not been told that my taste was corrupted, and my
+morals, I believe, have also escaped serious stricture. I would even
+say that I have never been hurt by any revelation, however distorted
+or untimely, that I found in books, good or poor; that I have never
+read an idle book that was entirely useless; and that I have never
+quite lost whatever was significant to my spirit in any book, good or
+bad, even though my conscious memory can give no account of it.
+
+One lived, at Uncle Solomon's, not only one's own life, but the life
+of all around. My uncle, when he returned after a short absence, had
+stories to tell and adventures to describe; and I learned that one
+might travel considerably and see things unknown even in Vitebsk,
+without going as far as America. My cousins sometimes went to the
+theatre, and I listened with rapture to their account of what they had
+seen, and I learned the songs they had heard. Once Cousin Hirshel went
+to see a giant, who exhibited himself for three kopecks, and came home
+with such marvellous accounts of his astonishing proportions, and his
+amazing feats of strength, that little Mendele cried for envy, and I
+had to play lotto with him and let him beat me oh, so easily! till he
+felt himself a man again.
+
+And sometimes I had adventures of my own. I explored the city to some
+extent by myself, or else my cousins took me with them on their
+errands. There were so many fine people to see, such wonderful shops,
+such great distances to go. Once they took me to a bookstore. I saw
+shelves and shelves of books, and people buying them, and taking them
+away to keep. I was told that some people had in their own houses more
+books than were in the store. Was not that wonderful? It was a great
+city, Vitebsk; I never could exhaust its delights.
+
+Although I did not often think of my people at home, struggling
+desperately to live while I revelled in abundance and pleasure and
+excitement, I did do my little to help the family by giving lessons in
+lacemaking. As this was the only time in my life that I earned money
+by the work of my hands, I take care not to forget it and I like to
+give an account of it.
+
+I was always, as I have elsewhere admitted, very clumsy with my hands,
+counting five thumbs to the hand. Knitting and embroidery, at which my
+sister was so clever, I could never do with any degree of skill. The
+blue peacock with the red tail that I achieved in cross-stitch was not
+a performance of any grace. Neither was I very much downcast at my
+failures in this field; I was not an ambitious needlewoman. But when
+the fad for "Russian lace" was introduced into Polotzk by a family of
+sisters who had been expelled from St. Petersburg, and all feminine
+Polotzk, on both sides of the Dvina, dropped knitting and crochet
+needles and embroidery frames to take up pillow and bobbins, I, too,
+was carried away by the novelty, and applied myself heartily to learn
+the intricate art, with the result that I did master it. The Russian
+sisters charged enormous fees for lessons, and made a fortune out of
+the sale of patterns while they held the monopoly. Their pupils passed
+on the art at reduced fees, and their pupils' pupils charged still
+less; until even the humblest cottage rang with the pretty click of
+the bobbins, and my Cousin Rachel sold steel pins by the ounce,
+instead of by the dozen, and the women exchanged cardboard patterns
+from one end of town to the other.
+
+My teacher, who taught me without fee, being a friend of our
+prosperous days, lived "on the other side." It was winter, and many a
+time I crossed the frozen river, carrying a lace pillow as big as
+myself, till my hands were numb with cold. But I persisted, afraid as
+I was of cold; and when I came to Vitebsk I was glad of my one
+accomplishment. For Vitebsk had not yet seen "Russian lace," and I was
+an acceptable teacher of the new art, though I was such a mite,
+because there was no other. I taught my Cousin Dinke, of course, and I
+had a number of paying pupils. I gave lessons at my pupils' homes, and
+was very proud, going thus about town and being received as a person
+of importance. If my feet did not reach the floor when I sat in a
+chair, my hands knew their business for once; and I was such a
+conscientious and enthusiastic teacher that I had the satisfaction of
+seeing all my pupils execute difficult pieces before I left Vitebsk.
+
+I never have seen money that was half so bright to look at, half so
+pretty to clink, as the money I earned by these lessons. And it was
+easy to decide what to do with my wealth. I bought presents for
+everybody I knew. I remember to this day the pattern of the shawl I
+bought for my mother. When I came home and unpacked my treasures, I
+was the proudest girl in Polotzk.
+
+The proudest, but not the happiest. I found my family in such a
+pitiful state that all my joy was stifled by care, if only for a
+while.
+
+Unwilling to spoil my holiday, my mother had not written me how things
+had gone from bad to worse during my absence, and I was not prepared.
+Fetchke met me at the station, and conducted me to a more wretched
+hole than I had ever called home before.
+
+I went into the room alone, having been greeted outside by my mother
+and brother. It was evening, and the shabbiness of the apartment was
+all the gloomier for the light of a small kerosene lamp standing on
+the bare deal table. At one end of the table--is this Deborah? My
+little sister, dressed in an ugly gray jacket, sat motionless in the
+lamplight, her fair head drooping, her little hands folded on the edge
+of the table. At sight of her I grew suddenly old. It was merely that
+she was a shy little girl, unbecomingly dressed, and perhaps a little
+pale from underfeeding. But to me, at that moment, she was the
+personification of dejection, the living symbol of the fallen family
+state.
+
+Of course my sober mood did not last long. Even "fallen family state"
+could be interpreted in terms of money--absent money--and that, as
+once established, was a trifling matter. Hadn't I earned money myself?
+Heaps of it! Only look at this, and this, and this that I brought from
+Vitebsk, bought with my own money! No, I did not remain old. For many
+years more I was a very childish child.
+
+Perhaps I had spent my time in Vitebsk to better advantage than at the
+milliner's, from any point of view. When I returned to my native town
+I _saw_ things. I saw the narrowness, the stifling narrowness, of life
+in Polotzk. My books, my walks, my visits, as teacher, to many homes,
+had been so many doors opening on a wider world; so many horizons, one
+beyond the other. The boundaries of life had stretched, and I had
+filled my lungs with the thrilling air from a great Beyond. Child
+though I was, Polotzk, when I came back, was too small for me.
+
+And even Vitebsk, for all its peepholes into a Beyond, presently began
+to shrink in my imagination, as America loomed near. My father's
+letters warned us to prepare for the summons, and we lived in a quiver
+of expectation.
+
+Not that my father had grown suddenly rich. He was so far from rich
+that he was going to borrow every cent of the money for our
+third-class passage; but he had a business in view which he could
+carry on all the better for having the family with him; and, besides,
+we were borrowing right and left anyway, and to no definite purpose.
+With the children, he argued, every year in Russia was a year lost.
+They should be spending the precious years in school, in learning
+English, in becoming Americans. United in America, there were ten
+chances of our getting to our feet again to one chance in our
+scattered, aimless state.
+
+So at last I was going to America! Really, really going, at last! The
+boundaries burst. The arch of heaven soared. A million suns shone out
+for every star. The winds rushed in from outer space, roaring in my
+ears, "America! America!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE EXODUS
+
+
+On the day when our steamer ticket arrived, my mother did not go out
+with her basket, my brother stayed out of heder, and my sister salted
+the soup three times. I do not know what I did to celebrate the
+occasion. Very likely I played tricks on Deborah, and wrote a long
+letter to my father.
+
+Before sunset the news was all over Polotzk that Hannah Hayye had
+received a steamer ticket for America. Then they began to come. Friends
+and foes, distant relatives and new acquaintances, young and old, wise
+and foolish, debtors and creditors, and mere neighbors,--from every
+quarter of the city, from both sides of the Dvina, from over the
+Polota, from nowhere,--a steady stream of them poured into our street,
+both day and night, till the hour of our departure. And my mother gave
+audience. Her faded kerchief halfway off her head, her black ringlets
+straying, her apron often at her eyes, she received her guests in a
+rainbow of smiles and tears. She was the heroine of Polotzk, and she
+conducted herself appropriately. She gave her heart's thanks for the
+congratulations and blessings that poured in on her; ready tears for
+condolences; patient answers to monotonous questions; and handshakes
+and kisses and hugs she gave gratis.
+
+What did they not ask, the eager, foolish, friendly people? They
+wanted to handle the ticket, and mother must read them what is written
+on it. How much did it cost? Was it all paid for? Were we going to
+have a foreign passport or did we intend to steal across the border?
+Were we not all going to have new dresses to travel in? Was it sure
+that we could get koscher food on the ship? And with the questions
+poured in suggestions, and solid chunks of advice were rammed in by
+nimble prophecies. Mother ought to make a pilgrimage to a "Good
+Jew"--say, the Rebbe of Lubavitch--to get his blessing on our journey.
+She must be sure and pack her prayer books and Bible, and twenty
+pounds of zwieback at the least. If they did serve trefah on the ship,
+she and the four children would have to starve, unless she carried
+provisions from home.--Oh, she must take all the featherbeds!
+Featherbeds are scarce in America. In America they sleep on hard
+mattresses, even in winter. Haveh Mirel, Yachne the dressmaker's
+daughter, who emigrated to New York two years ago, wrote her mother
+that she got up from childbed with sore sides, because she had no
+featherbed.--Mother mustn't carry her money in a pocketbook. She must
+sew it into the lining of her jacket. The policemen in Castle Garden
+take all their money from the passengers as they land, unless the
+travellers deny having any.
+
+And so on, and so on, till my poor mother was completely bewildered.
+And as the day set for our departure approached, the people came
+oftener and stayed longer, and rehearsed my mother in long messages
+for their friends in America, praying that she deliver them promptly
+on her arrival, and without fail, and might God bless her for her
+kindness, and she must be sure and write them how she found their
+friends.
+
+Hayye Dvoshe, the wig-maker, for the eleventh time repeating herself,
+to my mother, still patiently attentive, thus:--
+
+"Promise me, I beg you. I don't sleep nights for thinking of him.
+Emigrated to America eighteen months ago, fresh and well and strong,
+with twenty-five ruble in his pocket, besides his steamer ticket, with
+new phylacteries, and a silk skull-cap, and a suit as good as
+new,--made it only three years before,--everything respectable, there
+could be nothing better;--sent one letter, how he arrived in Castle
+Garden, how well he was received by his uncle's son-in-law, how he was
+conducted to the baths, how they bought him an American suit,
+everything good, fine, pleasant;--wrote how his relative promised him
+a position in his business--a clothing merchant is he--makes
+gold,--and since then not a postal card, not a word, just as if he had
+vanished, as if the earth had swallowed him. _Oi, weh!_ what haven't I
+imagined, what haven't I dreamed, what haven't I lamented! Already
+three letters have I sent--the last one, you know, you yourself wrote
+for me, Hannah Hayye, dear--and no answer. Lost, as if in the sea!"
+
+And after the application of a corner of her shawl to eyes and nose,
+Hayye Dvoshe, continuing:--
+
+"So you will go into the newspaper, and ask them what has become of my
+Möshele, and if he isn't in Castle Garden, maybe he went up to
+Balti-moreh,--it's in the neighborhood, you know,--and you can tell
+them, for a mark, that he has a silk handkerchief with his monogram in
+Russian, that his betrothed embroidered for him before the engagement
+was broken. And may God grant you an easy journey, and may you arrive
+in a propitious hour, and may you find your husband well, and strong,
+and rich, and may you both live to lead your children to the wedding
+canopy, and may America shower gold on you. Amen."
+
+The weeks skipped, the days took wing, an hour was a flash of thought;
+so brimful of events was the interval before our departure. And no one
+was more alive than I to the multiple significance of the daily drama.
+My mother, full of grief at the parting from home and family and all
+things dear, anxious about the journey, uncertain about the future,
+but ready, as ever, to take up what new burdens awaited her; my
+sister, one with our mother in every hope and apprehension; my
+brother, rejoicing in his sudden release from heder; and the little
+sister, vaguely excited by mysteries afoot; the uncles and aunts and
+devoted neighbors, sad and solemn over their coming loss; and my
+father away over in Boston, eager and anxious about us in Polotzk,--an
+American citizen impatient to start his children on American
+careers,--I knew the minds of every one of these, and I lived their
+days and nights with them after an apish fashion of my own.
+
+But at bottom I was aloof from them all. What made me silent and
+big-eyed was the sense of being in the midst of a tremendous
+adventure. From morning till night I was all attention. I must credit
+myself with some pang of parting; I certainly felt the thrill of
+expectation; but keener than these was my delight in the progress of
+the great adventure. It was delightful just to be myself. I rejoiced,
+with the younger children, during the weeks of packing and
+preparation, in the relaxation of discipline and the general
+demoralization of our daily life. It was pleasant to be petted and
+spoiled by favorite cousins and stuffed with belated sweets by
+unfavorite ones. It was distinctly interesting to catch my mother
+weeping in corner cupboards over precious rubbish that could by no
+means be carried to America. It was agreeable to have my Uncle Moses
+stroke my hair and regard me with affectionate eyes, while he told me
+that I would soon forget him, and asked me, so coaxingly, to write him
+an account of our journey. It was delicious to be notorious through
+the length and breadth of Polotzk; to be stopped and questioned at
+every shop-door, when I ran out to buy two kopecks' worth of butter;
+to be treated with respect by my former playmates, if ever I found
+time to mingle with them; to be pointed at by my enemies, as I passed
+them importantly on the street. And all my delight and pride and
+interest were steeped in a super-feeling, the sense that it was I,
+Mashke, _I myself_, that was moving and acting in the midst of unusual
+events. Now that I was sure of America, I was in no hurry to depart,
+and not impatient to arrive. I was willing to linger over every detail
+of our progress, and so cherish the flavor of the adventure.
+
+The last night in Polotzk we slept at my uncle's house, having
+disposed of all our belongings, to the last three-legged stool, except
+such as we were taking with us. I could go straight to the room where
+I slept with my aunt that night, if I were suddenly set down in
+Polotzk. But I did not really sleep. Excitement kept me awake, and my
+aunt snored hideously. In the morning I was going away from Polotzk,
+forever and ever. I was going on a wonderful journey. I was going to
+America. How could I sleep?
+
+My uncle gave out a false bulletin, with the last batch that the
+gossips carried away in the evening. He told them that we were not
+going to start till the second day. This he did in the hope of
+smuggling us quietly out, and so saving us the wear and tear of a
+public farewell. But his ruse failed of success. Half of Polotzk was
+at my uncle's gate in the morning, to conduct us to the railway
+station, and the other half was already there before we arrived.
+
+The procession resembled both a funeral and a triumph. The women wept
+over us, reminding us eloquently of the perils of the sea, of the
+bewilderment of a foreign land, of the torments of homesickness that
+awaited us. They bewailed my mother's lot, who had to tear herself
+away from blood relations to go among strangers; who had to face
+gendarmes, ticket agents, and sailors, unprotected by a masculine
+escort; who had to care for four young children in the confusion of
+travel, and very likely feed them trefah or see them starve on the
+way. Or they praised her for a brave pilgrim, and expressed confidence
+in her ability to cope with gendarmes and ticket agents, and blessed
+her with every other word, and all but carried her in their arms.
+
+At the station the procession disbanded and became a mob. My uncle and
+my tall cousins did their best to protect us, but we wanderers were
+almost torn to pieces. They did get us into a car at last, but the
+riot on the station platform continued unquelled. When the warning
+bell rang out, it was drowned in a confounding babel of
+voices,--fragments of the oft-repeated messages, admonitions,
+lamentations, blessings, farewells. "Don't forget!"--"Take care of--"
+"Keep your tickets--" "Möshele--newspapers!" "Garlick is best!" "Happy
+journey!" "God help you!" "Good-bye! Good-bye!" "Remember--"
+
+The last I saw of Polotzk was an agitated mass of people, waving
+colored handkerchiefs and other frantic bits of calico, madly
+gesticulating, falling on each other's necks, gone wild altogether.
+Then the station became invisible, and the shining tracks spun out
+from sky to sky. I was in the middle of the great, great world, and
+the longest road was mine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Memory may take a rest while I copy from a contemporaneous document
+the story of the great voyage. In accordance with my promise to my
+uncle, I wrote, during my first months in America, a detailed account
+of our adventures between Polotzk and Boston. Ink was cheap, and the
+epistle, in Yiddish, occupied me for many hot summer hours. It was a
+great disaster, therefore, to have a lamp upset on my writing-table,
+when I was near the end, soaking the thick pile of letter sheets in
+kerosene. I was obliged to make a fair copy for my uncle, and my
+father kept the oily, smelly original. After a couple of years'
+teasing, he induced me to translate the letter into English, for the
+benefit of a friend who did not know Yiddish; for the benefit of the
+present narrative, which was not thought of thirteen years ago. I can
+hardly refrain from moralizing as I turn to the leaves of my childish
+manuscript, grateful at last for the calamity of the overturned lamp.
+
+Our route lay over the German border, with Hamburg for our port. On
+the way to the frontier we stopped for a farewell visit in Vilna,
+where my mother had a brother. Vilna is slighted in my description. I
+find special mention of only two things, the horse-cars and the
+bookstores.
+
+On a gray wet morning in early April we set out for the frontier. This
+was the real beginning of our journey, and all my faculties of
+observation were alert. I took note of everything,--the weather, the
+trains, the bustle of railroad stations, our fellow passengers, and
+the family mood at every stage of our progress.
+
+The bags and bundles which composed our travelling outfit were much
+more bulky than valuable. A trifling sum of money, the steamer ticket,
+and the foreign passport were the magic agents by means of which we
+hoped to span the five thousand miles of earth and water between us
+and my father. The passport was supposed to pass us over the frontier
+without any trouble, but on account of the prevalence of cholera in
+some parts of the country, the poorer sort of travellers, such as
+emigrants, were subjected, at this time, to more than ordinary
+supervision and regulation.
+
+At Versbolovo, the last station on the Russian side, we met the first
+of our troubles. A German physician and several gendarmes boarded the
+train and put us through a searching examination as to our health,
+destination, and financial resources. As a result of the inquisition
+we were informed that we would not be allowed to cross the frontier
+unless we exchanged our third-class steamer ticket for second-class,
+which would require two hundred rubles more than we possessed. Our
+passport was taken from us, and we were to be turned back on our
+journey.
+
+My letter describes the situation:--
+
+    We were homeless, houseless, and friendless in a strange place.
+    We had hardly money enough to last us through the voyage for
+    which we had hoped and waited for three long years. We had
+    suffered much that the reunion we longed for might come about;
+    we had prepared ourselves to suffer more in order to bring it
+    about, and had parted with those we loved, with places that were
+    dear to us in spite of what we passed through in them, never
+    again to see them, as we were convinced--all for the same dear
+    end. With strong hopes and high spirits that hid the sad
+    parting, we had started on our long journey. And now we were
+    checked so unexpectedly but surely, the blow coming from where
+    we little expected it, being, as we believed, safe in that
+    quarter. When my mother had recovered enough to speak, she began
+    to argue with the gendarme, telling him our story and begging
+    him to be kind. The children were frightened and all but I
+    cried. I was only wondering what would happen.
+
+Moved by our distress, the German officers gave us the best advice
+they could. We were to get out at the station of Kibart on the Russian
+side, and apply to one Herr Schidorsky, who might help us on our way.
+
+The letter goes on:--
+
+    We are in Kibart, at the depot. The least important particular,
+    even, of that place, I noticed and remembered. How the
+    porter--he was an ugly, grinning man--carried in our things and
+    put them away in the southern corner of the big room, on the
+    floor; how we sat down on a settee near them, a yellow settee;
+    how the glass roof let in so much light that we had to shade our
+    eyes because the car had been dark and we had been crying; how
+    there were only a few people besides ourselves there, and how I
+    began to count them and stopped when I noticed a sign over the
+    head of the fifth person--a little woman with a red nose and a
+    pimple on it--and tried to read the German, with the aid of the
+    Russian translation below. I noticed all this and remembered it,
+    as if there were nothing else in the world for me to think of.
+
+The letter dwells gratefully on the kindness of Herr Schidorsky, who
+became the agent of our salvation. He procured my mother a pass to
+Eidtkuhnen, the German frontier station, where his older brother, as
+chairman of a well-known emigrant aid association, arranged for our
+admission into Germany. During the negotiations, which took several
+days, the good man of Kibart entertained us in his own house, shabby
+emigrants though we were. The Schidorsky brothers were Jews, but it is
+not on that account that their name has been lovingly remembered for
+fifteen years in my family.
+
+On the German side our course joined that of many other emigrant
+groups, on their way to Hamburg and other ports. We were a clumsy
+enough crowd, with wide, unsophisticated eyes, with awkward bundles
+hugged in our arms, and our hearts set on America.
+
+The letter to my uncle faithfully describes every stage of our
+bustling progress. Here is a sample scene of many that I recorded:--
+
+    There was a terrible confusion in the baggage-room where we were
+    directed to go. Boxes, baskets, bags, valises, and great,
+    shapeless things belonging to no particular class, were thrown
+    about by porters and other men, who sorted them and put tickets
+    on all but those containing provisions, while others were opened
+    and examined in haste. At last our turn came, and our things,
+    along with those of all other American-bound travellers, were
+    taken away to be steamed and smoked and other such processes
+    gone through. We were told to wait till notice should be given
+    us of something else to be done.
+
+The phrases "we were told to do this" and "told to do that" occur
+again and again in my narrative, and the most effective handling of
+the facts could give no more vivid picture of the proceedings. We
+emigrants were herded at the stations, packed in the cars, and driven
+from place to place like cattle.
+
+    At the expected hour we all tried to find room in a car
+    indicated by the conductor. We tried, but could only find enough
+    space on the floor for our baggage, on which we made-believe
+    sitting comfortably. For now we were obliged to exchange the
+    comparative comforts of a third-class passenger train for the
+    certain discomforts of a fourth-class one. There were only four
+    narrow benches in the whole car, and about twice as many people
+    were already seated on these as they were probably supposed to
+    accommodate. All other space, to the last inch, was crowded by
+    passengers or their luggage. It was very hot and close and
+    altogether uncomfortable, and still at every new station fresh
+    passengers came crowding in, and actually made room, spare as it
+    was, for themselves. It became so terrible that all glared madly
+    at the conductor as he allowed more people to come into that
+    prison, and trembled at the announcement of every station. I
+    cannot see even now how the officers could allow such a thing;
+    it was really dangerous.
+
+The following is my attempt to describe a flying glimpse of a
+metropolis:--
+
+    Towards evening we came into Berlin. I grow dizzy even now when
+    I think of our whirling through that city. It seemed we were
+    going faster and faster all the time, but it was only the whirl
+    of trains passing in opposite directions and close to us that
+    made it seem so. The sight of crowds of people such as we had
+    never seen before, hurrying to and fro, in and out of great
+    depots that danced past us, helped to make it more so. Strange
+    sights, splendid buildings, shops, people, and animals, all
+    mingled in one great, confused mass of a disposition to
+    continually move in a great hurry, wildly, with no other aim but
+    to make one's head go round and round, in following its dreadful
+    motions. Round and round went my head. It was nothing but
+    trains, depots, crowds,--crowds, depots, trains,--again and
+    again, with no beginning, no end, only a mad dance! Faster and
+    faster we go, faster still, and the noise increases with the
+    speed. Bells, whistles, hammers, locomotives shrieking madly,
+    men's voices, peddlers' cries, horses' hoofs, dogs'
+    barkings--all united in doing their best to drown every other
+    sound but their own, and made such a deafening uproar in the
+    attempt that nothing could keep it out.
+
+The plight of the bewildered emigrant on the way to foreign parts is
+always pitiful enough, but for us who came from plague-ridden Russia
+the terrors of the way were doubled.
+
+    In a great lonely field, opposite a solitary house within a
+    large yard, our train pulled up at last, and a conductor
+    commanded the passengers to make haste and get out. He need not
+    have told us to hurry; we were glad enough to be free again
+    after such a long imprisonment in the uncomfortable car. All
+    rushed to the door. We breathed more freely in the open field,
+    but the conductor did not wait for us to enjoy our freedom. He
+    hurried us into the one large room which made up the house, and
+    then into the yard. Here a great many men and women, dressed in
+    white, received us, the women attending to the women and girls
+    of the passengers, and the men to the others.
+
+    This was another scene of bewildering confusion, parents losing
+    their children, and little ones crying; baggage being thrown
+    together in one corner of the yard, heedless of contents, which
+    suffered in consequence; those white-clad Germans shouting
+    commands, always accompanied with "Quick! Quick!"--the confused
+    passengers obeying all orders like meek children, only
+    questioning now and then what was going to be done with them.
+
+    And no wonder if in some minds stories arose of people being
+    captured by robbers, murderers, and the like. Here we had been
+    taken to a lonely place where only that house was to be seen;
+    our things were taken away, our friends separated from us; a man
+    came to inspect us, as if to ascertain our full value;
+    strange-looking people driving us about like dumb animals,
+    helpless and unresisting; children we could not see crying in a
+    way that suggested terrible things; ourselves driven into a
+    little room where a great kettle was boiling on a little stove;
+    our clothes taken off, our bodies rubbed with a slippery
+    substance that might be any bad thing; a shower of warm water
+    let down on us without warning; again driven to another little
+    room where we sit, wrapped in woollen blankets till large,
+    coarse bags are brought in, their contents turned out, and we
+    see only a cloud of steam, and hear the women's orders to dress
+    ourselves,--"Quick! Quick!"--or else we'll miss--something we
+    cannot hear. We are forced to pick out our clothes from among
+    all the others, with the steam blinding us; we choke, cough,
+    entreat the women to give us time; they persist, "Quick!
+    Quick!--or you'll miss the train!"--Oh, so we really won't be
+    murdered! They are only making us ready for the continuing of
+    our journey, cleaning us of all suspicions of dangerous
+    sickness. Thank God!
+
+In Polotzk, if the cholera broke out, as it did once or twice in every
+generation, we made no such fuss as did these Germans. Those who died
+of the sickness were buried, and those who lived ran to the synagogues
+to pray. We travellers felt hurt at the way the Germans treated us. My
+mother nearly died of cholera once, but she was given a new name, a
+lucky one, which saved her; and that was when she was a small girl.
+None of us were sick now, yet hear how we were treated! Those
+gendarmes and nurses always shouted their commands at us from a
+distance, as fearful of our touch as if we had been lepers.
+
+We arrived in Hamburg early one morning, after a long night in the
+crowded cars. We were marched up to a strange vehicle, long and
+narrow and high, drawn by two horses and commanded by a mute driver.
+We were piled up on this wagon, our baggage was thrown after us, and
+we started on a sight-seeing tour across the city of Hamburg. The
+sights I faithfully enumerate for the benefit of my uncle include
+little carts drawn by dogs, and big cars that run of themselves, later
+identified as electric cars.
+
+The humorous side of our adventures did not escape me. Again and again
+I come across a laugh in the long pages of the historic epistle. The
+description of the ride through Hamburg ends with this:--
+
+    The sight-seeing was not all on our side. I noticed many people
+    stopping to look at us as if amused, though most passed by us as
+    though used to such sights. We did make a queer appearance all
+    in a long row, up above people's heads. In fact, we looked like
+    a flock of giant fowls roosting, only wide awake.
+
+The smiles and shivers fairly crowded each other in some parts of our
+career.
+
+    Suddenly, when everything interesting seemed at an end, we all
+    recollected how long it was since we had started on our funny
+    ride. Hours, we thought, and still the horses ran. Now we rode
+    through quieter streets where there were fewer shops and more
+    wooden houses. Still the horses seemed to have but just started.
+    I looked over our perch again. Something made me think of a
+    description I had read of criminals being carried on long
+    journeys in uncomfortable things--like this? Well, it was
+    strange--this long, long drive, the conveyance, no word of
+    explanation; and all, though going different ways, being packed
+    off together. We were strangers; the driver knew it. He might
+    take us anywhere--how could we tell? I was frightened again as
+    in Berlin. The faces around me confessed the same.
+
+    Yes, we are frightened. We are very still. Some Polish women
+    over there have fallen asleep, and the rest of us look such a
+    picture of woe, and yet so funny, it is a sight to see and
+    remember.
+
+Our mysterious ride came to an end on the outskirts of the city, where
+we were once more lined up, cross-questioned, disinfected, labelled,
+and pigeonholed. This was one of the occasions when we suspected that
+we were the victims of a conspiracy to extort money from us; for here,
+as at every repetition of the purifying operations we had undergone, a
+fee was levied on us, so much per head. My mother, indeed, seeing her
+tiny hoard melting away, had long since sold some articles from our
+baggage to a fellow passenger richer than she, but even so she did not
+have enough money to pay the fee demanded of her in Hamburg. Her
+statement was not accepted, and we all suffered the last indignity of
+having our persons searched.
+
+This last place of detention turned out to be a prison. "Quarantine"
+they called it, and there was a great deal of it--two weeks of it. Two
+weeks within high brick walls, several hundred of us herded in half a
+dozen compartments,--numbered compartments,--sleeping in rows, like
+sick people in a hospital; with roll-call morning and night, and short
+rations three times a day; with never a sign of the free world beyond
+our barred windows; with anxiety and longing and homesickness in our
+hearts, and in our ears the unfamiliar voice of the invisible ocean,
+which drew and repelled us at the same time. The fortnight in
+quarantine was not an episode; it was an epoch, divisible into eras,
+periods, events.
+
+    The greatest event was the arrival of some ship to take some of
+    the waiting passengers. When the gates were opened and the lucky
+    ones said good-bye, those left behind felt hopeless of ever
+    seeing the gates open for them. It was both pleasant and
+    painful, for the strangers grew to be fast friends in a day, and
+    really rejoiced in each other's fortune; but the regretful envy
+    could not be helped either.
+
+Our turn came at last. We were conducted through the gate of
+departure, and after some hours of bewildering manoeuvres, described
+in great detail in the report to my uncle, we found ourselves--we five
+frightened pilgrims from Polotzk--on the deck of a great big steamship
+afloat on the strange big waters of the ocean.
+
+For sixteen days the ship was our world. My letter dwells solemnly on
+the details of the life at sea, as if afraid to cheat my uncle of the
+smallest circumstance. It does not shrink from describing the torments
+of seasickness; it notes every change in the weather. A rough night is
+described, when the ship pitched and rolled so that people were thrown
+from their berths; days and nights when we crawled through dense fogs,
+our foghorn drawing answering warnings from invisible ships. The
+perils of the sea were not minimized in the imaginations of us
+inexperienced voyagers. The captain and his officers ate their
+dinners, smoked their pipes and slept soundly in their turns, while we
+frightened emigrants turned our faces to the wall and awaited our
+watery graves.
+
+All this while the seasickness lasted. Then came happy hours on deck,
+with fugitive sunshine, birds atop the crested waves, band music and
+dancing and fun. I explored the ship, made friends with officers and
+crew, or pursued my thoughts in quiet nooks. It was my first
+experience of the ocean, and I was profoundly moved.
+
+    Oh, what solemn thoughts I had! How deeply I felt the greatness,
+    the power of the scene! The immeasurable distance from horizon
+    to horizon; the huge billows forever changing their shapes--now
+    only a wavy and rolling plain, now a chain of great mountains,
+    coming and going farther away; then a town in the distance,
+    perhaps, with spires and towers and buildings of gigantic
+    dimensions; and mostly a vast mass of uncertain shapes, knocking
+    against each other in fury, and seething and foaming in their
+    anger; the gray sky, with its mountains of gloomy clouds,
+    flying, moving with the waves, as it seemed, very near them; the
+    absence of any object besides the one ship; and the deep, solemn
+    groans of the sea, sounding as if all the voices of the world
+    had been turned into sighs and then gathered into that one
+    mournful sound--so deeply did I feel the presence of these
+    things, that the feeling became one of awe, both painful and
+    sweet, and stirring and warming, and deep and calm and grand.
+
+    I would imagine myself all alone on the ocean, and Robinson
+    Crusoe was very real to me. I was alone sometimes. I was aware
+    of no human presence; I was conscious only of sea and sky and
+    something I did not understand. And as I listened to its solemn
+    voice, I felt as if I had found a friend, and knew that I loved
+    the ocean. It seemed as if it were within as well as without,
+    part of myself; and I wondered how I had lived without it, and
+    if I could ever part with it.
+
+And so suffering, fearing, brooding, rejoicing we crept nearer and
+nearer to the coveted shore, until, on a glorious May morning, six
+weeks after our departure from Polotzk, our eyes beheld the Promised
+Land, and my father received us in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+
+Having made such good time across the ocean, I ought to be able to
+proceed no less rapidly on _terra firma_, where, after all, I am more
+at home. And yet here is where I falter. Not that I hesitated, even
+for the space of a breath, in my first steps in America. There was no
+time to hesitate. The most ignorant immigrant, on landing proceeds to
+give and receive greetings, to eat, sleep and rise, after the manner
+of his own country; wherein he is corrected, admonished, and laughed
+at, whether by interested friends or the most indifferent strangers;
+and his American experience is thus begun. The process is spontaneous
+on all sides, like the education of the child by the family circle.
+But while the most stupid nursery maid is able to contribute her part
+toward the result, we do not expect an analysis of the process to be
+furnished by any member of the family, least of all by the engaging
+infant. The philosophical maiden aunt alone, or some other witness
+equally psychological and aloof, is able to trace the myriad efforts
+by which the little Johnnie or Nellie acquires a secure hold on the
+disjointed parts of the huge plaything, life.
+
+Now I was not exactly an infant when I was set down, on a May day some
+fifteen years ago, in this pleasant nursery of America. I had long
+since acquired the use of my faculties, and had collected some bits of
+experience practical and emotional, and had even learned to give an
+account of them. Still, I had very little perspective, and my
+observations and comparisons were superficial. I was too much carried
+away to analyze the forces that were moving me. My Polotzk I knew well
+before I began to judge it and experiment with it. America was
+bewilderingly strange, unimaginably complex, delightfully unexplored.
+I rushed impetuously out of the cage of my provincialism and looked
+eagerly about the brilliant universe. My question was, What have we
+here?--not, What does this mean? That query came much later. When I
+now become retrospectively introspective, I fall into the predicament
+of the centipede in the rhyme, who got along very smoothly until he
+was asked which leg came after which, whereupon he became so rattled
+that he couldn't take a step. I know I have come on a thousand feet,
+on wings, winds and American machines,--I have leaped and run and
+climbed and crawled,--but to tell which step came after which I find a
+puzzling matter. Plenty of maiden aunts were present during my second
+infancy, in the guise of immigrant officials, school-teachers,
+settlement workers, and sundry other unprejudiced and critical
+observers. Their statistics I might properly borrow to fill the gaps
+in my recollections, but I am prevented by my sense of harmony. The
+individual, we know, is a creature unknown to the statistician,
+whereas I undertook to give the personal view of everything. So I am
+bound to unravel, as well as I can, the tangle of events, outer and
+inner, which made up the first breathless years of my American life.
+
+During his three years of probation, my father had made a number of
+false starts in business. His history for that period is the history
+of thousands who come to America, like him, with pockets empty, hands
+untrained to the use of tools, minds cramped by centuries of
+repression in their native land. Dozens of these men pass under your
+eyes every day, my American friend, too absorbed in their honest
+affairs to notice the looks of suspicion which you cast at them, the
+repugnance with which you shrink from their touch. You see them
+shuffle from door to door with a basket of spools and buttons, or
+bending over the sizzling irons in a basement tailor shop, or
+rummaging in your ash can, or moving a pushcart from curb to curb, at
+the command of the burly policeman. "The Jew peddler!" you say, and
+dismiss him from your premises and from your thoughts, never dreaming
+that the sordid drama of his days may have a moral that concerns you.
+What if the creature with the untidy beard carries in his bosom his
+citizenship papers? What if the cross-legged tailor is supporting a
+boy in college who is one day going to mend your state constitution
+for you? What if the ragpicker's daughters are hastening over the
+ocean to teach your children in the public schools? Think, every time
+you pass the greasy alien on the street, that he was born thousands of
+years before the oldest native American; and he may have something to
+communicate to you, when you two shall have learned a common language.
+Remember that his very physiognomy is a cipher the key to which it
+behooves you to search for most diligently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the time we joined my father, he had surveyed many avenues of
+approach toward the coveted citadel of fortune. One of these,
+heretofore untried, he now proposed to essay, armed with new courage,
+and cheered on by the presence of his family. In partnership with an
+energetic little man who had an English chapter in his history, he
+prepared to set up a refreshment booth on Crescent Beach. But while he
+was completing arrangements at the beach we remained in town, where we
+enjoyed the educational advantages of a thickly populated
+neighborhood; namely, Wall Street, in the West End of Boston.
+
+Anybody who knows Boston knows that the West and North Ends are the
+wrong ends of that city. They form the tenement district, or, in the
+newer phrase, the slums of Boston. Anybody who is acquainted with the
+slums of any American metropolis knows that that is the quarter where
+poor immigrants foregather, to live, for the most part, as unkempt,
+half-washed, toiling, unaspiring foreigners; pitiful in the eyes of
+social missionaries, the despair of boards of health, the hope of ward
+politicians, the touchstone of American democracy. The well-versed
+metropolitan knows the slums as a sort of house of detention for poor
+aliens, where they live on probation till they can show a certificate
+of good citizenship.
+
+He may know all this and yet not guess how Wall Street, in the West
+End, appears in the eyes of a little immigrant from Polotzk. What
+would the sophisticated sight-seer say about Union Place, off Wall
+Street, where my new home waited for me? He would say that it is no
+place at all, but a short box of an alley. Two rows of three-story
+tenements are its sides, a stingy strip of sky is its lid, a littered
+pavement is the floor, and a narrow mouth its exit.
+
+But I saw a very different picture on my introduction to Union Place.
+I saw two imposing rows of brick buildings, loftier than any dwelling
+I had ever lived in. Brick was even on the ground for me to tread on,
+instead of common earth or boards. Many friendly windows stood open,
+filled with uncovered heads of women and children. I thought the
+people were interested in us, which was very neighborly. I looked up
+to the topmost row of windows, and my eyes were filled with the May
+blue of an American sky!
+
+In our days of affluence in Russia we had been accustomed to
+upholstered parlors, embroidered linen, silver spoons and
+candlesticks, goblets of gold, kitchen shelves shining with copper and
+brass. We had featherbeds heaped halfway to the ceiling; we had
+clothes presses dusky with velvet and silk and fine woollen. The three
+small rooms into which my father now ushered us, up one flight of
+stairs, contained only the necessary beds, with lean mattresses; a few
+wooden chairs; a table or two; a mysterious iron structure, which
+later turned out to be a stove; a couple of unornamental kerosene
+lamps; and a scanty array of cooking-utensils and crockery. And yet we
+were all impressed with our new home and its furniture. It was not
+only because we had just passed through our seven lean years, cooking
+in earthen vessels, eating black bread on holidays and wearing cotton;
+it was chiefly because these wooden chairs and tin pans were American
+chairs and pans that they shone glorious in our eyes. And if there was
+anything lacking for comfort or decoration we expected it to be
+presently supplied--at least, we children did. Perhaps my mother
+alone, of us newcomers, appreciated the shabbiness of the little
+apartment, and realized that for her there was as yet no laying down
+of the burden of poverty.
+
+Our initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new
+soil. My father found occasion to instruct or correct us even on
+the way from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded
+together in a rickety cab. He told us not to lean out of the windows,
+not to point, and explained the word "greenhorn." We did not want to
+be "greenhorns," and gave the strictest attention to my father's
+instructions. I do not know when my parents found opportunity to
+review together the history of Polotzk in the three years past, for we
+children had no patience with the subject; my mother's narrative was
+constantly interrupted by irrelevant questions, interjections, and
+explanations.
+
+   [Illustration: UNION PLACE (BOSTON) WHERE MY NEW HOME WAITED
+   FOR ME]
+
+The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father
+produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking,
+from little tin cans that had printing all over them. He attempted to
+introduce us to a queer, slippery kind of fruit, which he called
+"banana," but had to give it up for the time being. After the meal, he
+had better luck with a curious piece of furniture on runners, which he
+called "rocking-chair." There were five of us newcomers, and we found
+five different ways of getting into the American machine of perpetual
+motion, and as many ways of getting out of it. One born and bred to
+the use of a rocking-chair cannot imagine how ludicrous people can
+make themselves when attempting to use it for the first time. We
+laughed immoderately over our various experiments with the novelty,
+which was a wholesome way of letting off steam after the unusual
+excitement of the day.
+
+In our flat we did not think of such a thing as storing the coal in
+the bathtub. There was no bathtub. So in the evening of the first day
+my father conducted us to the public baths. As we moved along in a
+little procession, I was delighted with the illumination of the
+streets. So many lamps, and they burned until morning, my father
+said, and so people did not need to carry lanterns. In America, then,
+everything was free, as we had heard in Russia. Light was free; the
+streets were as bright as a synagogue on a holy day. Music was free;
+we had been serenaded, to our gaping delight, by a brass band of many
+pieces, soon after our installation on Union Place.
+
+Education was free. That subject my father had written about
+repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence
+of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not
+even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to
+promise us when he sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter. On
+our second day I was thrilled with the realization of what this
+freedom of education meant. A little girl from across the alley came
+and offered to conduct us to school. My father was out, but we five
+between us had a few words of English by this time. We knew the word
+school. We understood. This child, who had never seen us till
+yesterday, who could not pronounce our names, who was not much better
+dressed than we, was able to offer us the freedom of the schools of
+Boston! No application made, no questions asked, no examinations,
+rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees. The doors stood open
+for every one of us. The smallest child could show us the way.
+
+This incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance
+of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete
+proof--almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand
+it.
+
+It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not
+to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of
+the term, he said, and we were going to move to Crescent Beach in a
+week or so. We had to wait until the opening of the schools in
+September. What a loss of precious time--from May till September!
+
+Not that the time was really lost. Even the interval on Union Place
+was crowded with lessons and experiences. We had to visit the stores
+and be dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to learn
+the mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube;
+we had to learn to trade with the fruit peddler through the window,
+and not to be afraid of the policeman; and, above all, we had to learn
+English.
+
+The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a
+group by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen
+them from those early days till now, I should still have remembered
+them with gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of my American
+teachers, I must begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and
+taught us our first steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the
+cookstove, the woman who showed her how to make the fire was an angel
+of deliverance. A fairy godmother to us children was she who led us to
+a wonderful country called "uptown," where, in a dazzlingly beautiful
+palace called a "department store," we exchanged our hateful homemade
+European costumes, which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the
+children on the street, for real American machine-made garments, and
+issued forth glorified in each other's eyes.
+
+With our despised immigrant clothing we shed also our impossible
+Hebrew names. A committee of our friends, several years ahead of us in
+American experience, put their heads together and concocted American
+names for us all. Those of our real names that had no pleasing
+American equivalents they ruthlessly discarded, content if they
+retained the initials. My mother, possessing a name that was not
+easily translatable, was punished with the undignified nickname of
+Annie. Fetchke, Joseph, and Deborah issued as Frieda, Joseph, and
+Dora, respectively. As for poor me, I was simply cheated. The name
+they gave me was hardly new. My Hebrew name being Maryashe in full,
+Mashke for short, Russianized into Marya (_Mar-ya_), my friends said
+that it would hold good in English as _Mary_; which was very
+disappointing, as I longed to possess a strange-sounding American name
+like the others.
+
+I am forgetting the consolation I had, in this matter of names, from
+the use of my surname, which I have had no occasion to mention until
+now. I found on my arrival that my father was "Mr. Antin" on the
+slightest provocation, and not, as in Polotzk, on state occasions
+alone. And so I was "Mary Antin," and I felt very important to answer
+to such a dignified title. It was just like America that even plain
+people should wear their surnames on week days.
+
+As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and
+so clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to
+Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household
+goods, my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way,
+and I am sure he was not ashamed of us. So much we had achieved toward
+our Americanization during the two weeks since our landing.
+
+Crescent Beach is a name that is printed in very small type on the
+maps of the environs of Boston, but a life-size strip of sand curves
+from Winthrop to Lynn; and that is historic ground in the annals of my
+family. The place is now a popular resort for holiday crowds, and is
+famous under the name of Revere Beach. When the reunited Antins made
+their stand there, however, there were no boulevards, no stately
+bath-houses, no hotels, no gaudy amusement places, no illuminations,
+no showmen, no tawdry rabble. There was only the bright clean sweep of
+sand, the summer sea, and the summer sky. At high tide the whole
+Atlantic rushed in, tossing the seaweeds in his mane; at low tide he
+rushed out, growling and gnashing his granite teeth. Between tides a
+baby might play on the beach, digging with pebbles and shells, till it
+lay asleep on the sand. The whole sun shone by day, troops of stars by
+night, and the great moon in its season.
+
+Into this grand cycle of the seaside day I came to live and learn and
+play. A few people came with me, as I have already intimated; but the
+main thing was that _I_ came to live on the edge of the sea--I, who
+had spent my life inland, believing that the great waters of the world
+were spread out before me in the Dvina. My idea of the human world had
+grown enormously during the long journey; my idea of the earth had
+expanded with every day at sea; my idea of the world outside the earth
+now budded and swelled during my prolonged experience of the wide and
+unobstructed heavens.
+
+Not that I got any inkling of the conception of a multiple world. I
+had had no lessons in cosmogony, and I had no spontaneous revelation
+of the true position of the earth in the universe. For me, as for my
+fathers, the sun set and rose, and I did not feel the earth rushing
+through space. But I lay stretched out in the sun, my eyes level with
+the sea, till I seemed to be absorbed bodily by the very materials of
+the world around me; till I could not feel my hand as separate from
+the warm sand in which it was buried. Or I crouched on the beach at
+full moon, wondering, wondering, between the two splendors of the sky
+and the sea. Or I ran out to meet the incoming storm, my face full in
+the wind, my being a-tingle with an awesome delight to the tips of my
+fog-matted locks flying behind; and stood clinging to some stake or
+upturned boat, shaken by the roar and rumble of the waves. So
+clinging, I pretended that I was in danger, and was deliciously
+frightened; I held on with both hands, and shook my head, exulting in
+the tumult around me, equally ready to laugh or sob. Or else I sat, on
+the stillest days, with my back to the sea, not looking at all, but
+just listening to the rustle of the waves on the sand; not thinking at
+all, but just breathing with the sea.
+
+Thus courting the influence of sea and sky and variable weather, I was
+bound to have dreams, hints, imaginings. It was no more than this,
+perhaps: that the world as I knew it was not large enough to contain
+all that I saw and felt; that the thoughts that flashed through my
+mind, not half understood, unrelated to my utterable thoughts,
+concerned something for which I had as yet no name. Every imaginative
+growing child has these flashes of intuition, especially one that
+becomes intimate with some one aspect of nature. With me it was the
+growing time, that idle summer by the sea, and I grew all the faster
+because I had been so cramped before. My mind, too, had so recently
+been worked upon by the impressive experience of a change of country
+that I was more than commonly alive to impressions, which are the
+seeds of ideas.
+
+Let no one suppose that I spent my time entirely, or even chiefly, in
+inspired solitude. By far the best part of my day was spent in
+play--frank, hearty, boisterous play, such as comes natural to
+American children. In Polotzk I had already begun to be considered too
+old for play, excepting set games or organized frolics. Here I found
+myself included with children who still played, and I willingly
+returned to childhood. There were plenty of playfellows. My father's
+energetic little partner had a little wife and a large family. He kept
+them in the little cottage next to ours; and that the shanty survived
+the tumultuous presence of that brood is a wonder to me to-day. The
+young Wilners included an assortment of boys, girls, and twins, of
+every possible variety of age, size, disposition, and sex. They
+swarmed in and out of the cottage all day long, wearing the door-sill
+hollow, and trampling the ground to powder. They swung out of windows
+like monkeys, slid up the roof like flies, and shot out of trees like
+fowls. Even a small person like me couldn't go anywhere without being
+run over by a Wilner; and I could never tell which Wilner it was
+because none of them ever stood still long enough to be identified;
+and also because I suspected that they were in the habit of
+interchanging conspicuous articles of clothing, which was very
+confusing.
+
+You would suppose that the little mother must have been utterly lost,
+bewildered, trodden down in this horde of urchins; but you are
+mistaken. Mrs. Wilner was a positively majestic little person. She
+ruled her brood with the utmost coolness and strictness. She had even
+the biggest boy under her thumb, frequently under her palm. If they
+enjoyed the wildest freedom outdoors, indoors the young Wilners lived
+by the clock. And so at five o'clock in the evening, on seven days in
+the week, my father's partner's children could be seen in two long
+rows around the supper table. You could tell them apart on this
+occasion, because they all had their faces washed. And this is the
+time to count them: there are twelve little Wilners at table.
+
+I managed to retain my identity in this multitude somehow, and while I
+was very much impressed with their numbers, I even dared to pick and
+choose my friends among the Wilners. One or two of the smaller boys I
+liked best of all, for a game of hide-and-seek or a frolic on the
+beach. We played in the water like ducks, never taking the trouble to
+get dry. One day I waded out with one of the boys, to see which of us
+dared go farthest. The tide was extremely low, and we had not wet our
+knees when we began to look back to see if familiar objects were still
+in sight. I thought we had been wading for hours, and still the water
+was so shallow and quiet. My companion was marching straight ahead, so
+I did the same. Suddenly a swell lifted us almost off our feet, and we
+clutched at each other simultaneously. There was a lesser swell, and
+little waves began to run, and a sigh went up from the sea. The tide
+was turning--perhaps a storm was on the way--and we were miles,
+dreadful miles from dry land.
+
+Boy and girl turned without a word, four determined bare legs
+ploughing through the water, four scared eyes straining toward the
+land. Through an eternity of toil and fear they kept dumbly on, death
+at their heels, pride still in their hearts. At last they reach
+high-water mark--six hours before full tide.
+
+Each has seen the other afraid, and each rejoices in the knowledge.
+But only the boy is sure of his tongue.
+
+"You was scared, warn't you?" he taunts.
+
+The girl understands so much, and is able to reply:--
+
+"You can schwimmen, I not."
+
+"Betcher life I can schwimmen," the other mocks.
+
+And the girl walks off, angry and hurt.
+
+"An' I can walk on my hands," the tormentor calls after her. "Say, you
+greenhorn, why don'tcher look?"
+
+The girl keeps straight on, vowing that she would never walk with that
+rude boy again, neither by land nor sea, not even though the waters
+should part at his bidding.
+
+I am forgetting the more serious business which had brought us to
+Crescent Beach. While we children disported ourselves like mermaids
+and mermen in the surf, our respective fathers dispensed cold
+lemonade, hot peanuts, and pink popcorn, and piled up our respective
+fortunes, nickel by nickel, penny by penny. I was very proud of my
+connection with the public life of the beach. I admired greatly our
+shining soda fountain, the rows of sparkling glasses, the pyramids of
+oranges, the sausage chains, the neat white counter, and the bright
+array of tin spoons. It seemed to me that none of the other
+refreshment stands on the beach--there were a few--were half so
+attractive as ours. I thought my father looked very well in a long
+white apron and shirt sleeves. He dished out ice cream with
+enthusiasm, so I supposed he was getting rich. It never occurred to me
+to compare his present occupation with the position for which he had
+been originally destined; or if I thought about it, I was just as well
+content, for by this time I had by heart my father's saying, "America
+is not Polotzk." All occupations were respectable, all men were equal,
+in America.
+
+If I admired the soda fountain and the sausage chains, I almost
+worshipped the partner, Mr. Wilner. I was content to stand for an hour
+at a time watching him make potato chips. In his cook's cap and apron,
+with a ladle in his hand and a smile on his face, he moved about with
+the greatest agility, whisking his raw materials out of nowhere,
+dipping into his bubbling kettle with a flourish, and bringing forth
+the finished product with a caper. Such potato chips were not to be had
+anywhere else on Crescent Beach. Thin as tissue paper, crisp as dry
+snow, and salt as the sea--such thirst-producing, lemonade-selling,
+nickel-bringing potato chips only Mr. Wilner could make. On holidays,
+when dozens of family parties came out by every train from town, he
+could hardly keep up with the demand for his potato chips. And with a
+waiting crowd around him our partner was at his best. He was as voluble
+as he was skilful, and as witty as he was voluble; at least so I
+guessed from the laughter that frequently drowned his voice. I could
+not understand his jokes, but if I could get near enough to watch his
+lips and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could
+talk so fast, and in English, was marvel enough, but that this prodigy
+should belong to _our_ establishment was a fact to thrill me. I had
+never seen anything like Mr. Wilner, except a wedding jester; but then
+he spoke common Yiddish. So proud was I of the talent and good taste
+displayed at our stand that if my father beckoned to me in the crowd
+and sent me on an errand, I hoped the people noticed that I, too, was
+connected with the establishment.
+
+And all this splendor and glory and distinction came to a sudden end.
+There was some trouble about a license--some fee or fine--there was a
+storm in the night that damaged the soda fountain and other
+fixtures--there was talk and consultation between the houses of Antin
+and Wilner--and the promising partnership was dissolved. No more would
+the merry partner gather the crowd on the beach; no more would the
+twelve young Wilners gambol like mermen and mermaids in the surf. And
+the less numerous tribe of Antin must also say farewell to the jolly
+seaside life; for men in such humble business as my father's carry
+their families, along with their other earthly goods, wherever they
+go, after the manner of the gypsies. We had driven a feeble stake into
+the sand. The jealous Atlantic, in conspiracy with the Sunday law, had
+torn it out. We must seek our luck elsewhere.
+
+In Polotzk we had supposed that "America" was practically synonymous
+with "Boston." When we landed in Boston, the horizon was pushed back,
+and we annexed Crescent Beach. And now, espying other lands of
+promise, we took possession of the province of Chelsea, in the name of
+our necessity.
+
+In Chelsea, as in Boston, we made our stand in the wrong end of the
+town. Arlington Street was inhabited by poor Jews, poor Negroes, and a
+sprinkling of poor Irish. The side streets leading from it were
+occupied by more poor Jews and Negroes. It was a proper locality for a
+man without capital to do business. My father rented a tenement with a
+store in the basement. He put in a few barrels of flour and of sugar,
+a few boxes of crackers, a few gallons of kerosene, an assortment of
+soap of the "save the coupon" brands; in the cellar, a few barrels of
+potatoes, and a pyramid of kindling-wood; in the showcase, an alluring
+display of penny candy. He put out his sign, with a gilt-lettered
+warning of "Strictly Cash," and proceeded to give credit
+indiscriminately. That was the regular way to do business on Arlington
+Street. My father, in his three years' apprenticeship, had learned the
+tricks of many trades. He knew when and how to "bluff." The legend of
+"Strictly Cash" was a protection against notoriously irresponsible
+customers; while none of the "good" customers, who had a record for
+paying regularly on Saturday, hesitated to enter the store with empty
+purses.
+
+If my father knew the tricks of the trade, my mother could be counted
+on to throw all her talent and tact into the business. Of course she
+had no English yet, but as she could perform the acts of weighing,
+measuring, and mental computation of fractions mechanically, she was
+able to give her whole attention to the dark mysteries of the
+language, as intercourse with her customers gave her opportunity. In
+this she made such rapid progress that she soon lost all sense of
+disadvantage, and conducted herself behind the counter very much as if
+she were back in her old store in Polotzk. It was far more cosey than
+Polotzk--at least, so it seemed to me; for behind the store was the
+kitchen, where, in the intervals of slack trade, she did her cooking
+and washing. Arlington Street customers were used to waiting while the
+storekeeper salted the soup or rescued a loaf from the oven.
+
+Once more Fortune favored my family with a thin little smile, and my
+father, in reply to a friendly inquiry, would say, "One makes a
+living," with a shrug of the shoulders that added "but nothing to boast
+of." It was characteristic of my attitude toward bread-and-butter
+matters that this contented me, and I felt free to devote myself to the
+conquest of my new world. Looking back to those critical first years,
+I see myself always behaving like a child let loose in a garden to play
+and dig and chase the butterflies. Occasionally, indeed, I was stung by
+the wasp of family trouble; but I knew a healing ointment--my faith in
+America. My father had come to America to make a living. America, which
+was free and fair and kind, must presently yield him what he sought. I
+had come to America to see a new world, and I followed my own ends with
+the utmost assiduity; only, as I ran out to explore, I would look back
+to see if my house were in order behind me--if my family still kept its
+head above water.
+
+In after years, when I passed as an American among Americans, if I was
+suddenly made aware of the past that lay forgotten,--if a letter from
+Russia, or a paragraph in the newspaper, or a conversation overheard
+in the street-car, suddenly reminded me of what I might have been,--I
+thought it miracle enough that I, Mashke, the granddaughter of Raphael
+the Russian, born to a humble destiny, should be at home in an
+American metropolis, be free to fashion my own life, and should dream
+my dreams in English phrases. But in the beginning my admiration was
+spent on more concrete embodiments of the splendors of America; such
+as fine houses, gay shops, electric engines and apparatus, public
+buildings, illuminations, and parades. My early letters to my Russian
+friends were filled with boastful descriptions of these glories of my
+new country. No native citizen of Chelsea took such pride and delight
+in its institutions as I did. It required no fife and drum corps, no
+Fourth of July procession, to set me tingling with patriotism. Even
+the common agents and instruments of municipal life, such as the
+letter carrier and the fire engine, I regarded with a measure of
+respect. I know what I thought of people who said that Chelsea was a
+very small, dull, unaspiring town, with no discernible excuse for a
+separate name or existence.
+
+The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the
+bright September morning when I entered the public school. That day I
+must always remember, even if I live to be so old that I cannot tell
+my name. To most people their first day at school is a memorable
+occasion. In my case the importance of the day was a hundred times
+magnified, on account of the years I had waited, the road I had come,
+and the conscious ambitions I entertained.
+
+I am wearily aware that I am speaking in extreme figures, in
+superlatives. I wish I knew some other way to render the mental life
+of the immigrant child of reasoning age. I may have been ever so much
+an exception in acuteness of observation, powers of comparison, and
+abnormal self-consciousness; none the less were my thoughts and
+conduct typical of the attitude of the intelligent immigrant child
+toward American institutions. And what the child thinks and feels is a
+reflection of the hopes, desires, and purposes of the parents who
+brought him overseas, no matter how precocious and independent the
+child may be. Your immigrant inspectors will tell you what poverty the
+foreigner brings in his baggage, what want in his pockets. Let the
+overgrown boy of twelve, reverently drawing his letters in the baby
+class, testify to the noble dreams and high ideals that may be hidden
+beneath the greasy caftan of the immigrant. Speaking for the Jews, at
+least, I know I am safe in inviting such an investigation.
+
+Who were my companions on my first day at school? Whose hand was in
+mine, as I stood, overcome with awe, by the teacher's desk, and
+whispered my name as my father prompted? Was it Frieda's steady,
+capable hand? Was it her loyal heart that throbbed, beat for beat with
+mine, as it had done through all our childish adventures? Frieda's
+heart did throb that day, but not with my emotions. My heart pulsed
+with joy and pride and ambition; in her heart longing fought with
+abnegation. For I was led to the schoolroom, with its sunshine and its
+singing and the teacher's cheery smile; while she was led to the
+workshop, with its foul air, care-lined faces, and the foreman's stern
+command. Our going to school was the fulfilment of my father's best
+promises to us, and Frieda's share in it was to fashion and fit the
+calico frocks in which the baby sister and I made our first appearance
+in a public schoolroom.
+
+I remember to this day the gray pattern of the calico, so
+affectionately did I regard it as it hung upon the wall--my
+consecration robe awaiting the beatific day. And Frieda, I am sure,
+remembers it, too, so longingly did she regard it as the crisp,
+starchy breadths of it slid between her fingers. But whatever were her
+longings, she said nothing of them; she bent over the sewing-machine
+humming an Old-World melody. In every straight, smooth seam, perhaps,
+she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched
+the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of
+rebellion made her straighten up for an instant, the next instant she
+was bending to adjust a ruffle to the best advantage. And when the
+momentous day arrived, and the little sister and I stood up to be
+arrayed, it was Frieda herself who patted and smoothed my stiff new
+calico; who made me turn round and round, to see that I was perfect;
+who stooped to pull out a disfiguring basting-thread. If there was
+anything in her heart besides sisterly love and pride and good-will,
+as we parted that morning, it was a sense of loss and a woman's
+acquiescence in her fate; for we had been close friends, and now our
+ways would lie apart. Longing she felt, but no envy. She did not
+grudge me what she was denied. Until that morning we had been children
+together, but now, at the fiat of her destiny, she became a woman,
+with all a woman's cares; whilst I, so little younger than she, was
+bidden to dance at the May festival of untroubled childhood.
+
+I wish, for my comfort, that I could say that I had some notion of the
+difference in our lots, some sense of the injustice to her, of the
+indulgence to me. I wish I could even say that I gave serious thought
+to the matter. There had always been a distinction between us rather
+out of proportion to the difference in our years. Her good health and
+domestic instincts had made it natural for her to become my mother's
+right hand, in the years preceding the emigration, when there were no
+more servants or dependents. Then there was the family tradition that
+Mary was the quicker, the brighter of the two, and that hers could be
+no common lot. Frieda was relied upon for help, and her sister for
+glory. And when I failed as a milliner's apprentice, while Frieda made
+excellent progress at the dressmaker's, our fates, indeed, were
+sealed. It was understood, even before we reached Boston, that she
+would go to work and I to school. In view of the family prejudices, it
+was the inevitable course. No injustice was intended. My father sent
+us hand in hand to school, before he had ever thought of America. If,
+in America, he had been able to support his family unaided, it would
+have been the culmination of his best hopes to see all his children at
+school, with equal advantages at home. But when he had done his best,
+and was still unable to provide even bread and shelter for us all, he
+was compelled to make us children self-supporting as fast as it was
+practicable. There was no choosing possible; Frieda was the oldest,
+the strongest, the best prepared, and the only one who was of legal
+age to be put to work.
+
+My father has nothing to answer for. He divided the world between his
+children in accordance with the laws of the country and the compulsion
+of his circumstances. I have no need of defending him. It is myself
+that I would like to defend, and I cannot. I remember that I accepted
+the arrangements made for my sister and me without much reflection,
+and everything that was planned for my advantage I took as a matter of
+course. I was no heartless monster, but a decidedly self-centred
+child. If my sister had seemed unhappy it would have troubled me; but
+I am ashamed to recall that I did not consider how little it was that
+contented her. I was so preoccupied with my own happiness that I did
+not half perceive the splendid devotion of her attitude towards me,
+the sweetness of her joy in my good luck. She not only stood by
+approvingly when I was helped to everything; she cheerfully waited on
+me herself. And I took everything from her hand as if it were my due.
+
+The two of us stood a moment in the doorway of the tenement house on
+Arlington Street, that wonderful September morning when I first went
+to school. It was I that ran away, on winged feet of joy and
+expectation; it was she whose feet were bound in the treadmill of
+daily toil. And I was so blind that I did not see that the glory lay
+on her, and not on me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Father himself conducted us to school. He would not have delegated
+that mission to the President of the United States. He had awaited the
+day with impatience equal to mine, and the visions he saw as he
+hurried us over the sun-flecked pavements transcended all my dreams.
+Almost his first act on landing on American soil, three years before,
+had been his application for naturalization. He had taken the
+remaining steps in the process with eager promptness, and at the
+earliest moment allowed by the law, he became a citizen of the United
+States. It is true that he had left home in search of bread for his
+hungry family, but he went blessing the necessity that drove him to
+America. The boasted freedom of the New World meant to him far more
+than the right to reside, travel, and work wherever he pleased; it
+meant the freedom to speak his thoughts, to throw off the shackles of
+superstition, to test his own fate, unhindered by political or
+religious tyranny. He was only a young man when he landed--thirty-two;
+and most of his life he had been held in leading-strings. He was
+hungry for his untasted manhood.
+
+Three years passed in sordid struggle and disappointment. He was not
+prepared to make a living even in America, where the day laborer eats
+wheat instead of rye. Apparently the American flag could not protect
+him against the pursuing Nemesis of his limitations; he must expiate
+the sins of his fathers who slept across the seas. He had been endowed
+at birth with a poor constitution, a nervous, restless temperament,
+and an abundance of hindering prejudices. In his boyhood his body was
+starved, that his mind might be stuffed with useless learning. In his
+youth this dearly gotten learning was sold, and the price was the
+bread and salt which he had not been trained to earn for himself.
+Under the wedding canopy he was bound for life to a girl whose
+features were still strange to him; and he was bidden to multiply
+himself, that sacred learning might be perpetuated in his sons, to the
+glory of the God of his fathers. All this while he had been led about
+as a creature without a will, a chattel, an instrument. In his
+maturity he awoke, and found himself poor in health, poor in purse,
+poor in useful knowledge, and hampered on all sides. At the first nod
+of opportunity he broke away from his prison, and strove to atone for
+his wasted youth by a life of useful labor; while at the same time he
+sought to lighten the gloom of his narrow scholarship by freely
+partaking of modern ideas. But his utmost endeavor still left him far
+from his goal. In business, nothing prospered with him. Some fault of
+hand or mind or temperament led him to failure where other men found
+success. Wherever the blame for his disabilities be placed, he reaped
+their bitter fruit. "Give me bread!" he cried to America. "What will
+you do to earn it?" the challenge came back. And he found that he was
+master of no art, of no trade; that even his precious learning was of
+no avail, because he had only the most antiquated methods of
+communicating it.
+
+So in his primary quest he had failed. There was left him the
+compensation of intellectual freedom. That he sought to realize in
+every possible way. He had very little opportunity to prosecute his
+education, which, in truth, had never been begun. His struggle for a
+bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public evening
+school; but he lost nothing of what was to be learned through reading,
+through attendance at public meetings, through exercising the rights
+of citizenship. Even here he was hindered by a natural inability to
+acquire the English language. In time, indeed, he learned to read, to
+follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write
+correctly, and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this
+day.
+
+If education, culture, the higher life were shining things to be
+worshipped from afar, he had still a means left whereby he could draw
+one step nearer to them. He could send his children to school, to
+learn all those things that he knew by fame to be desirable. The
+common school, at least, perhaps high school; for one or two, perhaps
+even college! His children should be students, should fill his house
+with books and intellectual company; and thus he would walk by proxy
+in the Elysian Fields of liberal learning. As for the children
+themselves, he knew no surer way to their advancement and happiness.
+
+So it was with a heart full of longing and hope that my father led us
+to school on that first day. He took long strides in his eagerness,
+the rest of us running and hopping to keep up.
+
+At last the four of us stood around the teacher's desk; and my father,
+in his impossible English, gave us over in her charge, with some
+broken word of his hopes for us that his swelling heart could no
+longer contain. I venture to say that Miss Nixon was struck by
+something uncommon in the group we made, something outside of Semitic
+features and the abashed manner of the alien. My little sister was as
+pretty as a doll, with her clear pink-and-white face, short golden
+curls, and eyes like blue violets when you caught them looking up. My
+brother might have been a girl, too, with his cherubic contours of
+face, rich red color, glossy black hair, and fine eyebrows. Whatever
+secret fears were in his heart, remembering his former teachers, who
+had taught with the rod, he stood up straight and uncringing before
+the American teacher, his cap respectfully doffed. Next to him stood a
+starved-looking girl with eyes ready to pop out, and short dark curls
+that would not have made much of a wig for a Jewish bride.
+
+All three children carried themselves rather better than the common
+run of "green" pupils that were brought to Miss Nixon. But the figure
+that challenged attention to the group was the tall, straight father,
+with his earnest face and fine forehead, nervous hands eloquent in
+gesture, and a voice full of feeling. This foreigner, who brought his
+children to school as if it were an act of consecration, who regarded
+the teacher of the primer class with reverence, who spoke of visions,
+like a man inspired, in a common schoolroom, was not like other
+aliens, who brought their children in dull obedience to the law; was
+not like the native fathers, who brought their unmanageable boys, glad
+to be relieved of their care. I think Miss Nixon guessed what my
+father's best English could not convey. I think she divined that by
+the simple act of delivering our school certificates to her he took
+possession of America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+INITIATION
+
+
+It is not worth while to refer to voluminous school statistics to see
+just how many "green" pupils entered school last September, not
+knowing the days of the week in English, who next February will be
+declaiming patriotic verses in honor of George Washington and Abraham
+Lincoln, with a foreign accent, indeed, but with plenty of enthusiasm.
+It is enough to know that this hundred-fold miracle is common to the
+schools in every part of the United States where immigrants are
+received. And if I was one of Chelsea's hundred in 1894, it was only
+to be expected, since I was one of the older of the "green" children,
+and had had a start in my irregular schooling in Russia, and was
+carried along by a tremendous desire to learn, and had my family to
+cheer me on.
+
+I was not a bit too large for my little chair and desk in the baby
+class, but my mind, of course, was too mature by six or seven years
+for the work. So as soon as I could understand what the teacher said
+in class, I was advanced to the second grade. This was within a week
+after Miss Nixon took me in hand. But I do not mean to give my dear
+teacher all the credit for my rapid progress, nor even half the
+credit. I shall divide it with her on behalf of my race and my family.
+I was Jew enough to have an aptitude for language in general, and to
+bend my mind earnestly to my task; I was Antin enough to read each
+lesson with my heart, which gave me an inkling of what was coming
+next, and so carried me along by leaps and bounds. As for the teacher,
+she could best explain what theory she followed in teaching us
+foreigners to read. I can only describe the method, which was so
+simple that I wish holiness could be taught in the same way.
+
+There were about half a dozen of us beginners in English, in age from
+six to fifteen. Miss Nixon made a special class of us, and aided us so
+skilfully and earnestly in our endeavors to "see-a-cat," and
+"hear-a-dog-bark," and "look-at-the-hen," that we turned over page
+after page of the ravishing history, eager to find out how the common
+world looked, smelled, and tasted in the strange speech. The teacher
+knew just when to let us help each other out with a word in our own
+tongue,--it happened that we were all Jews,--and so, working all
+together, we actually covered more ground in a lesson than the native
+classes, composed entirely of the little tots.
+
+But we stuck--stuck fast--at the definite article; and sometimes the
+lesson resolved itself into a species of lingual gymnastics, in which
+we all looked as if we meant to bite our tongues off. Miss Nixon was
+pretty, and she must have looked well with her white teeth showing in
+the act; but at the time I was too solemnly occupied to admire her
+looks. I did take great pleasure in her smile of approval, whenever I
+pronounced well; and her patience and perseverance in struggling with
+us over that thick little word are becoming to her even now, after
+fifteen years. It is not her fault if any of us to-day give a buzzing
+sound to the dreadful English _th_.
+
+I shall never have a better opportunity to make public declaration of
+my love for the English language. I am glad that American history
+runs, chapter for chapter, the way it does; for thus America came to
+be the country I love so dearly. I am glad, most of all, that the
+Americans began by being Englishmen, for thus did I come to inherit
+this beautiful language in which I think. It seems to me that in any
+other language happiness is not so sweet, logic is not so clear. I am
+not sure that I could believe in my neighbors as I do if I thought
+about them in un-English words. I could almost say that my conviction
+of immortality is bound up with the English of its promise. And as I
+am attached to my prejudices, I must love the English language!
+
+Whenever the teachers did anything special to help me over my private
+difficulties, my gratitude went out to them, silently. It meant so
+much to me that they halted the lesson to give me a lift, that I needs
+must love them for it. Dear Miss Carrol, of the second grade, would be
+amazed to hear what small things I remember, all because I was so
+impressed at the time with her readiness and sweetness in taking
+notice of my difficulties.
+
+Says Miss Carrol, looking straight at me:--
+
+"If Johnnie has three marbles, and Charlie has twice as many, how many
+marbles has Charlie?"
+
+I raise my hand for permission to speak.
+
+"Teacher, I don't know vhat is tvice."
+
+Teacher beckons me to her, and whispers to me the meaning of the
+strange word, and I am able to write the sum correctly. It's all in
+the day's work with her; with me, it is a special act of kindness and
+efficiency.
+
+She whom I found in the next grade became so dear a friend that I can
+hardly name her with the rest, though I mention none of them lightly.
+Her approval was always dear to me, first because she was "Teacher,"
+and afterwards, as long as she lived, because she was my Miss
+Dillingham. Great was my grief, therefore, when, shortly after my
+admission to her class, I incurred discipline, the first, and next to
+the last, time in my school career.
+
+The class was repeating in chorus the Lord's Prayer, heads bowed on
+desks. I was doing my best to keep up by the sound; my mind could not
+go beyond the word "hallowed," for which I had not found the meaning.
+In the middle of the prayer a Jewish boy across the aisle trod on my
+foot to get my attention. "You must not say that," he admonished in a
+solemn whisper; "it's Christian." I whispered back that it wasn't, and
+went on to the "Amen." I did not know but what he was right, but the
+name of Christ was not in the prayer, and I was bound to do everything
+that the class did. If I had any Jewish scruples, they were lagging
+away behind my interest in school affairs. How American this was: two
+pupils side by side in the schoolroom, each holding to his own
+opinion, but both submitting to the common law; for the boy at least
+bowed his head as the teacher ordered.
+
+But all Miss Dillingham knew of it was that two of her pupils
+whispered during morning prayer, and she must discipline them. So I
+was degraded from the honor row to the lowest row, and it was many a
+day before I forgave that young missionary; it was not enough for my
+vengeance that he suffered punishment with me. Teacher, of course,
+heard us both defend ourselves, but there was a time and a place for
+religious arguments, and she meant to help us remember that point.
+
+I remember to this day what a struggle we had over the word "water,"
+Miss Dillingham and I. It seemed as if I could not give the sound of
+_w_; I said "vater" every time. Patiently my teacher worked with me,
+inventing mouth exercises for me, to get my stubborn lips to produce
+that _w_; and when at last I could say "village" and "water" in rapid
+alternation, without misplacing the two initials, that memorable word
+was sweet on my lips. For we had conquered, and Teacher was pleased.
+
+Getting a language in this way, word by word, has a charm that may be
+set against the disadvantages. It is like gathering a posy blossom by
+blossom. Bring the bouquet into your chamber, and these nasturtiums
+stand for the whole flaming carnival of them tumbling over the fence
+out there; these yellow pansies recall the velvet crescent of color
+glowing under the bay window; this spray of honeysuckle smells like
+the wind-tossed masses of it on the porch, ripe and bee-laden; the
+whole garden in a glass tumbler. So it is with one who gathers words,
+loving them. Particular words remain associated with important
+occasions in the learner's mind. I could thus write a history of my
+English vocabulary that should be at the same time an account of my
+comings and goings, my mistakes and my triumphs, during the years of
+my initiation.
+
+If I was eager and diligent, my teachers did not sleep. As fast as my
+knowledge of English allowed, they advanced me from grade to grade,
+without reference to the usual schedule of promotions. My father was
+right, when he often said, in discussing my prospects, that ability
+would be promptly recognized in the public schools. Rapid as was my
+progress, on account of the advantages with which I started, some of
+the other "green" pupils were not far behind me; within a grade or
+two, by the end of the year. My brother, whose childhood had been one
+hideous nightmare, what with the stupid rebbe, the cruel whip, and the
+general repression of life in the Pale, surprised my father by the
+progress he made under intelligent, sympathetic guidance. Indeed, he
+soon had a reputation in the school that the American boys envied; and
+all through the school course he more than held his own with pupils of
+his age. So much for the right and wrong way of doing things.
+
+There is a record of my early progress in English much better than my
+recollections, however accurate and definite these may be. I have
+several reasons for introducing it here. First, it shows what the
+Russian Jew can do with an adopted language; next, it proves that
+vigilance of our public-school teachers of which I spoke; and last, I
+am proud of it! That is an unnecessary confession, but I could not be
+satisfied to insert the record here, with my vanity unavowed.
+
+This is the document, copied from an educational journal, a tattered
+copy of which lies in my lap as I write--treasured for fifteen years,
+you see, by my vanity.
+
+    EDITOR "PRIMARY EDUCATION":--
+
+    This is the uncorrected paper of a Russian child twelve years
+    old, who had studied English only four months. She had never,
+    until September, been to school even in her own country and has
+    heard English spoken _only_ at school. I shall be glad if the
+    paper of my pupil and the above explanation may appear in your
+    paper.
+
+    M.S. DILLINGHAM.
+
+    CHELSEA, MASS.
+
+    SNOW
+
+    Snow is frozen moisture which comes from the clouds. Now the
+    snow is coming down in feather-flakes, which makes nice
+    snow-balls. But there is still one kind of snow more. This kind
+    of snow is called snow-crystals, for it comes down in little
+    curly balls. These snow-crystals aren't quiet as good for
+    snow-balls as feather-flakes, for they (the snow-crystals) are
+    dry: so they can't keep together as feather-flakes do.
+
+    The snow is dear to some children for they like sleighing.
+
+    As I said at the top--the snow comes from the clouds.
+
+    Now the trees are bare, and no flowers are to see in the fields
+    and gardens, (we all know why) and the whole world seems like
+    asleep without the happy birds songs which left us till spring.
+    But the snow which drove away all these pretty and happy things,
+    try, (as I think) not to make us at all unhappy; they covered up
+    the branches of the trees, the fields, the gardens and houses,
+    and the whole world looks like dressed in a beautiful
+    white--instead of green--dress, with the sky looking down on it
+    with a pale face.
+
+    And so the people can find some joy in it, too, without the
+    happy summer.
+
+    MARY ANTIN.
+
+And now that it stands there, with _her_ name over it, I am ashamed of
+my flippant talk about vanity. More to me than all the praise I could
+hope to win by the conquest of fifty languages is the association of
+this dear friend with my earliest efforts at writing; and it pleases
+me to remember that to her I owe my very first appearance in print.
+Vanity is the least part of it, when I remember how she called me to
+her desk, one day after school was out, and showed me my
+composition--my own words, that I had written out of my own
+head--printed out, clear black and white, with my name at the end!
+Nothing so wonderful had ever happened to me before. My whole
+consciousness was suddenly transformed. I suppose that was the moment
+when I became a writer. I always loved to write,--I wrote letters
+whenever I had an excuse,--yet it had never occurred to me to sit down
+and write my thoughts for no person in particular, merely to put the
+word on paper. But now, as I read my own words, in a delicious
+confusion, the idea was born. I stared at my name: MARY ANTIN. Was
+that really I? The printed characters composing it seemed strange to
+me all of a sudden. If that was my name, and those were the words out
+of my own head, what relation did it all have to _me_, who was alone
+there with Miss Dillingham, and the printed page between us? Why, it
+meant that I could write again, and see my writing printed for people
+to read! I could write many, many, many things: I could write a book!
+The idea was so huge, so bewildering, that my mind scarcely could
+accommodate it.
+
+I do not know what my teacher said to me; probably very little. It was
+her way to say only a little, and look at me, and trust me to
+understand. Once she had occasion to lecture me about living a shut-up
+life; she wanted me to go outdoors. I had been repeatedly scolded and
+reproved on that score by other people, but I had only laughed, saying
+that I was too happy to change my ways. But when Miss Dillingham spoke
+to me, I saw that it was a serious matter; and yet she only said a few
+words, and looked at me with that smile of hers that was only half a
+smile, and the rest a meaning. Another time she had a great question
+to ask me, touching my life to the quick. She merely put her question,
+and was silent; but I knew what answer she expected, and not being
+able to give it then, I went away sad and reproved. Years later I had
+my triumphant answer, but she was no longer there to receive it; and
+so her eyes look at me, from the picture on the mantel there, with a
+reproach I no longer merit.
+
+I ought to go back and strike out all that talk about vanity. What
+reason have I to be vain, when I reflect how at every step I was
+petted, nursed, and encouraged? I did not even discover my own talent.
+It was discovered first by my father in Russia, and next by my friend
+in America. What did I ever do but write when they told me to write? I
+suppose my grandfather who drove a spavined horse through lonely
+country lanes sat in the shade of crisp-leaved oaks to refresh himself
+with a bit of black bread; and an acorn falling beside him, in the
+immense stillness, shook his heart with the echo, and left him
+wondering. I suppose my father stole away from the synagogue one long
+festival day, and stretched himself out in the sun-warmed grass, and
+lost himself in dreams that made the world of men unreal when he
+returned to them. And so what is there left for me to do, who do not
+have to drive a horse nor interpret ancient lore, but put my
+grandfather's question into words and set to music my father's dream?
+The tongue am I of those who lived before me, as those that are to
+come will be the voice of my unspoken thoughts. And so who shall be
+applauded if the song be sweet, if the prophecy be true?
+
+I never heard of any one who was so watched and coaxed, so passed
+along from hand to helping hand, as was I. I always had friends. They
+sprang up everywhere, as if they had stood waiting for me to come. So
+here was my teacher, the moment she saw that I could give a good
+paraphrase of her talk on "Snow," bent on finding out what more I
+could do. One day she asked me if I had ever written poetry. I had
+not, but I went home and tried. I believe it was more snow, and I
+know it was wretched. I wish I could produce a copy of that early
+effusion; it would prove that my judgment is not severe. Wretched it
+was,--worse, a great deal, than reams of poetry that is written by
+children about whom there is no fuss made. But Miss Dillingham was not
+discouraged. She saw that I had no idea of metre, so she proceeded to
+teach me. We repeated miles of poetry together, smooth lines that sang
+themselves, mostly out of Longfellow. Then I would go home and
+write--oh, about the snow in our back yard!--but when Miss Dillingham
+came to read my verses, they limped and they lagged and they dragged,
+and there was no tune that would fit them.
+
+At last came the moment of illumination: I saw where my trouble lay. I
+had supposed that my lines matched when they had an equal number of
+syllables, taking no account of accent. Now I knew better; now I could
+write poetry! The everlasting snow melted at last, and the mud puddles
+dried in the spring sun, and the grass on the common was green, and
+still I wrote poetry! Again I wish I had some example of my springtime
+rhapsodies, the veriest rubbish of the sort that ever a child
+perpetrated. Lizzie McDee, who had red hair and freckles, and a
+Sunday-school manner on weekdays, and was below me in the class, did a
+great deal better. We used to compare verses; and while I do not
+remember that I ever had the grace to own that she was the better
+poet, I do know that I secretly wondered why the teachers did not
+invite her to stay after school and study poetry, while they took so
+much pains with me. But so it was always with me: somebody did
+something for me all the time.
+
+Making fair allowance for my youth, retarded education, and
+strangeness to the language, it must still be admitted that I never
+wrote good verse. But I loved to read it. My half-hours with Miss
+Dillingham were full of delight for me, quite apart from my new-born
+ambition to become a writer. What, then, was my joy, when Miss
+Dillingham, just before locking up her desk one evening, presented me
+with a volume of Longfellow's poems! It was a thin volume of
+selections, but to me it was a bottomless treasure. I had never owned
+a book before. The sense of possession alone was a source of bliss,
+and this book I already knew and loved. And so Miss Dillingham, who
+was my first American friend, and who first put my name in print, was
+also the one to start my library. Deep is my regret when I consider
+that she was gone before I had given much of an account of all her
+gifts of love and service to me.
+
+About the middle of the year I was promoted to the grammar school.
+Then it was that I walked on air. For I said to myself that I was a
+_student_ now, in earnest, not merely a school-girl learning to spell
+and cipher. I was going to learn out-of-the-way things, things that
+had nothing to do with ordinary life--things to _know_. When I walked
+home afternoons, with the great big geography book under my arm, it
+seemed to me that the earth was conscious of my step. Sometimes I
+carried home half the books in my desk, not because I should need
+them, but because I loved to hold them; and also because I loved to be
+seen carrying books. It was a badge of scholarship, and I was proud of
+it. I remembered the days in Vitebsk when I used to watch my cousin
+Hirshel start for school in the morning, every thread of his student's
+uniform, every worn copybook in his satchel, glorified in my envious
+eyes. And now I was myself as he: aye, greater than he; for I knew
+English, and I could write poetry.
+
+If my head was not turned at this time it was because I was so busy
+from morning till night. My father did his best to make me vain and
+silly. He made much of me to every chance caller, boasting of my
+progress at school, and of my exalted friends, the teachers. For a
+school-teacher was no ordinary mortal in his eyes; she was a superior
+being, set above the common run of men by her erudition and devotion
+to higher things. That a school-teacher could be shallow or petty, or
+greedy for pay, was a thing that he could not have been brought to
+believe, at this time. And he was right, if he could only have stuck
+to it in later years, when a new-born pessimism, fathered by his
+perception that in America, too, some things needed mending, threw him
+to the opposite extreme of opinion, crying that nothing in the
+American scheme of society or government was worth tinkering.
+
+He surely was right in his first appraisal of the teacher. The mean
+sort of teachers are not teachers at all; they are self-seekers who
+take up teaching as a business, to support themselves and keep their
+hands white. These same persons, did they keep store or drive a milk
+wagon or wash babies for a living, would be respectable. As
+trespassers on a noble profession, they are worth no more than the
+books and slates and desks over which they preside; so much furniture,
+to be had by the gross. They do not love their work. They contribute
+nothing to the higher development of their pupils. They busy
+themselves, not with research into the science of teaching, but with
+organizing political demonstrations to advance the cause of selfish
+candidates for public office, who promise them rewards. The true
+teachers are of another strain. Apostles all of an ideal, they go to
+their work in a spirit of love and inquiry, seeking not comfort, not
+position, not old-age pensions, but truth that is the soul of wisdom,
+the joy of big-eyed children, the food of hungry youth.
+
+They were true teachers who used to come to me on Arlington Street, so
+my father had reason to boast of the distinction brought upon his
+house. For the school-teacher in her trim, unostentatious dress was an
+uncommon visitor in our neighborhood; and the talk that passed in the
+bare little "parlor" over the grocery store would not have been
+entirely comprehensible to our next-door neighbor.
+
+In the grammar school I had as good teaching as I had had in the
+primary. It seems to me in retrospect that it was as good, on the
+whole, as the public school ideals of the time made possible. When I
+recall how I was taught geography, I see, indeed, that there was room
+for improvement occasionally both in the substance and in the method
+of instruction. But I know of at least one teacher of Chelsea who
+realized this; for I met her, eight years later, at a great
+metropolitan university that holds a summer session for the benefit of
+school-teachers who want to keep up with the advance in their science.
+Very likely they no longer teach geography entirely within doors, and
+by rote, as I was taught. Fifteen years is plenty of time for
+progress.
+
+When I joined the first grammar grade, the class had had a half-year's
+start of me, but it was not long before I found my place near the
+head. In all branches except geography it was genuine progress. I
+overtook the youngsters in their study of numbers, spelling, reading,
+and composition. In geography I merely made a bluff, but I did not
+know it. Neither did my teacher. I came up to such tests as she put
+me.
+
+The lesson was on Chelsea, which was right: geography, like charity,
+should begin at home. Our text ran on for a paragraph or so on the
+location, boundaries, natural features, and industries of the town,
+with a bit of local history thrown in. We were to learn all these
+interesting facts, and be prepared to write them out from memory the
+next day. I went home and learned--learned every word of the text,
+every comma, every footnote. When the teacher had read my paper she
+marked it "EE." "E" was for "excellent," but my paper was absolutely
+perfect, and must be put in a class by itself. The teacher exhibited
+my paper before the class, with some remarks about the diligence that
+could overtake in a week pupils who had had half a year's start. I
+took it all as modestly as I could, never doubting that I was indeed a
+very bright little girl, and getting to be very learned to boot. I was
+"perfect" in geography, a most erudite subject.
+
+But what was the truth? The words that I repeated so accurately on my
+paper had about as much meaning to me as the words of the Psalms I
+used to chant in Hebrew. I got an idea that the city of Chelsea, and
+the world in general, was laid out flat, like the common, and shaved
+off at the ends, to allow the north, south, east, and west to snuggle
+up close, like the frame around a picture. If I looked at the map, I
+was utterly bewildered; I could find no correspondence between the
+picture and the verbal explanations. With words I was safe; I could
+learn any number of words by heart, and sometime or other they would
+pop out of the medley, clothed with meaning. Chelsea, I read, was
+bounded on all sides--"bounded" appealed to my imagination--by various
+things that I had never identified, much as I had roamed about the
+town. I immediately pictured these remote boundaries as a six-foot
+fence in a good state of preservation, with the Mystic River, the
+towns of Everett and Revere, and East Boston Creek, rejoicing, on the
+south, west, north, and east of it, respectively, that they had got
+inside; while the rest of the world peeped in enviously through a knot
+hole. In the middle of this cherished area piano factories--or was it
+shoe factories?--proudly reared their chimneys, while the population
+promenaded on a _rope walk_, saluted at every turn by the benevolent
+inmates of the Soldiers' Home on the top of Powderhorn Hill.
+
+Perhaps the fault was partly mine, because I always would reduce
+everything to a picture. Partly it may have been because I had not had
+time to digest the general definitions and explanations at the
+beginning of the book. Still, I can take but little of the blame, when
+I consider how I fared through my geography, right to the end of the
+grammar-school course. I did in time disentangle the symbolism of the
+orange revolving on a knitting-needle from the astronomical facts in
+the case, but it took years of training under a master of the subject
+to rid me of my distrust of the map as a representation of the earth.
+To this day I sometimes blunder back to my early impression that any
+given portion of the earth's surface is constructed upon a skeleton
+consisting of two crossed bars, terminating in arrowheads which pin
+the cardinal points into place; and if I want to find any desired
+point of the compass, I am inclined to throw myself flat on my nose,
+my head due north, and my outstretched arms seeking the east and west
+respectively.
+
+For in the schoolroom, as far as the study of the map went, we began
+with the symbol and stuck to the symbol. No teacher of geography I
+ever had, except the master I referred to, took the pains to ascertain
+whether I had any sense of the facts for which the symbols stood.
+Outside the study of maps, geography consisted of statistics: tables
+of population, imports and exports, manufactures, and degrees of
+temperature; dimensions of rivers, mountains, and political states;
+with lists of minerals, plants, and plagues native to any given part
+of the globe. The only part of the whole subject that meant anything
+to me was the description of the aspect of foreign lands, and the
+manners and customs of their peoples. The relation of physiography to
+human history--what might be called the moral of geography--was not
+taught at all, or was touched upon in an unimpressive manner. The
+prevalence of this defect in the teaching of school geography is borne
+out by the surprise of the college freshman, who remarked to the
+professor of geology that it was curious to note how all the big
+rivers and harbors on the Atlantic coastal plain occurred in the
+neighborhood of large cities! A little instruction in the elements of
+chartography--a little practice in the use of the compass and the
+spirit level, a topographical map of the town common, an excursion
+with a road map--would have given me a fat round earth in place of my
+paper ghost; would have illumined the one dark alley in my school
+life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"MY COUNTRY"
+
+
+The public school has done its best for us foreigners, and for the
+country, when it has made us into good Americans. I am glad it is mine
+to tell how the miracle was wrought in one case. You should be glad to
+hear of it, you born Americans; for it is the story of the growth of
+your country; of the flocking of your brothers and sisters from the
+far ends of the earth to the flag you love; of the recruiting of your
+armies of workers, thinkers, and leaders. And you will be glad to hear
+of it, my comrades in adoption; for it is a rehearsal of your own
+experience, the thrill and wonder of which your own hearts have felt.
+
+How long would you say, wise reader, it takes to make an American? By
+the middle of my second year in school I had reached the sixth grade.
+When, after the Christmas holidays, we began to study the life of
+Washington, running through a summary of the Revolution, and the early
+days of the Republic, it seemed to me that all my reading and study
+had been idle until then. The reader, the arithmetic, the song book,
+that had so fascinated me until now, became suddenly sober exercise
+books, tools wherewith to hew a way to the source of inspiration. When
+the teacher read to us out of a big book with many bookmarks in it, I
+sat rigid with attention in my little chair, my hands tightly clasped
+on the edge of my desk; and I painfully held my breath, to prevent
+sighs of disappointment escaping, as I saw the teacher skip the parts
+between bookmarks. When the class read, and it came my turn, my voice
+shook and the book trembled in my hands. I could not pronounce the
+name of George Washington without a pause. Never had I prayed, never
+had I chanted the songs of David, never had I called upon the Most
+Holy, in such utter reverence and worship as I repeated the simple
+sentences of my child's story of the patriot. I gazed with adoration
+at the portraits of George and Martha Washington, till I could see
+them with my eyes shut. And whereas formerly my self-consciousness had
+bordered on conceit, and I thought myself an uncommon person, parading
+my schoolbooks through the streets, and swelling with pride when a
+teacher detained me in conversation, now I grew humble all at once,
+seeing how insignificant I was beside the Great.
+
+As I read about the noble boy who would not tell a lie to save himself
+from punishment, I was for the first time truly repentant of my sins.
+Formerly I had fasted and prayed and made sacrifice on the Day of
+Atonement, but it was more than half play, in mimicry of my elders. I
+had no real horror of sin, and I knew so many ways of escaping
+punishment. I am sure my family, my neighbors, my teachers in
+Polotzk--all my world, in fact--strove together, by example and
+precept, to teach me goodness. Saintliness had a new incarnation in
+about every third person I knew. I did respect the saints, but I could
+not help seeing that most of them were a little bit stupid, and that
+mischief was much more fun than piety. Goodness, as I had known it,
+was respectable, but not necessarily admirable. The people I really
+admired, like my Uncle Solomon, and Cousin Rachel, were those who
+preached the least and laughed the most. My sister Frieda was
+perfectly good, but she did not think the less of me because I played
+tricks. What I loved in my friends was not inimitable. One could be
+downright good if one really wanted to. One could be learned if one
+had books and teachers. One could sing funny songs and tell anecdotes
+if one travelled about and picked up such things, like one's uncles
+and cousins. But a human being strictly good, perfectly wise, and
+unfailingly valiant, all at the same time, I had never heard or
+dreamed of. This wonderful George Washington was as inimitable as he
+was irreproachable. Even if I had never, never told a lie, I could not
+compare myself to George Washington; for I was not brave--I was afraid
+to go out when snowballs whizzed--and I could never be the First
+President of the United States.
+
+So I was forced to revise my own estimate of myself. But the twin of
+my new-born humility, paradoxical as it may seem, was a sense of
+dignity I had never known before. For if I found that I was a person
+of small consequence, I discovered at the same time that I was more
+nobly related than I had ever supposed. I had relatives and friends
+who were notable people by the old standards,--I had never been
+ashamed of my family,--but this George Washington, who died long
+before I was born, was like a king in greatness, and he and I were
+Fellow Citizens. There was a great deal about Fellow Citizens in the
+patriotic literature we read at this time; and I knew from my father
+how he was a Citizen, through the process of naturalization, and how I
+also was a citizen, by virtue of my relation to him. Undoubtedly I was
+a Fellow Citizen, and George Washington was another. It thrilled me to
+realize what sudden greatness had fallen on me; and at the same time
+it sobered me, as with a sense of responsibility. I strove to conduct
+myself as befitted a Fellow Citizen.
+
+Before books came into my life, I was given to stargazing and
+daydreaming. When books were given me, I fell upon them as a glutton
+pounces on his meat after a period of enforced starvation. I lived
+with my nose in a book, and took no notice of the alternations of the
+sun and stars. But now, after the advent of George Washington and the
+American Revolution, I began to dream again. I strayed on the common
+after school instead of hurrying home to read. I hung on fence rails,
+my pet book forgotten under my arm, and gazed off to the
+yellow-streaked February sunset, and beyond, and beyond. I was no
+longer the central figure of my dreams; the dry weeds in the lane
+crackled beneath the tread of Heroes.
+
+What more could America give a child? Ah, much more! As I read how the
+patriots planned the Revolution, and the women gave their sons to die
+in battle, and the heroes led to victory, and the rejoicing people set
+up the Republic, it dawned on me gradually what was meant by _my
+country_. The people all desiring noble things, and striving for them
+together, defying their oppressors, giving their lives for each
+other--all this it was that made _my country_. It was not a thing that
+I _understood_; I could not go home and tell Frieda about it, as I
+told her other things I learned at school. But I knew one could say
+"my country" and _feel_ it, as one felt "God" or "myself." My teacher,
+my schoolmates, Miss Dillingham, George Washington himself could not
+mean more than I when they said "my country," after I had once felt
+it. For the Country was for all the Citizens, and _I was a Citizen_.
+And when we stood up to sing "America," I shouted the words with all
+my might. I was in very earnest proclaiming to the world my love for
+my new-found country.
+
+    "I love thy rocks and rills.
+    Thy woods and templed hills."
+
+Boston Harbor, Crescent Beach, Chelsea Square--all was hallowed ground
+to me. As the day approached when the school was to hold exercises in
+honor of Washington's Birthday, the halls resounded at all hours with
+the strains of patriotic songs; and I, who was a model of the
+attentive pupil, more than once lost my place in the lesson as I
+strained to hear, through closed doors, some neighboring class
+rehearsing "The Star-Spangled Banner." If the doors happened to open,
+and the chorus broke out unveiled--
+
+    "O! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
+    O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?"--
+
+delicious tremors ran up and down my spine, and I was faint with
+suppressed enthusiasm.
+
+Where had been my country until now? What flag had I loved? What
+heroes had I worshipped? The very names of these things had been
+unknown to me. Well I knew that Polotzk was not my country. It was
+_goluth_--exile. On many occasions in the year we prayed to God to
+lead us out of exile. The beautiful Passover service closed with the
+words, "Next year, may we be in Jerusalem." On childish lips, indeed,
+those words were no conscious aspiration; we repeated the Hebrew
+syllables after our elders, but without their hope and longing. Still
+not a child among us was too young to feel in his own flesh the lash
+of the oppressor. We knew what it was to be Jews in exile, from the
+spiteful treatment we suffered at the hands of the smallest urchin
+who crossed himself; and thence we knew that Israel had good reason to
+pray for deliverance. But the story of the Exodus was not history to
+me in the sense that the story of the American Revolution was. It was
+more like a glorious myth, a belief in which had the effect of cutting
+me off from the actual world, by linking me with a world of phantoms.
+Those moments of exaltation which the contemplation of the Biblical
+past afforded us, allowing us to call ourselves the children of
+princes, served but to tinge with a more poignant sense of
+disinheritance the long humdrum stretches of our life. In very truth
+we were a people without a country. Surrounded by mocking foes and
+detractors, it was difficult for me to realize the persons of my
+people's heroes or the events in which they moved. Except in moments
+of abstraction from the world around me, I scarcely understood that
+Jerusalem was an actual spot on the earth, where once the Kings of the
+Bible, real people, like my neighbors in Polotzk, ruled in puissant
+majesty. For the conditions of our civil life did not permit us to
+cultivate a spirit of nationalism. The freedom of worship that was
+grudgingly granted within the narrow limits of the Pale by no means
+included the right to set up openly any ideal of a Hebrew State, any
+hero other than the Czar. What we children picked up of our ancient
+political history was confused with the miraculous story of the
+Creation, with the supernatural legends and hazy associations of Bible
+lore. As to our future, we Jews in Polotzk had no national
+expectations; only a life-worn dreamer here and there hoped to die in
+Palestine. If Fetchke and I sang, with my father, first making sure of
+our audience, "Zion, Zion, Holy Zion, not forever is it lost," we did
+not really picture to ourselves Judæa restored.
+
+So it came to pass that we did not know what _my country_ could mean
+to a man. And as we had no country, so we had no flag to love. It was
+by no far-fetched symbolism that the banner of the House of Romanoff
+became the emblem of our latter-day bondage in our eyes. Even a child
+would know how to hate the flag that we were forced, on pain of severe
+penalties, to hoist above our housetops, in celebration of the advent
+of one of our oppressors. And as it was with country and flag, so it
+was with heroes of war. We hated the uniform of the soldier, to the
+last brass button. On the person of a Gentile, it was the symbol of
+tyranny; on the person of a Jew, it was the emblem of shame.
+
+So a little Jewish girl in Polotzk was apt to grow up hungry-minded
+and empty-hearted; and if, still in her outreaching youth, she was set
+down in a land of outspoken patriotism, she was likely to love her new
+country with a great love, and to embrace its heroes in a great
+worship. Naturalization, with us Russian Jews, may mean more than the
+adoption of the immigrant by America. It may mean the adoption of
+America by the immigrant.
+
+On the day of the Washington celebration I recited a poem that I had
+composed in my enthusiasm. But "composed" is not the word. The process
+of putting on paper the sentiments that seethed in my soul was really
+very discomposing. I dug the words out of my heart, squeezed the
+rhymes out of my brain, forced the missing syllables out of their
+hiding-places in the dictionary. May I never again know such travail
+of the spirit as I endured during the fevered days when I was engaged
+on the poem. It was not as if I wanted to say that snow was white or
+grass was green. I could do that without a dictionary. It was a
+question now of the loftiest sentiments, of the most abstract truths,
+the names of which were very new in my vocabulary. It was necessary to
+use polysyllables, and plenty of them; and where to find rhymes for
+such words as "tyranny," "freedom," and "justice," when you had less
+than two years' acquaintance with English! The name I wished to
+celebrate was the most difficult of all. Nothing but "Washington"
+rhymed with "Washington." It was a most ambitious undertaking, but my
+heart could find no rest till it had proclaimed itself to the world;
+so I wrestled with my difficulties, and spared not ink, till
+inspiration perched on my penpoint, and my soul gave up its best.
+
+When I had done, I was myself impressed with the length, gravity, and
+nobility of my poem. My father was overcome with emotion as he read
+it. His hands trembled as he held the paper to the light, and the mist
+gathered in his eyes. My teacher, Miss Dwight, was plainly astonished
+at my performance, and said many kind things, and asked many
+questions; all of which I took very solemnly, like one who had been in
+the clouds and returned to earth with a sign upon him. When Miss
+Dwight asked me to read my poem to the class on the day of
+celebration, I readily consented. It was not in me to refuse a chance
+to tell my schoolmates what I thought of George Washington.
+
+I was not a heroic figure when I stood up in front of the class to
+pronounce the praises of the Father of his Country. Thin, pale, and
+hollow, with a shadow of short black curls on my brow, and the staring
+look of prominent eyes, I must have looked more frightened than
+imposing. My dress added no grace to my appearance. "Plaids" were in
+fashion, and my frock was of a red-and-green "plaid" that had a
+ghastly effect on my complexion. I hated it when I thought of it, but
+on the great day I did not know I had any dress on. Heels clapped
+together, and hands glued to my sides, I lifted up my voice in praise
+of George Washington. It was not much of a voice; like my hollow
+cheeks, it suggested consumption. My pronunciation was faulty, my
+declamation flat. But I had the courage of my convictions. I was face
+to face with twoscore Fellow Citizens, in clean blouses and extra
+frills. I must tell them what George Washington had done for their
+country--for _our_ country--for me.
+
+I can laugh now at the impossible metres, the grandiose phrases, the
+verbose repetitions of my poem. Years ago I must have laughed at it,
+when I threw my only copy into the wastebasket. The copy I am now
+turning over was loaned me by Miss Dwight, who faithfully preserved it
+all these years, for the sake, no doubt, of what I strove to express
+when I laboriously hitched together those dozen and more ungraceful
+stanzas. But to the forty Fellow Citizens sitting in rows in front of
+me it was no laughing matter. Even the bad boys sat in attitudes of
+attention, hypnotized by the solemnity of my demeanor. If they got any
+inkling of what the hail of big words was about, it must have been
+through occult suggestion. I fixed their eighty eyes with my single
+stare, and gave it to them, stanza after stanza, with such emphasis as
+the lameness of the lines permitted.
+
+    He whose courage, will, amazing bravery,
+      Did free his land from a despot's rule,
+    From man's greatest evil, almost slavery,
+      And all that's taught in tyranny's school.
+    Who gave his land its liberty,
+      Who was he?
+
+    'T was he who e'er will be our pride.
+      Immortal Washington,
+    Who always did in truth confide.
+      We hail our Washington!
+
+   [Illustration: TWOSCORE OF MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--PUBLIC SCHOOL,
+   CHELSEA]
+
+The best of the verses were no better than these, but the children
+listened. They had to. Presently I gave them news, declaring that
+Washington
+
+    Wrote the famous Constitution; sacred's the hand
+    That this blessed guide to man had given, which says, "One
+    And all of mankind are alike, excepting none."
+
+This was received in respectful silence, possibly because the other
+Fellow Citizens were as hazy about historical facts as I at this
+point. "Hurrah for Washington!" they understood, and "Three cheers for
+the Red, White, and Blue!" was only to be expected on that occasion.
+But there ran a special note through my poem--a thought that only
+Israel Rubinstein or Beckie Aronovitch could have fully understood,
+besides myself. For I made myself the spokesman of the "luckless sons
+of Abraham," saying--
+
+    Then we weary Hebrew children at last found rest
+    In the land where reigned Freedom, and like a nest
+    To homeless birds your land proved to us, and therefore
+    Will we gratefully sing your praise evermore.
+
+The boys and girls who had never been turned away from any door
+because of their father's religion sat as if fascinated in their
+places. But they woke up and applauded heartily when I was done,
+following the example of Miss Dwight, who wore the happy face which
+meant that one of her pupils had done well.
+
+The recitation was repeated, by request, before several other classes,
+and the applause was equally prolonged at each repetition. After the
+exercises I was surrounded, praised, questioned, and made much of, by
+teachers as well as pupils. Plainly I had not poured my praise of
+George Washington into deaf ears. The teachers asked me if anybody had
+helped me with the poem. The girls invariably asked, "Mary Antin, how
+could you think of all those words?" None of them thought of the
+dictionary!
+
+If I had been satisfied with my poem in the first place, the applause
+with which it was received by my teachers and schoolmates convinced me
+that I had produced a very fine thing indeed. So the person, whoever
+it was,--perhaps my father--who suggested that my tribute to
+Washington ought to be printed, did not find me difficult to persuade.
+When I had achieved an absolutely perfect copy of my verses, at the
+expense of a dozen sheets of blue-ruled note paper, I crossed the
+Mystic River to Boston and boldly invaded Newspaper Row.
+
+It never occurred to me to send my manuscript by mail. In fact, it has
+never been my way to send a delegate where I could go myself.
+Consciously or unconsciously, I have always acted on the motto of a
+wise man who was one of the dearest friends that Boston kept for me
+until I came. "Personal presence moves the world," said the great Dr.
+Hale; and I went in person to beard the editor in his armchair.
+
+From the ferry slip to the offices of the "Boston Transcript" the way
+was long, strange, and full of perils; but I kept resolutely on up
+Hanover Street, being familiar with that part of my route, till I came
+to a puzzling corner. There I stopped, utterly bewildered by the
+tangle of streets, the roar of traffic, the giddy swarm of
+pedestrians. With the precious manuscript tightly clasped, I balanced
+myself on the curbstone, afraid to plunge into the boiling vortex of
+the crossing. Every time I made a start, a clanging street car
+snatched up the way. I could not even pick out my street; the
+unobtrusive street signs were lost to my unpractised sight, in the
+glaring confusion of store signs and advertisements. If I accosted a
+pedestrian to ask the way, I had to speak several times before I was
+heard. Jews, hurrying by with bearded chins on their bosoms and eyes
+intent, shrugged their shoulders at the name "Transcript," and
+shrugged till they were out of sight. Italians sauntering behind their
+fruit carts answered my inquiry with a lift of the head that made
+their earrings gleam, and a wave of the hand that referred me to all
+four points of the compass at once. I was trying to catch the eye of
+the tall policeman who stood grandly in the middle of the crossing, a
+stout pillar around which the waves of traffic broke, when deliverance
+bellowed in my ear.
+
+"Herald, Globe, Record, _Tra-avel-er_! Eh? Whatcher want, sis?" The
+tall newsboy had to stoop to me. "Transcript? Sure!" And in half a
+twinkling he had picked me out a paper from his bundle. When I
+explained to him, he good-naturedly tucked the paper in again, piloted
+me across, unravelled the end of Washington Street for me, and with
+much pointing out of landmarks, headed me for my destination, my nose
+seeking the spire of the Old South Church.
+
+I found the "Transcript" building a waste of corridors tunnelled by a
+maze of staircases. On the glazed-glass doors were many signs with the
+names or nicknames of many persons: "City Editor"; "Beggars and
+Peddlers not Allowed." The nameless world not included in these
+categories was warned off, forbidden to be or do: "Private--No
+Admittance"; "Don't Knock." And the various inhospitable legends on
+the doors and walls were punctuated by frequent cuspidors on the
+floor. There was no sign anywhere of the welcome which I, as an
+author, expected to find in the home of a newspaper.
+
+I was descending from the top story to the street for the seventh
+time, trying to decide what kind of editor a patriotic poem belonged
+to, when an untidy boy carrying broad paper streamers and whistling
+shrilly, in defiance of an express prohibition on the wall, bustled
+through the corridor and left a door ajar. I slipped in behind him,
+and found myself in a room full of editors.
+
+I was a little surprised at the appearance of the editors. I had
+imagined my editor would look like Mr. Jones, the principal of my
+school, whose coat was always buttoned, and whose finger nails were
+beautiful. These people were in shirt sleeves, and they smoked, and
+they didn't politely turn in their revolving chairs when I came in,
+and ask, "What can I do for you?"
+
+The room was noisy with typewriters, and nobody heard my "Please, can
+you tell me." At last one of the machines stopped, and the operator
+thought he heard something in the pause. He looked up through his own
+smoke. I guess he thought he saw something, for he stared. It troubled
+me a little to have him stare so. I realized suddenly that the hand in
+which I carried my manuscript was moist, and I was afraid it would
+make marks on the paper. I held out the manuscript to the editor,
+explaining that it was a poem about George Washington, and would he
+please print it in the "Transcript."
+
+There was something queer about that particular editor. The way he
+stared and smiled made me feel about eleven inches high, and my voice
+kept growing smaller and smaller as I neared the end of my speech.
+
+At last he spoke, laying down his pipe, and sitting back at his ease.
+
+"So you have brought us a poem, my child?"
+
+"It's about George Washington," I repeated impressively. "Don't you
+want to read it?"
+
+"I should be delighted, my dear, but the fact is--"
+
+He did not take my paper. He stood up and called across the room.
+
+"Say, Jack! here is a young lady who has brought us a poem--about
+George Washington.--Wrote it yourself, my dear?--Wrote it all herself.
+What shall we do with her?"
+
+Mr. Jack came over, and another man. My editor made me repeat my
+business, and they all looked interested, but nobody took my paper
+from me. They put their hands into their pockets, and my hand kept
+growing clammier all the time. The three seemed to be consulting, but
+I could not understand what they said, or why Mr. Jack laughed.
+
+A fourth man, who had been writing busily at a desk near by, broke in
+on the consultation.
+
+"That's enough, boys," he said, "that's enough. Take the young lady to
+Mr. Hurd."
+
+Mr. Hurd, it was found, was away on a vacation, and of several other
+editors in several offices, to whom I was referred, none proved to be
+the proper editor to take charge of a poem about George Washington. At
+last an elderly editor suggested that as Mr. Hurd would be away for
+some time, I would do well to give up the "Transcript" and try the
+"Herald," across the way.
+
+A little tired by my wanderings, and bewildered by the complexity of
+the editorial system, but still confident about my mission, I picked
+my way across Washington Street and found the "Herald" offices. Here I
+had instant good luck. The first editor I addressed took my paper and
+invited me to a seat. He read my poem much more quickly than I could
+myself, and said it was very nice, and asked me some questions, and
+made notes on a slip of paper which he pinned to my manuscript. He
+said he would have my piece printed very soon, and would send me a
+copy of the issue in which it appeared. As I was going, I could not
+help giving the editor my hand, although I had not experienced any
+handshaking in Newspaper Row. I felt that as author and editor we were
+on a very pleasant footing, and I gave him my hand in token of
+comradeship.
+
+I had regained my full stature and something over, during this cordial
+interview, and when I stepped out into the street and saw the crowd
+intently studying the bulletin board I swelled out of all proportion.
+For I told myself that I, Mary Antin, was one of the inspired
+brotherhood who made newspapers so interesting. I did not know whether
+my poem would be put upon the bulletin board; but at any rate, it
+would be in the paper, with my name at the bottom, like my story about
+"Snow" in Miss Dillingham's school journal. And all these people in
+the streets, and more, thousands of people--all Boston!--would read my
+poem, and learn my name, and wonder who I was. I smiled to myself in
+delicious amusement when a man deliberately put me out of his path, as
+I dreamed my way through the jostling crowd; if he only _knew_ whom
+he was treating so unceremoniously!
+
+When the paper with my poem in it arrived, the whole house pounced
+upon it at once. I was surprised to find that my verses were not all
+over the front page. The poem was a little hard to find, if anything,
+being tucked away in the middle of the voluminous sheet. But when we
+found it, it looked wonderful, just like real poetry, not at all as if
+somebody we knew had written it. It occupied a gratifying amount of
+space, and was introduced by a flattering biographical sketch of the
+author--the _author_!--the material for which the friendly editor had
+artfully drawn from me during that happy interview. And my name, as I
+had prophesied, was at the bottom!
+
+When the excitement in the house had subsided, my father took all the
+change out of the cash drawer and went to buy up the "Herald." He did
+not count the pennies. He just bought "Heralds," all he could lay his
+hands on, and distributed them gratis to all our friends, relatives,
+and acquaintances; to all who could read, and to some who could not.
+For weeks he carried a clipping from the "Herald" in his breast
+pocket, and few were the occasions when he did not manage to introduce
+it into the conversation. He treasured that clipping as for years he
+had treasured the letters I wrote him from Polotzk.
+
+Although my father bought up most of the issue containing my poem, a
+few hundred copies were left to circulate among the general public,
+enough to spread the flame of my patriotic ardor and to enkindle a
+thousand sluggish hearts. Really, there was something more solemn than
+vanity in my satisfaction. Pleased as I was with my notoriety--and
+nobody but I knew how exceedingly pleased--I had a sober feeling about
+it all. I enjoyed being praised and admired and envied; but what gave
+a divine flavor to my happiness was the idea that I had publicly borne
+testimony to the goodness of my exalted hero, to the greatness of my
+adopted country. I did not discount the homage of Arlington Street,
+because I did not properly rate the intelligence of its population. I
+took the admiration of my schoolmates without a grain of salt; it was
+just so much honey to me. I could not know that what made me great in
+the eyes of my neighbors was that "there was a piece about me in the
+paper"; it mattered very little to them what the "piece" was about. I
+thought they really admired my sentiments. On the street, in the
+schoolyard, I was pointed out. The people said, "That's Mary Antin.
+She had her name in the paper." _I_ thought they said, "This is she
+who loves her country and worships George Washington."
+
+To repeat, I was well aware that I was something of a celebrity, and
+took all possible satisfaction in the fact; yet I gave my schoolmates
+no occasion to call me "stuck-up." My vanity did not express itself in
+strutting or wagging the head. I played tag and puss-in-the-corner in
+the schoolyard, and did everything that was comrade-like. But in the
+schoolroom I conducted myself gravely, as befitted one who was
+preparing for the noble career of a poet.
+
+I am forgetting Lizzie McDee. I am trying to give the impression that
+I behaved with at least outward modesty during my schoolgirl triumphs,
+whereas Lizzie could testify that she knew Mary Antin as a vain
+boastful, curly-headed little Jew. For I had a special style of
+deportment for Lizzie. If there was any girl in the school besides me
+who could keep near the top of the class all the year through, and
+give bright answers when the principal or the school committee popped
+sudden questions, and write rhymes that almost always rhymed, _I_ was
+determined that that ambitious person should not soar unduly in her
+own estimation. So I took care to show Lizzie all my poetry, and when
+she showed me hers I did not admire it too warmly. Lizzie, as I have
+already said, was in a Sunday-school mood even on week days; her
+verses all had morals. My poems were about the crystal snow, and the
+ocean blue, and sweet spring, and fleecy clouds; when I tried to drag
+in a moral it kicked so that the music of my lines went out in a
+groan. So I had a sweet revenge when Lizzie, one day, volunteered to
+bolster up the eloquence of Mr. Jones, the principal, who was
+lecturing the class for bad behavior, by comparing the bad boy in the
+schoolroom to the rotten apple that spoils the barrelful. The groans,
+coughs, a-hem's, feet shufflings, and paper pellets that filled the
+room as Saint Elizabeth sat down, even in the principal's presence,
+were sweet balm to my smart of envy; I didn't care if I didn't know
+how to moralize.
+
+When my teacher had visitors I was aware that I was the show pupil of
+the class. I was always made to recite, my compositions were passed
+around, and often I was called up on the platform--oh, climax of
+exaltation!--to be interviewed by the distinguished strangers; while
+the class took advantage of the teacher's distraction, to hold
+forbidden intercourse on matters not prescribed in the curriculum.
+When I returned to my seat, after such public audience with the great,
+I looked to see if Lizzie McDee was taking notice; and Lizzie, who was
+a generous soul, her Sunday-school airs notwithstanding, generally
+smiled, and I forgave her her rhymes.
+
+Not but what I paid a price for my honors. With all my self-possession
+I had a certain capacity for shyness. Even when I arose to recite
+before the customary audience of my class I suffered from incipient
+stage fright, and my voice trembled over the first few words. When
+visitors were in the room I was even more troubled; and when I was
+made the special object of their attention my triumph was marred by
+acute distress. If I was called up to speak to the visitors, forty
+pairs of eyes pricked me in the back as I went. I stumbled in the
+aisle, and knocked down things that were not at all in my way; and my
+awkwardness increasing my embarrassment I would gladly have changed
+places with Lizzie or the bad boy in the back row; anything, only to
+be less conspicuous. When I found myself shaking hands with an august
+School-Committeeman, or a teacher from New York, the remnants of my
+self-possession vanished in awe; and it was in a very husky voice that
+I repeated, as I was asked, my name, lineage, and personal history. On
+the whole, I do not think that the School-Committeeman found a very
+forward creature in the solemn-faced little girl with the tight curls
+and the terrible red-and-green "plaid."
+
+These awful audiences did not always end with the handshaking.
+Sometimes the great personages asked me to write to them, and
+exchanged addresses with me. Some of these correspondences continued
+through years, and were the source of much pleasure, on one side at
+least. And Arlington Street took notice when I received letters with
+important-looking or aristocratic-looking letterheads. Lizzie McDee
+also took notice. _I_ saw to that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MIRACLES
+
+
+It was not always in admiration that the finger was pointed at me. One
+day I found myself the centre of an excited group in the middle of the
+schoolyard, with a dozen girls interrupting each other to express
+their disapproval of me. For I had coolly told them, in answer to a
+question, that I did not believe in God.
+
+How had I arrived at such a conviction? How had I come, from praying
+and fasting and Psalm-singing, to extreme impiety? Alas! my
+backsliding had cost me no travail of spirit. Always weak in my faith,
+playing at sanctity as I played at soldiers, just as I was in the mood
+or not, I had neglected my books of devotion and given myself up to
+profane literature at the first opportunity, in Vitebsk; and I never
+took up my prayer book again. On my return to Polotzk, America loomed
+so near that my imagination was fully occupied, and I did not revive
+the secret experiments with which I used to test the nature and
+intention of Deity. It was more to me that I was going to America than
+that I might not be going to Heaven. And when we joined my father, and
+I saw that he did not wear the sacred fringes, and did not put on the
+phylacteries and pray, I was neither surprised nor shocked,
+remembering the Sabbath night when he had with his own hand turned out
+the lamp. When I saw him go out to work on Sabbath exactly as on a
+week day, I understood why God had not annihilated me with his
+lightnings that time when I purposely carried something in my pocket
+on Sabbath: there was no God, and there was no sin. And I ran out to
+play, pleased to find that I was free, like other little girls in the
+street, instead of being hemmed about with prohibitions and
+obligations at every step. And yet if the golden truth of Judaism had
+not been handed me in the motley rags of formalism, I might not have
+been so ready to put away my religion.
+
+It was Rachel Goldstein who provoked my avowal of atheism. She asked
+if I wasn't going to stay out of school during Passover, and I said
+no. Wasn't I a Jew? she wanted to know. No, I wasn't; I was a
+Freethinker. What was that? I didn't believe in God. Rachel was
+horrified. Why, Kitty Maloney believed in God, and Kitty was only a
+Catholic! She appealed to Kitty.
+
+"Kitty Maloney! Come over here. Don't you believe in God?--There, now,
+Mary Antin!--Mary Antin says she doesn't believe in God!"
+
+Rachel Goldstein's horror is duplicated. Kitty Maloney, who used to
+mock Rachel's Jewish accent, instantly becomes her voluble ally, and
+proceeds to annihilate me by plying me with crucial questions.
+
+"You don't believe in God? Then who made you, Mary Antin?"
+
+"Nature made me."
+
+"_Nature_ made you! What's that?"
+
+"It's--everything. It's the trees--no, it's what makes the trees grow.
+_That's_ what it is."
+
+"But _God_ made the trees, Mary Antin," from Rachel and Kitty in
+chorus. "Maggie O'Reilly! Listen to Mary Antin. She says there isn't
+any God. She says the trees made her!"
+
+Rachel and Kitty and Maggie, Sadie and Annie and Beckie, made a circle
+around me, and pressed me with questions, and mocked me, and
+threatened me with hell flames and utter extinction. I held my ground
+against them all obstinately enough, though my argument was
+exceedingly lame. I glibly repeated phrases I had heard my father use,
+but I had no real understanding of his atheistic doctrines. I had been
+surprised into this dispute. I had no spontaneous interest in the
+subject; my mind was occupied with other things. But as the number of
+my opponents grew, and I saw how unanimously they condemned me, my
+indifference turned into a heat of indignation. The actual point at
+issue was as little as ever to me, but I perceived that a crowd of
+Free Americans were disputing the right of a Fellow Citizen to have
+any kind of God she chose. I knew, from my father's teaching, that
+this persecution was contrary to the Constitution of the United
+States, and I held my ground as befitted the defender of a cause.
+George Washington would not have treated me as Rachel Goldstein and
+Kitty Maloney were doing! "This is a free country," I reminded them in
+the middle of the argument.
+
+The excitement in the yard amounted to a toy riot. When the school
+bell rang and the children began to file in, I stood out there as long
+as any of my enemies remained, although it was my habit to go to my
+room very promptly. And as the foes of American Liberty crowded and
+pushed in the line, whispering to those who had not heard that a
+heretic had been discovered in their midst, the teacher who kept the
+line in the corridor was obliged to scold and pull the noisy ones into
+order; and Sadie Cohen told her, in tones of awe, what the commotion
+was about.
+
+Miss Bland waited till the children had filed in before she asked me,
+in a tone encouraging confidence, to give my version of the story.
+This I did, huskily but fearlessly; and the teacher, who was a woman
+of tact, did not smile or commit herself in any way. She was sorry
+that the children had been rude to me, but she thought they would not
+trouble me any more if I let the subject drop. She made me understand,
+somewhat as Miss Dillingham had done on the occasion of my whispering
+during prayer, that it was proper American conduct to avoid religious
+arguments on school territory. I felt honored by this private
+initiation into the doctrine of the separation of Church and State,
+and I went to my seat with a good deal of dignity, my alarm about the
+safety of the Constitution allayed by the teacher's calmness.
+
+This is not so strictly the story of the second generation that I may
+not properly give a brief account of how it fared with my mother when
+my father undertook to purge his house of superstition. The process of
+her emancipation, it is true, was not obvious to me at the time, but
+what I observed of her outward conduct has been interpreted by my
+subsequent experience; so that to-day I understand how it happens that
+all the year round my mother keeps the same day of rest as her Gentile
+neighbors; but when the ram's horn blows on the Day of Atonement,
+calling upon Israel to cleanse its heart from sin and draw nearer to
+the God of its fathers, her soul is stirred as of old, and she needs
+must join in the ancient service. It means, I have come to know, that
+she has dropped the husk and retained the kernel of Judaism; but years
+were required for this process of instinctive selection.
+
+My father, in his ambition to make Americans of us, was rather
+headlong and strenuous in his methods. To my mother, on the eve of
+departure for the New World, he wrote boldly that progressive Jews in
+America did not spend their days in praying; and he urged her to leave
+her wig in Polotzk, as a first step of progress. My mother, like the
+majority of women in the Pale, had all her life taken her religion on
+authority; so she was only fulfilling her duty to her husband when she
+took his hint, and set out upon her journey in her own hair. Not that
+it was done without reluctance; the Jewish faith in her was deeply
+rooted, as in the best of Jews it always is. The law of the Fathers
+was binding to her, and the outward symbols of obedience inseparable
+from the spirit. But the breath of revolt against orthodox externals
+was at this time beginning to reach us in Polotzk from the greater
+world, notably from America. Sons whose parents had impoverished
+themselves by paying the fine for non-appearance for military duty, in
+order to save their darlings from the inevitable sins of violated
+Judaism while in the service, sent home portraits of themselves with
+their faces shaved; and the grieved old fathers and mothers, after
+offering up special prayers for the renegades, and giving charity in
+their name, exhibited the significant portraits on their parlor
+tables. My mother's own nephew went no farther than Vilna, ten hours'
+journey from Polotzk, to learn to cut his beard; and even within our
+town limits young women of education were beginning to reject the wig
+after marriage. A notorious example was the beautiful daughter of
+Lozhe the Rav, who was not restrained by her father's conspicuous
+relation to Judaism from exhibiting her lovely black curls like a
+maiden; and it was a further sign of the times that the rav did not
+disown his daughter. What wonder, then, that my poor mother, shaken
+by these foreshadowings of revolution in our midst, and by the express
+authority of her husband, gave up the emblem of matrimonial chastity
+with but a passing struggle? Considering how the heavy burdens which
+she had borne from childhood had never allowed her time to think for
+herself at all, but had obliged her always to tread blindly in the
+beaten paths, I think it greatly to her credit that in her puzzling
+situation she did not lose her poise entirely. Bred to submission,
+submit she must; and when she perceived a conflict of authorities, she
+prepared to accept the new order of things under which her children's
+future was to be formed; wherein she showed her native adaptability,
+the readiness to fall into line, which is one of the most charming
+traits of her gentle, self-effacing nature.
+
+My father gave my mother very little time to adjust herself. He was
+only three years from the Old World with its settled prejudices.
+Considering his education, he had thought out a good deal for himself,
+but his line of thinking had not as yet brought him to include woman
+in the intellectual emancipation for which he himself had been so
+eager even in Russia. This was still in the day when he was astonished
+to learn that women had written books--had used their minds, their
+imaginations, unaided. He still rated the mental capacity of the
+average woman as only a little above that of the cattle she tended. He
+held it to be a wife's duty to follow her husband in all things. He
+could do all the thinking for the family, he believed; and being
+convinced that to hold to the outward forms of orthodox Judaism was to
+be hampered in the race for Americanization, he did not hesitate to
+order our family life on unorthodox lines. There was no conscious
+despotism in this; it was only making manly haste to realize an ideal
+the nobility of which there was no one to dispute.
+
+My mother, as we know, had not the initial impulse to depart from
+ancient usage that my father had in his habitual scepticism. He had
+always been a nonconformist in his heart; she bore lovingly the yoke
+of prescribed conduct. Individual freedom, to him, was the only
+tolerable condition of life; to her it was confusion. My mother,
+therefore, gradually divested herself, at my father's bidding, of the
+mantle of orthodox observance; but the process cost her many a pang,
+because the fabric of that venerable garment was interwoven with the
+fabric of her soul.
+
+My father did not attempt to touch the fundamentals of her faith. He
+certainly did not forbid her to honor God by loving her neighbor,
+which is perhaps not far from being the whole of Judaism. If his loud
+denials of the existence of God influenced her to reconsider her
+creed, it was merely an incidental result of the freedom of expression
+he was so eager to practise, after his life of enforced hypocrisy. As
+the opinions of a mere woman on matters so abstract as religion did
+not interest him in the least, he counted it no particular triumph if
+he observed that my mother weakened in her faith as the years went by.
+He allowed her to keep a Jewish kitchen as long as she pleased, but he
+did not want us children to refuse invitations to the table of our
+Gentile neighbors. He would have no bar to our social intercourse with
+the world around us, for only by freely sharing the life of our
+neighbors could we come into our full inheritance of American freedom
+and opportunity. On the holy days he bought my mother a ticket for the
+synagogue, but the children he sent to school. On Sabbath eve my
+mother might light the consecrated candles, but he kept the store open
+until Sunday morning. My mother might believe and worship as she
+pleased, up to the point where her orthodoxy began to interfere with
+the American progress of the family.
+
+The price that all of us paid for this disorganization of our family
+life has been levied on every immigrant Jewish household where the
+first generation clings to the traditions of the Old World, while the
+second generation leads the life of the New. Nothing more pitiful
+could be written in the annals of the Jews; nothing more inevitable;
+nothing more hopeful. Hopeful, yes; alike for the Jew and for the
+country that has given him shelter. For Israel is not the only party
+that has put up a forfeit in this contest. The nations may well sit by
+and watch the struggle, for humanity has a stake in it. I say this,
+whose life has borne witness, whose heart is heavy with revelations it
+has not made. And I speak for thousands; oh, for thousands!
+
+My gray hairs are too few for me to let these pages trespass the limit
+I have set myself. That part of my life which contains the climax of
+my personal drama I must leave to my grandchildren to record. My
+father might speak and tell how, in time, he discovered that in his
+first violent rejection of everything old and established he cast from
+him much that he afterwards missed. He might tell to what extent he
+later retraced his steps, seeking to recover what he had learned to
+value anew; how it fared with his avowed irreligion when put to the
+extreme test; to what, in short, his emancipation amounted. And he,
+like myself, would speak for thousands. My grandchildren, for all I
+know, may have a graver task than I have set them. Perhaps they may
+have to testify that the faith of Israel is a heritage that no heir in
+the direct line has the power to alienate from his successors. Even I,
+with my limited perspective, think it doubtful if the conversion of
+the Jew to any alien belief or disbelief is ever thoroughly
+accomplished. What positive affirmation of the persistence of Judaism
+in the blood my descendants may have to make, I may not be present to
+hear.
+
+It would be superfluous to state that none of these hints and
+prophecies troubled me at the time when I horrified the schoolyard by
+denying the existence of God, on the authority of my father; and
+defended my right to my atheism, on the authority of the Constitution.
+I considered myself absolutely, eternally, delightfully emancipated
+from the yoke of indefensible superstitions. I was wild with
+indignation and pity when I remembered how my poor brother had been
+cruelly tormented because he did not want to sit in heder and learn
+what was after all false or useless. I knew now why poor Reb' Lebe had
+been unable to answer my questions; it was because the truth was not
+whispered outside America. I was very much in love with my
+enlightenment, and eager for opportunities to give proof of it.
+
+It was Miss Dillingham, she who helped me in so many ways, who
+unconsciously put me to an early test, the result of which gave me a
+shock that I did not get over for many a day. She invited me to tea
+one day, and I came in much trepidation. It was my first entrance into
+a genuine American household; my first meal at a Gentile--yes, a
+Christian--board. Would I know how to behave properly? I do not know
+whether I betrayed my anxiety; I am certain only that I was all eyes
+and ears, that nothing should escape me which might serve to guide
+me. This, after all, was a normal state for me to be in, so I suppose
+I looked natural, no matter how much I stared. I had been accustomed
+to consider my table manners irreproachable, but America was not
+Polotzk, as my father was ever saying; so I proceeded very cautiously
+with my spoons and forks. I was cunning enough to try to conceal my
+uncertainty; by being just a little bit slow, I did not get to any
+given spoon until the others at table had shown me which it was.
+
+All went well, until a platter was passed with a kind of meat that was
+strange to me. Some mischievous instinct told me that it was
+ham--forbidden food; and I, the liberal, the free, was afraid to touch
+it! I had a terrible moment of surprise, mortification, self-contempt;
+but I helped myself to a slice of ham, nevertheless, and hung my head
+over my plate to hide my confusion. I was furious with myself for my
+weakness. I to be afraid of a pink piece of pig's flesh, who had
+defied at least two religions in defence of free thought! And I began
+to reduce my ham to indivisible atoms, determined to eat more of it
+than anybody at the table.
+
+Alas! I learned that to eat in defence of principles was not so easy
+as to talk. I ate, but only a newly abnegated Jew can understand with
+what squirming, what protesting of the inner man, what exquisite
+abhorrence of myself. That Spartan boy who allowed the stolen fox
+hidden in his bosom to consume his vitals rather than be detected in
+the theft, showed no such miracle of self-control as did I, sitting
+there at my friend's tea-table, eating unjewish meat.
+
+And to think that so ridiculous a thing as a scrap of meat should be
+the symbol and test of things so august! To think that in the mental
+life of a half-grown child should be reflected the struggles and
+triumphs of ages! Over and over and over again I discover that I am a
+wonderful thing, being human; that I am the image of the universe,
+being myself; that I am the repository of all the wisdom in the world,
+being alive and sane at the beginning of this twentieth century. The
+heir of the ages am I, and all that has been is in me, and shall
+continue to be in my immortal self.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A CHILD'S PARADISE
+
+
+All this while that I was studying and exploring in the borderland
+between the old life and the new; leaping at conclusions, and
+sometimes slipping; finding inspiration in common things, and
+interpretations in dumb things; eagerly scaling the ladder of
+learning, my eyes on star-diademmed peaks of ambition; building up
+friendships that should support my youth and enrich my womanhood;
+learning to think much of myself, and much more of my world,--while I
+was steadily gathering in my heritage, sowed in the dim past, and
+ripened in the sun of my own day, what was my sister doing?
+
+Why, what she had always done: keeping close to my mother's side on
+the dreary marches of a humdrum life; sensing sweet gardens of
+forbidden joy, but never turning from the path of duty. I cannot
+believe but that her sacrifices tasted as dust and ashes to her at
+times; for Frieda was a mere girl, whose childhood, on the whole, had
+been gray, while her appetite for happy things was as great as any
+normal girl's. She had a fine sense for what was best in the life
+about her, though she could not articulate her appreciation. She
+longed to possess the good things, but her position in the family
+forbidding possession, she developed a talent for vicarious enjoyment
+which I never in this life hope to imitate. And her simple mind did
+not busy itself with self-analysis. She did not even know why she was
+happy; she thought life was good to her. Still, there must have been
+moments when she perceived that the finer things were not in
+themselves unattainable, but were kept from her by a social tyranny.
+This I can only surmise, as in our daily intercourse she never gave a
+sign of discontent.
+
+We continued to have part of our life in common for some time after
+she went to work. We formed ourselves into an evening school, she and
+I and the two youngsters, for the study of English and arithmetic. As
+soon as the supper dishes were put away, we gathered around the
+kitchen table, with books borrowed from school, and pencils supplied
+by my father with eager willingness. I was the teacher, the others the
+diligent pupils; and the earnestness with which we labored was worthy
+of the great things we meant to achieve. Whether the results were
+commensurate with our efforts I cannot say. I only know that Frieda's
+cheeks flamed with the excitement of reading English monosyllables;
+and her eyes shone like stars on a moonless night when I explained to
+her how she and I and George Washington were Fellow Citizens together.
+
+Inspired by our studious evenings, what Frieda Antin would not be glad
+to sit all day bent over the needle, that the family should keep on
+its feet, and Mary continue at school? The morning ride on the
+ferryboat, when spring winds dimpled the river, may have stirred her
+heart with nameless longings, but when she took her place at the
+machine her lot was glorified to her, and she wanted to sing; for the
+girls, the foreman, the boss, all talked about Mary Antin, whose poems
+were printed in an American newspaper. Wherever she went on her humble
+business, she was sure to hear her sister's name. For, with
+characteristic loyalty, the whole Jewish community claimed kinship
+with me, simply because I was a Jew; and they made much of my small
+triumphs, and pointed to me with pride, just as they always do when a
+Jew distinguishes himself in any worthy way. Frieda, going home from
+work at sunset, when rosy buds beaded the shining stems, may have felt
+the weariness of those who toil for bread; but when we opened our
+books after supper, her spirit revived afresh, and it was only when
+the lamp began to smoke that she thought of taking rest.
+
+At bedtime she and I chatted as we used to do when we were little
+girls in Polotzk; only now, instead of closing our eyes to see
+imaginary wonders, according to a bedtime game of ours, we exchanged
+anecdotes about the marvellous adventures of our American life. My
+contributions on these occasions were boastful accounts, I have no
+doubt, of what I did at school, and in the company of school-committee
+men, editors, and other notables; and Frieda's delight in my
+achievements was the very flower of her fine sympathy. As formerly,
+when I had been naughty and I invited her to share in my repentance,
+she used to join me in spiritual humility and solemnly dedicate
+herself to a better life; so now, when I was full of pride and
+ambition, she, too, felt the crown on her brows, and heard the
+applause of future generations murmuring in her ear. And so partaking
+of her sister's glory, what Frieda Antin would not say that her
+portion was sufficient reward for a youth of toil?
+
+I did not, like my sister, earn my bread in those days; but let us say
+that I earned my salt, by sweeping, scrubbing, and scouring, on
+Saturdays, when there was no school. My mother's housekeeping was
+necessarily irregular, as she was pretty constantly occupied in the
+store; so there was enough for us children to do to keep the bare
+rooms shining. Even here Frieda did the lion's share; it used to take
+me all Saturday to accomplish what Frieda would do with half a dozen
+turns of her capable hands. I did not like housework, but I loved
+order; so I polished windows with a will, and even got some fun out of
+scrubbing, by laying out the floor in patterns and tracing them all
+around the room in a lively flurry of soapsuds.
+
+There is a joy that comes from doing common things well, especially if
+they seem hard to us. When I faced a day's housework I was half
+paralyzed with a sense of inability, and I wasted precious minutes
+walking around it, to see what a very hard task I had. But having
+pitched in and conquered, it gave me an exquisite pleasure to survey
+my work. My hair tousled and my dress tucked up, streaked arms bare to
+the elbow, I would step on my heels over the damp, clean boards, and
+pass my hand over chair rounds and table legs, to prove that no dust
+was left. I could not wait to put my dress in order before running out
+into the street to see how my windows shone. Every workman who carries
+a dinner pail has these moments of keen delight in the product of his
+drudgery. Men of genius, likewise, in their hours of relaxation from
+their loftier tasks, prove this universal rule. I know a man who fills
+a chair at a great university. I have seen him hold a roomful of
+otherwise restless youths spellbound for an hour, while he discoursed
+about the respective inhabitants of the earth and sea at a time when
+nothing walked on fewer than four legs. And I have seen this scholar,
+his ponderous tomes shelved for a space, turning over and over with
+cherishing hands a letter-box that he had made out of card-board and
+paste, and exhibiting it proudly to his friends. For the hand was the
+first instrument of labor, that distinctive accomplishment by which
+man finally raised himself above his cousins, the lower animals; and a
+respect for the work of the hand survives as an instinct in all of us.
+
+The stretch of weeks from June to September, when the schools were
+closed, would have been hard to fill in had it not been for the public
+library. At first I made myself a calendar of the vacation months, and
+every morning I tore off a day, and comforted myself with the
+decreasing number of vacation days. But after I discovered the public
+library I was not impatient for the reopening of school. The library
+did not open till one o'clock in the afternoon, and each reader was
+allowed to take out only one book at a time. Long before one o'clock I
+was to be seen on the library steps, waiting for the door of paradise
+to open. I spent hours in the reading-room, pleased with the
+atmosphere of books, with the order and quiet of the place, so unlike
+anything on Arlington Street. The sense of these things permeated my
+consciousness even when I was absorbed in a book, just as the rustle
+of pages turned and the tiptoe tread of the librarian reached my ear,
+without distracting my attention. Anything so wonderful as a library
+had never been in my life. It was even better than school in some
+ways. One could read and read, and learn and learn, as fast as one
+knew how, without being obliged to stop for stupid little girls and
+inattentive little boys to catch up with the lesson. When I went home
+from the library I had a book under my arm; and I would finish it
+before the library opened next day, no matter till what hours of the
+night I burned my little lamp.
+
+What books did I read so diligently? Pretty nearly everything that
+came to my hand. I dare say the librarian helped me select my books,
+but, curiously enough, I do not remember. Something must have directed
+me, for I read a great many of the books that are written for
+children. Of these I remember with the greatest delight Louisa
+Alcott's stories. A less attractive series of books was of the Sunday
+School type. In volume after volume a very naughty little girl by the
+name of Lulu was always going into tempers, that her father might have
+opportunity to lecture her and point to her angelic little sister,
+Gracie, as an example of what she should be; after which they all felt
+better and prayed. Next to Louisa Alcott's books in my esteem were
+boys' books of adventure, many of them by Horatio Alger; and I read
+all, I suppose, of the Rollo books, by Jacob Abbott.
+
+But that was not all. I read every kind of printed rubbish that came
+into the house, by design or accident. A weekly story paper of a worse
+than worthless character, that circulated widely in our neighborhood
+because subscribers were rewarded with a premium of a diamond ring,
+warranted I don't know how many karats, occupied me for hours. The
+stories in this paper resembled, in breathlessness of plot, abundance
+of horrors, and improbability of characters, the things I used to read
+in Vitebsk. The text was illustrated by frequent pictures, in which
+the villain generally had his hands on the heroine's throat, while the
+hero was bursting in through a graceful drapery to the rescue of his
+beloved. If a bundle came into the house wrapped in a stained old
+newspaper, I laboriously smoothed out the paper and read it through. I
+enjoyed it all, and found fault with nothing that I read. And, as in
+the case of the Vitebsk readings, I cannot find that I suffered any
+harm. Of course, reading so many better books, there came a time when
+the diamond-ring story paper disgusted me; but in the beginning my
+appetite for print was so enormous that I could let nothing pass
+through my hands unread, while my taste was so crude that nothing
+printed could offend me.
+
+Good reading matter came into the house from one other source besides
+the library. The Yiddish newspapers of the day were excellent, and my
+father subscribed to the best of them. Since that time Yiddish
+journalism has sadly degenerated, through imitation of the vicious
+"yellow journals" of the American press.
+
+There was one book in the library over which I pored very often, and
+that was the encyclopædia. I turned usually to the names of famous
+people, beginning, of course, with George Washington. Oftenest of all
+I read the biographical sketches of my favorite authors, and felt that
+the worthies must have been glad to die just to have their names and
+histories printed out in the book of fame. It seemed to me the
+apotheosis of glory to be even briefly mentioned in an encyclopædia.
+And there grew in me an enormous ambition that devoured all my other
+ambitions, which was no less than this: that I should live to know
+that after my death my name would surely be printed in the
+encyclopædia. It was such a prodigious thing to expect that I kept the
+idea a secret even from myself, just letting it lie where it sprouted,
+in an unexplored corner of my busy brain. But it grew on me in spite
+of myself, till finally I could not resist the temptation to study out
+the exact place in the encyclopædia where my name would belong. I saw
+that it would come not far from "Alcott, Louisa M."; and I covered my
+face with my hands, to hide the silly, baseless joy in it. I practised
+saying my name in the encyclopædic form, "Antin, Mary"; and I realized
+that it sounded chopped off, and wondered if I might not annex a
+middle initial. I wanted to ask my teacher about it, but I was afraid
+I might betray my reasons. For, infatuated though I was with the idea
+of the greatness I might live to attain, I knew very well that thus
+far my claims to posthumous fame were ridiculously unfounded, and I
+did not want to be laughed at for my vanity.
+
+Spirit of all childhood! Forgive me, forgive me, for so lightly
+betraying a child's dream-secrets. I that smile so scoffingly to-day
+at the unsophisticated child that was myself, have I found any nobler
+thing in life than my own longing to be noble? Would I not rather be
+consumed by ambitions that can never be realized than live in stupid
+acceptance of my neighbor's opinion of me? The statue in the public
+square is less a portrait of a mortal individual than a symbol of the
+immortal aspiration of humanity. So do not laugh at the little boy
+playing at soldiers, if he tells you he is going to hew the world into
+good behavior when he gets to be a man. And do, by all means, write my
+name in the book of fame, saying, She was one who aspired. For that,
+in condensed form, is the story of the lives of the great.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Summer days are long, and the evenings, we know, are as long as the
+lamp-wick. So, with all my reading, I had time to play; and, with all
+my studiousness, I had the will to play. My favorite playmates were
+boys. It was but mild fun to play theatre in Bessie Finklestein's
+back yard, even if I had leading parts, which I made impressive by
+recitations in Russian, no word of which was intelligible to my
+audience. It was far better sport to play hide-and-seek with the boys,
+for I enjoyed the use of my limbs--what there was of them. I was so
+often reproached and teased for being little, that it gave me great
+satisfaction to beat a five-foot boy to the goal.
+
+Once a great, hulky colored boy, who was the torment of the
+neighborhood, treated me roughly while I was playing on the street. My
+father, determined to teach the rascal a lesson for once, had him
+arrested and brought to court. The boy was locked up overnight, and he
+emerged from his brief imprisonment with a respect for the rights and
+persons of his neighbors. But the moral of this incident lies not
+herein. What interested me more than my revenge on a bully was what I
+saw of the way in which justice was actually administered in the
+United States. Here we were gathered in the little courtroom, bearded
+Arlington Street against wool-headed Arlington Street; accused and
+accuser, witnesses, sympathizers, sight-seers, and all. Nobody
+cringed, nobody was bullied, nobody lied who didn't want to. We were
+all free, and all treated equally, just as it said in the
+Constitution! The evil-doer was actually punished, and not the victim,
+as might very easily happen in a similar case in Russia. "Liberty and
+justice for all." Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!
+
+There was one occasion in the week when I was ever willing to put away
+my book, no matter how entrancing were its pages. That was on Saturday
+night, when Bessie Finklestein called for me; and Bessie and I, with
+arms entwined, called for Sadie Rabinowitch; and Bessie and Sadie and
+I, still further entwined, called for Annie Reilly; and Bessie, etc.,
+etc., inextricably wound up, marched up Broadway, and took possession
+of all we saw, heard, guessed, or desired, from end to end of that
+main thoroughfare of Chelsea.
+
+Parading all abreast, as many as we were, only breaking ranks to let
+people pass; leaving the imprints of our noses and fingers on
+plate-glass windows ablaze with electric lights and alluring with
+display; inspecting tons of cheap candy, to find a few pennies' worth
+of the most enduring kind, the same to be sucked and chewed by the
+company, turn and turn about, as we continued our promenade; loitering
+wherever a crowd gathered, or running for a block or so to cheer on
+the fire-engine or police ambulance; getting into everybody's way, and
+just keeping clear of serious mischief,--we were only girls,--we
+enjoyed ourselves as only children can whose fathers keep a basement
+grocery store, whose mothers do their own washing, and whose sisters
+operate a machine for five dollars a week. Had we been boys, I suppose
+Bessie and Sadie and the rest of us would have been a "gang," and
+would have popped into the Chinese laundry to tease "Chinky Chinaman,"
+and been chased by the "cops" from comfortable doorsteps, and had a
+"bully" time of it. Being what we were, we called ourselves a "set,"
+and we had a "lovely" time, as people who passed us on Broadway could
+not fail to see. And hear. For we were at the giggling age, and
+Broadway on Saturday night was full of giggles for us. We stayed out
+till all hours, too; for Arlington Street had no strict domestic
+programme, not even in the nursery, the inmates of which were as
+likely to be found in the gutter as in their cots, at any time this
+side of one o'clock in the morning.
+
+There was an element in my enjoyment that was yielded neither by the
+sights, the adventures, nor the chewing-candy. I had a keen feeling
+for the sociability of the crowd. All plebeian Chelsea was abroad, and
+a bourgeois population is nowhere unneighborly. Women shapeless with
+bundles, their hats awry over thin, eager faces, gathered in knots on
+the edge of the curb, boasting of their bargains. Little girls in
+curlpapers and little boys in brimless hats clung to their skirts,
+whining for pennies, only to be silenced by absent-minded cuffs. A few
+disconsolate fathers strayed behind these family groups, the rest
+being distributed between the barber shops and the corner lamp-posts.
+I understood these people, being one of them, and I liked them, and I
+found it all delightfully sociable.
+
+Saturday night is the workman's wife's night, but that does not
+entirely prevent my lady from going abroad, if only to leave an order
+at the florist's. So it happened that Bellingham Hill and Washington
+Avenue, the aristocratic sections of Chelsea, mingled with Arlington
+Street on Broadway, to the further enhancement of my enjoyment of the
+occasion. For I always loved a mixed crowd. I loved the contrasts, the
+high lights and deep shadows, and the gradations that connect the two,
+and make all life one. I saw many, many things that I was not aware of
+seeing at the time. I only found out afterwards what treasures my
+brain had stored up, when, coming to the puzzling places in life,
+light and meaning would suddenly burst on me, the hidden fruit of some
+experience that had not impressed me at the time.
+
+How many times, I wonder, did I brush past my destiny on Broadway,
+foolishly staring after it, instead of going home to pray? I wonder
+did a stranger collide with me, and put me patiently out of his way,
+wondering why such a mite was not at home and abed at ten o'clock in
+the evening, and never dreaming that one day he might have to reckon
+with me? Did some one smile down on my childish glee, I wonder,
+unwarned of a day when we should weep together? I wonder--I wonder. A
+million threads of life and love and sorrow was the common street; and
+whether we would or not, we entangled ourselves in a common maze,
+without paying the homage of a second glance to those who would some
+day master us; too dull to pick that face from out the crowd which one
+day would bend over us in love or pity or remorse. What company of
+skipping, laughing little girls is to be reproached for careless
+hours, when men and women on every side stepped heedlessly into the
+traps of fate? Small sin it was to annoy my neighbor by getting in his
+way, as I stared over my shoulder, if a grown man knew no better than
+to drop a word in passing that might turn the course of another's
+life, as a boulder rolled down from the mountain-side deflects the
+current of a brook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MANNA
+
+
+So went the life in Chelsea for the space of a year or so. Then my
+father, finding a discrepancy between his assets and liabilities on
+the wrong side of the ledger, once more struck tent, collected his
+flock, and set out in search of richer pastures.
+
+There was a charming simplicity about these proceedings. Here to-day,
+apparently rooted; there to-morrow, and just as much at home. Another
+basement grocery, with a freshly painted sign over the door; the broom
+in the corner, the loaf on the table--these things made home for us.
+There were rather more Negroes on Wheeler Street, in the lower South
+End of Boston, than there had been on Arlington Street, which promised
+more numerous outstanding accounts; but they were a neighborly folk,
+and they took us strangers in--sometimes very badly. Then there was
+the school three blocks away, where "America" was sung to the same
+tune as in Chelsea, and geography was made as dark a mystery. It was
+impossible not to feel at home.
+
+And presently, lest anything be lacking to our domestic bliss, there
+was a new baby in a borrowed crib; and little Dora had only a few more
+turns to take with her battered doll carriage before a life-size
+vehicle with a more animated dolly was turned over to her constant
+care.
+
+The Wheeler Street neighborhood is not a place where a refined young
+lady would care to find herself alone, even in the cheery daylight. If
+she came at all, she would be attended by a trusty escort. She
+would not get too close to people on the doorsteps, and she would
+shrink away in disgust and fear from a blear-eyed creature careering
+down the sidewalk on many-jointed legs. The delicate damsel would
+hasten home to wash and purify and perfume herself till the foul
+contact of Wheeler Street was utterly eradicated, and her wonted
+purity restored. And I do not blame her. I only wish that she would
+bring a little soap and water and perfumery into Wheeler Street next
+time she comes; for some people there may be smothering in the filth
+which they abhor as much as she, but from which they cannot, like her,
+run away.
+
+   [Illustration: WHEELER STREET, IN THE LOWER SOUTH END OF BOSTON]
+
+Many years after my escape from Wheeler Street I returned to see if
+the place was as bad as I remembered it. I found the narrow street
+grown even narrower, the sidewalk not broad enough for two to walk
+abreast, the gutter choked with dust and refuse, the dingy row of
+tenements on either side unspeakably gloomy. I discovered, what I had
+not realized before, that Wheeler Street was a crooked lane connecting
+a corner saloon on Shawmut Avenue with a block of houses of ill repute
+on Corning Street. It had been the same in my day, but I had not
+understood much, and I lived unharmed.
+
+On this later visit I walked slowly up one side of the street, and
+down the other, remembering many things. It was eleven o'clock in the
+evening, and sounds of squabbling coming through doors and windows
+informed my experienced ear that a part of Wheeler Street was going to
+bed. The grocery store in the basement of Number 11--my father's old
+store--was still open for business; and in the gutter in front of the
+store, to be sure, was a happy baby, just as there used to be.
+
+I was not alone on this tour of inspection. I was attended by a trusty
+escort. But I brought soap and water with me. I am applying them now.
+
+I found no fault with Wheeler Street when I was fourteen years old. On
+the contrary, I pronounced it good. We had never lived so near the car
+tracks before, and I delighted in the moonlike splendor of the arc
+lamp just in front of the saloon. The space illumined by this lamp and
+enlivened by the passage of many thirsty souls was the favorite
+playground for Wheeler Street youth. On our street there was not room
+to turn around; here the sidewalk spread out wider as it swung around
+to Shawmut Avenue.
+
+I played with the boys by preference, as in Chelsea. I learned to cut
+across the tracks in front of an oncoming car, and it was great fun to
+see the motorman's angry face turn scared, when he thought I was going
+to be shaved this time sure. It was amusing, too, to watch the side
+door of the saloon, which opened right opposite the grocery store, and
+see a drunken man put out by the bartender. The fellow would whine so
+comically, and cling to the doorpost so like a damp leaf to a twig,
+and blubber so like a red-faced baby, that it was really funny to see
+him.
+
+And there was Morgan Chapel. It was worth coming to Wheeler Street
+just for that. All the children of the neighborhood, except the most
+rowdyish, flocked to Morgan Chapel at least once a week. This was on
+Saturday evening, when a free entertainment was given, consisting of
+music, recitations, and other parlor accomplishments. The performances
+were exceedingly artistic, according to the impartial judgment of
+juvenile Wheeler Street. I can speak with authority for the crowd of
+us from Number 11. We hung upon the lips of the beautiful ladies who
+read or sang to us; and they in turn did their best, recognizing the
+quality of our approval. We admired the miraculously clean gentlemen
+who sang or played, as heartily as we applauded their performance.
+Sometimes the beautiful ladies were accompanied by ravishing little
+girls who stood up in a glory of golden curls, frilled petticoats, and
+silk stockings, to recite pathetic or comic pieces, with trained
+expression and practised gestures that seemed to us the perfection of
+the elocutionary art. We were all a little bit stage-struck after
+these entertainments; but what was more, we were genuinely moved by
+the glimpses of a fairer world than ours which we caught through the
+music and poetry; the world in which the beautiful ladies dwelt with
+the fairy children and the clean gentlemen.
+
+Brother Hotchkins, who managed these entertainments, knew what he was
+there for. His programmes were masterly. Classics of the lighter sort
+were judiciously interspersed with the favorite street songs of the
+day. Nothing that savored of the chapel was there: the hour was
+honestly devoted to entertainment. The total effect was an exquisitely
+balanced compound of pleasure, wonder, and longing. Knock-kneed men
+with purple noses, bristling chins, and no collars, who slouched in
+sceptically and sat tentatively on the edge of the rear settees at the
+beginning of the concert, moved nearer the front as the programme went
+on, and openly joined in the applause at the end. Scowling fellows who
+came in with defiant faces occasionally slunk out shamefaced; and both
+the knock-kneed and the defiant sometimes remained to hear Brother
+Tompkins pray and preach. And it was all due to Brother Hotchkins's
+masterly programme. The children behaved very well, for the most part;
+the few "toughs" who came in on purpose to make trouble were promptly
+expelled by Brother Hotchkins and his lieutenants.
+
+I could not help admiring Brother Hotchkins, he was so eminently
+efficient in every part of the hall, at every stage of the
+proceedings. I always believed that he was the author of the alluring
+notices that occupied the bulletin board every Saturday, though I
+never knew it for a fact. The way he handled the bad boys was
+masterly. The way he introduced the performers was inimitable. The way
+he did everything was the best way. And yet I did not like Brother
+Hotchkins. I could not. He was too slim, too pale, too fair. His voice
+was too encouraging, his smile was too restrained. The man was a
+missionary, and it stuck out all over him. I could not abide a
+missionary. That was the Jew in me, the European Jew, trained by the
+cruel centuries of his outcast existence to distrust any one who spoke
+of God by any other name than _Adonai_. But I should have resented the
+suggestion that inherited distrust was the cause of my dislike for
+good Brother Hotchkins; for I considered myself freed from racial
+prejudices, by the same triumph of my infallible judgment which had
+lifted from me the yoke of credulity. An uncompromising atheist, such
+as I was at the age of fourteen, was bound to scorn all those who
+sought to implant religion in their fellow men, and thereby prolong
+the reign of superstition. Of course that was the explanation.
+
+Brother Hotchkins, happily unconscious of my disapproval of his
+complexion, arose at intervals behind the railing, to announce, from a
+slip of paper, that "the next number on our programme will be a
+musical selection by," etc., etc.; until he arrived at "I am sure you
+will all join me in thanking the ladies and gentlemen who have
+entertained us this evening." And as I moved towards the door with my
+companions, I would hear his voice raised for the inevitable "You are
+all invited to remain to a short prayer service, after which--" a
+little louder--"refreshments will be served in the vestry. I will ask
+Brother Tompkins to--" The rest was lost in the shuffle of feet about
+the door and the roar of electric cars glancing past each other on
+opposite tracks. I always got out of the chapel before Brother
+Tompkins could do me any harm. As if there was anything he could steal
+from me, now that there was no God in my heart!
+
+If I were to go back to Morgan Chapel now, I should stay to hear
+Brother Tompkins, and as many other brethren as might have anything to
+say. I would sit very still in my corner seat and listen to the
+prayer, and silently join in the Amen. For I know now what Wheeler
+Street is, and I know what Morgan Chapel is there for, in the midst of
+those crooked alleys, those saloons, those pawnshops, those gloomy
+tenements. It is there to apply soap and water, and it is doing that
+all the time. I have learned, since my deliverance from Wheeler
+Street, that there is more than one road to any given goal. I should
+look with respect at Brother Hotchkins applying soap and water in his
+own way, convinced at last that my way is not the only way. Men must
+work with those tools to the use of which they are best fitted by
+nature. Brother Hotchkins must pray, and I must bear witness, and
+another must nurse a feeble infant. We are all honest workmen, and
+deserve standing-room in the workshop of sweating humanity. It is
+only the idle scoffers who stand by and jeer at our efforts to cleanse
+our house that should be kicked out of the door, as Brother Hotchkins
+turned out the rowdies.
+
+It was characteristic of the looseness of our family discipline at
+this time that nobody was seriously interested in our visits to Morgan
+Chapel. Our time was our own, after school duties and household tasks
+were done. Joseph sold newspapers after school; I swept and washed
+dishes; Dora minded the baby. For the rest, we amused ourselves as
+best we could. Father and mother were preoccupied with the store day
+and night; and not so much with weighing and measuring and making
+change as with figuring out how long it would take the outstanding
+accounts to ruin the business entirely. If my mother had scruples
+against her children resorting to a building with a cross on it, she
+did not have time to formulate them. If my father heard us talking
+about Morgan Chapel, he dismissed the subject with a sarcastic
+characterization, and wanted to know if we were going to join the
+Salvation Army next; but he did not seriously care, and he was willing
+that the children should have a good time. And if my parents had
+objected to Morgan Chapel, was the sidewalk in front of the saloon a
+better place for us children to spend the evening? They could not have
+argued with us very long, so they hardly argued at all.
+
+In Polotzk we had been trained and watched, our days had been
+regulated, our conduct prescribed. In America, suddenly, we were let
+loose on the street. Why? Because my father having renounced his
+faith, and my mother being uncertain of hers, they had no particular
+creed to hold us to. The conception of a system of ethics independent
+of religion could not at once enter as an active principle in their
+life; so that they could give a child no reason why to be truthful or
+kind. And as with religion, so it fared with other branches of our
+domestic education. Chaos took the place of system; uncertainty,
+inconsistency undermined discipline. My parents knew only that they
+desired us to be like American children; and seeing how their
+neighbors gave their children boundless liberty, they turned us also
+loose, never doubting but that the American way was the best way. In
+public deportment, in etiquette, in all matters of social intercourse,
+they had no standards to go by, seeing that America was not Polotzk.
+In their bewilderment and uncertainty they needs must trust us
+children to learn from such models as the tenements afforded. More
+than this, they must step down from their throne of parental
+authority, and take the law from their children's mouths; for they had
+no other means of finding out what was good American form. The result
+was that laxity of domestic organization, that inversion of normal
+relations which makes for friction, and which sometimes ends in
+breaking up a family that was formerly united and happy.
+
+This sad process of disintegration of home life may be observed in
+almost any immigrant family of our class and with our traditions and
+aspirations. It is part of the process of Americanization; an upheaval
+preceding the state of repose. It is the cross that the first and
+second generations must bear, an involuntary sacrifice for the sake of
+the future generations. These are the pains of adjustment, as racking
+as the pains of birth. And as the mother forgets her agonies in the
+bliss of clasping her babe to her breast, so the bent and heart-sore
+immigrant forgets exile and homesickness and ridicule and loss and
+estrangement, when he beholds his sons and daughters moving as
+Americans among Americans.
+
+On Wheeler Street there were no real homes. There were miserable flats
+of three or four rooms, or fewer, in which families that did not
+practise race suicide cooked, washed, and ate; slept from two to four
+in a bed, in windowless bedrooms; quarrelled in the gray morning, and
+made up in the smoky evening; tormented each other, supported each
+other, saved each other, drove each other out of the house. But there
+was no common life in any form that means life. There was no room for
+it, for one thing. Beds and cribs took up most of the floor space,
+disorder packed the interspaces. The centre table in the "parlor" was
+not loaded with books. It held, invariably, a photograph album and an
+ornamental lamp with a paper shade; and the lamp was usually out of
+order. So there was as little motive for a common life as there was
+room. The yard was only big enough for the perennial rubbish heap. The
+narrow sidewalk was crowded. What were the people to do with
+themselves? There were the saloons, the missions, the libraries, the
+cheap amusement places, and the neighborhood houses. People selected
+their resorts according to their tastes. The children, let it be
+thankfully recorded, flocked mostly to the clubs; the little girls to
+sew, cook, dance, and play games; the little boys to hammer and paste,
+mend chairs, debate, and govern a toy republic. All these, of course,
+are forms of baptism by soap and water.
+
+Our neighborhood went in search of salvation to Morgan Memorial Hall,
+Barnard Memorial, Morgan Chapel aforementioned, and some other clean
+places that lighted a candle in their window. My brother, my sister
+Dora, and I were introduced to some of the clubs by our young
+neighbors, and we were glad to go. For our home also gave us little
+besides meals in the kitchen and beds in the dark. What with the six
+of us, and the store, and the baby, and sometimes a "greener" or two
+from Polotzk, whom we lodged as a matter of course till they found a
+permanent home--what with such a company and the size of our tenement,
+we needed to get out almost as much as our neighbors' children. I say
+almost; for our parlor we managed to keep pretty clear, and the lamp
+on our centre table was always in order, and its light fell often on
+an open book. Still, it was part of the life of Wheeler Street to
+belong to clubs, so we belonged.
+
+I didn't care for sewing or cooking, so I joined a dancing-club; and
+even here I was a failure. I had been a very good dancer in Russia,
+but here I found all the steps different, and I did not have the
+courage to go out in the middle of the slippery floor and mince it and
+toe it in front of the teacher. When I retired to a corner and tried
+to play dominoes, I became suddenly shy of my partner; and I never
+could win a game of checkers, although formerly I used to beat my
+father at it. I tried to be friends with a little girl I had known in
+Chelsea, but she met my advances coldly. She lived on Appleton Street,
+which was too aristocratic to mix with Wheeler Street. Geraldine was
+studying elocution, and she wore a scarlet cape and hood, and she was
+going on the stage by and by. I acknowledged that her sense of
+superiority was well-founded, and retired farther into my corner, for
+the first time conscious of my shabbiness and lowliness.
+
+I looked on at the dancing until I could endure it no longer. Overcome
+by a sense of isolation and unfitness, I slipped out of the room,
+avoiding the teacher's eye, and went home to write melancholy poetry.
+
+What had come over me? Why was I, the confident, the ambitious,
+suddenly grown so shy and meek? Why was the candidate for encyclopædic
+immortality overawed by a scarlet hood? Why did I, a very tomboy
+yesterday, suddenly find my playmates stupid, and hide-and-seek a
+bore? I did not know why. I only knew that I was lonely and troubled
+and sore; and I went home to write sad poetry.
+
+I shall never forget the pattern of the red carpet in our parlor,--we
+had achieved a carpet since Chelsea days,--because I lay for hours
+face down on the floor, writing poetry on a screechy slate. When I had
+perfected my verses, and copied them fair on the famous blue-lined
+note paper, and saw that I had made a very pathetic poem indeed, I
+felt better. And this happened over and over again. I gave up the
+dancing-club, I ceased to know the rowdy little boys, and I wrote
+melancholy poetry oftener, and felt better. The centre table became my
+study. I read much, and mooned between chapters, and wrote long
+letters to Miss Dillingham.
+
+For some time I wrote to her almost daily. That was when I found in my
+heart such depths of woe as I could not pack into rhyme. And finally
+there came a day when I could utter my trouble in neither verse nor
+prose, and I implored Miss Dillingham to come to me and hear my
+sorrowful revelations. But I did not want her to come to the house. In
+the house there was no privacy; I could not talk. Would she meet me on
+Boston Common at such and such a time?
+
+Would she? She was a devoted friend, and a wise woman. She met me on
+Boston Common. It was a gray autumn day--was it not actually
+drizzling?--and I was cold sitting on the bench; but I was thrilled
+through and through with the sense of the magnitude of my troubles,
+and of the romantic nature of the rendezvous. Who that was even half
+awake when he was growing up does not know what all these symptoms
+betokened? Miss Dillingham understood, and she wisely gave me no
+inkling of her diagnosis. She let me talk and kept a grave face. She
+did not belittle my troubles--I made specific charges against my home,
+members of my family, and life in general; she did not say that I
+would get over them, that every growing girl suffers from the blues;
+that I was, in brief, a little goose stretching my wings for flight.
+She told me rather that it would be noble to bear my sorrows bravely,
+to soothe those who irritated me, to live each day with all my might.
+She reminded me of great men and women who have suffered, and who
+overcame their troubles by living and working. And she sent me home
+amazingly comforted, my pettiness and self-consciousness routed by the
+quiet influence of her gray eyes searching mine. This, or something
+like this, had to be repeated many times, as anybody will know who was
+present at the slow birth of his manhood. From now on, for some years,
+of course, I must weep and laugh out of season, stand on tiptoe to
+pluck the stars in heaven, love and hate immoderately, propound
+theories of the destiny of man, and not know what is going on in my
+own heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TARNISHED LAURELS
+
+
+In the intervals of harkening to my growing-pains I was, of course,
+still a little girl. As a little girl, in many ways immature for my
+age, I finished my course in the grammar school, and was graduated
+with honors, four years after my landing in Boston.
+
+Wheeler Street recognizes five great events in a girl's life: namely,
+christening, confirmation, graduation, marriage, and burial. These
+occasions all require full dress for the heroine, and full dress is
+forthcoming, no matter if the family goes into debt for it. There was
+not a girl who came to school in rags all the year round that did not
+burst forth in sudden glory on Graduation Day. Fine muslin frocks,
+lace-trimmed petticoats, patent-leather shoes, perishable hats,
+gloves, parasols, fans--every girl had them. A mother who had scrubbed
+floors for years to keep her girl in school was not going to have her
+shamed in the end for want of a pretty dress. So she cut off the
+children's supply of butter and worked nights and borrowed and fell
+into arrears with the rent; and on Graduation Day she felt
+magnificently rewarded, seeing her Mamie as fine as any girl in the
+school. And in order to preserve for posterity this triumphant
+spectacle, she took Mamie, after the exercises, to be photographed,
+with her diploma in one hand, a bouquet in the other, and the gloves,
+fan, parasol, and patent-leather shoes in full sight around a fancy
+table. Truly, the follies of the poor are worth studying.
+
+It did not strike me as folly, but as the fulfilment of the portent of
+my natal star, when I saw myself, on Graduation Day, arrayed like unto
+a princess. Frills, lace, patent-leather shoes--I had everything. I
+even had a sash with silk fringes.
+
+Did I speak of folly? Listen, and I will tell you quite another tale.
+Perhaps when you have heard it you will not be too hasty to run and
+teach The Poor. Perhaps you will admit that The Poor may have
+something to teach you.
+
+Before we had been two years in America, my sister Frieda was engaged
+to be married. This was under the old dispensation: Frieda came to
+America too late to avail herself of the gifts of an American
+girlhood. Had she been two years younger she might have dodged her
+circumstances, evaded her Old-World fate. She would have gone to
+school and imbibed American ideas. She might have clung to her
+girlhood longer instead of marrying at seventeen. I am so fond of the
+American way that it has always seemed to me a pitiful accident that
+my sister should have come so near and missed by so little the
+fulfilment of my country's promise to women. A long girlhood, a free
+choice in marriage, and a brimful womanhood are the precious rights of
+an American woman.
+
+My father was too recently from the Old World to be entirely free from
+the influence of its social traditions. He had put Frieda to work out
+of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when she had an offer of
+marriage, but my father would not stand in the way of what he
+considered her welfare. Let her escape from the workshop, if she had a
+chance, while the roses were still in her cheeks. If she remained for
+ten years more bent over the needle, what would she gain? Not even
+her personal comfort; for Frieda never called her earnings her own,
+but spent everything on the family, denying herself all but
+necessities. The young man who sued for her was a good workman,
+earning fair wages, of irreproachable character, and refined manners.
+My father had known him for years.
+
+So Frieda was to be released from the workshop. The act was really in
+the nature of a sacrifice on my father's part, for he was still in the
+woods financially, and would sorely miss Frieda's wages. The greater
+the pity, therefore, that there was no one to counsel him to give
+America more time with my sister. She attended the night school; she
+was fond of reading. In books, in a slowly ripening experience, she
+might have found a better answer to the riddle of a girl's life than a
+premature marriage.
+
+My sister's engagement pleased me very well. Our confidences were not
+interrupted, and I understood that she was happy. I was very fond of
+Moses Rifkin myself. He was the nicest young man of my acquaintance,
+not at all like other workmen. He was very kind to us children,
+bringing us presents and taking us out for excursions. He had a sense
+of humor, and he was going to marry our Frieda. How could I help being
+pleased?
+
+The marriage was not to take place for some time, and in the interval
+Frieda remained in the shop. She continued to bring home all her
+wages. If she was going to desert the family, she would not let them
+feel it sooner than she must.
+
+Then all of a sudden she turned spendthrift. She appropriated I do not
+know what fabulous sums, to spend just as she pleased, for once. She
+attended bargain sales, and brought away such finery as had never
+graced our flat before. Home from work in the evening, after a hurried
+supper, she shut herself up in the parlor, and cut and snipped and
+measured and basted and stitched as if there were nothing else in the
+world to do. It was early summer, and the air had a wooing touch, even
+on Wheeler Street. Moses Rifkin came, and I suppose he also had a
+wooing touch. But Frieda only smiled and shook her head; and as her
+mouth was full of pins, it was physically impossible for Moses to
+argue. She remained all evening in a white disorder of tucked
+breadths, curled ruffles, dismembered sleeves, and swirls of fresh
+lace; her needle glancing in the lamplight, and poor Moses picking up
+her spools.
+
+Her trousseau, was it not? No, not her trousseau. It was my graduation
+dress on which she was so intent. And when it was finished, and was
+pronounced a most beautiful dress, and she ought to have been
+satisfied, Frieda went to the shops once more and bought the sash with
+the silk fringes.
+
+The improvidence of the poor is a most distressing spectacle to all
+right-minded students of sociology. But please spare me your homily
+this time. It does not apply. The poor are the poor in spirit. Those
+who are rich in spiritual endowment will never be found bankrupt.
+
+Graduation Day was nothing less than a triumph for me. It was not only
+that I had two pieces to speak, one of them an original composition;
+it was more because I was known in my school district as the
+"smartest" girl in the class, and all eyes were turned on the prodigy,
+and I was aware of it. I was aware of everything. That is why I am
+able to tell you everything now.
+
+The assembly hall was crowded to bursting, but my friends had no
+trouble in finding seats. They were ushered up to the platform, which
+was reserved for guests of honor. I was very proud to see my friends
+treated with such distinction. My parents were there, and Frieda, of
+course; Miss Dillingham, and some others of my Chelsea teachers. A
+dozen or so of my humbler friends and acquaintances were scattered
+among the crowd on the floor.
+
+When I stepped up on the stage to read my composition I was seized
+with stage fright. The floor under my feet and the air around me were
+oppressively present to my senses, while my own hand I could not have
+located. I did not know where my body began or ended, I was so
+conscious of my gloves, my shoes, my flowing sash. My wonderful dress,
+in which I had taken so much satisfaction, gave me the most trouble. I
+was suddenly paralyzed by a conviction that it was too short, and it
+seemed to me I stood on absurdly long legs. And ten thousand people
+were looking up at me. It was horrible!
+
+I suppose I no more than cleared my throat before I began to read, but
+to me it seemed that I stood petrified for an age, an awful silence
+booming in my ears. My voice, when at last I began, sounded far away.
+I thought that nobody could hear me. But I kept on, mechanically; for
+I had rehearsed many times. And as I read I gradually forgot myself,
+forgot the place and the occasion. The people looking up at me heard
+the story of a beautiful little boy, my cousin, whom I had loved very
+dearly, and who died in far-distant Russia some years after I came to
+America. My composition was not a masterpiece; it was merely good for
+a girl of fifteen. But I had written that I still loved the little
+cousin, and I made a thousand strangers feel it. And before the
+applause there was a moment of stillness in the great hall.
+
+After the singing and reading by the class, there were the customary
+addresses by distinguished guests. We girls were reminded that we were
+going to be women, and happiness was promised to those of us who would
+aim to be noble women. A great many trite and obvious things, a great
+deal of the rhetoric appropriate to the occasion, compliments,
+applause, general satisfaction; so went the programme. Much of the
+rhetoric, many of the fine sentiments did not penetrate to the
+thoughts of us for whom they were intended, because we were in such a
+flutter about our ruffles and ribbons, and could hardly refrain from
+openly prinking. But we applauded very heartily every speaker and
+every would-be speaker, understanding that by a consensus of opinion
+on the platform we were very fine young ladies, and much was to be
+expected of us.
+
+One of the last speakers was introduced as a member of the School
+Board. He began like all the rest of them, but he ended differently.
+Abandoning generalities, he went on to tell the story of a particular
+schoolgirl, a pupil in a Boston school, whose phenomenal career might
+serve as an illustration of what the American system of free education
+and the European immigrant could make of each other. He had not got
+very far when I realized, to my great surprise and no small delight,
+that he was telling my story. I saw my friends on the platform beaming
+behind the speaker, and I heard my name whispered in the audience. I
+had been so much of a celebrity, in a small local way, that
+identification of the speaker's heroine was inevitable. My classmates,
+of course, guessed the name, and they turned to look at me, and
+nudged me, and all but pointed at me; their new muslins rustling and
+silk ribbons hissing.
+
+One or two nearest me forgot etiquette so far as to whisper to me.
+"Mary Antin," they said, as the speaker sat down, amid a burst of the
+most enthusiastic applause,--"Mary Antin, why don't you get up and
+thank him?"
+
+I was dazed with all that had happened. Bursting with pride I was, but
+I was moved, too, by nobler feelings. I realized, in a vague, far-off
+way, what it meant to my father and mother to be sitting there and
+seeing me held up as a paragon, my history made the theme of an
+eloquent discourse; what it meant to my father to see his ambitious
+hopes thus gloriously fulfilled, his judgment of me verified; what it
+meant to Frieda to hear me all but named with such honor. With all
+these things choking my heart to overflowing, my wits forsook me, if I
+had had any at all that day. The audience was stirring and whispering
+so that I could hear: "Who is it?" "Is that so?" And again they
+prompted me:--
+
+"Mary Antin, get up. Get up and thank him, Mary."
+
+And I rose where I sat, and in a voice that sounded thin as a fly's
+after the oratorical bass of the last speaker, I began:--
+
+"I want to thank you--"
+
+That is as far as I got. Mr. Swan, the principal, waved his hand to
+silence me; and then, and only then, did I realize the enormity of
+what I had done.
+
+My eulogist had had the good taste not to mention names, and I had
+been brazenly forward, deliberately calling attention to myself when
+there was no need. Oh, it was sickening! I hated myself, I hated with
+all my heart the girls who had prompted me to such immodest conduct. I
+wished the ground would yawn and snap me up. I was ashamed to look up
+at my friends on the platform. What was Miss Dillingham thinking of
+me? Oh, what a fool I had been! I had ruined my own triumph. I had
+disgraced myself, and my friends, and poor Mr. Swan, and the Winthrop
+School. The monster vanity had sucked out my wits, and left me a
+staring idiot.
+
+It is easy to say that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill, a
+catastrophe out of a mere breach of good manners. It is easy to say
+that. But I know that I suffered agonies of shame. After the
+exercises, when the crowd pressed in all directions in search of
+friends, I tried in vain to get out of the hall. I was mobbed, I was
+lionized. Everybody wanted to shake hands with the prodigy of the day,
+and they knew who it was. I had made sure of that; I had exhibited
+myself. The people smiled on me, flattered me, passed me on from one
+to another. I smirked back, but I did not know what I said. I was wild
+to be clear of the building. I thought everybody mocked me. All my
+roses had turned to ashes, and all through my own brazen conduct.
+
+I would have given my diploma to have Miss Dillingham know how the
+thing had happened, but I could not bring myself to speak first. If
+she would ask me--But nobody asked. Nobody looked away from me.
+Everybody congratulated me, and my father and mother and my remotest
+relations. But the sting of shame smarted just the same; I could not
+be consoled. I had made a fool of myself: Mr. Swan had publicly put me
+down.
+
+Ah, so that was it! Vanity was the vital spot again. It was wounded
+vanity that writhed and squirmed. It was not because I had been bold,
+but because I had been pronounced bold, that I suffered so
+monstrously. If Mr. Swan, with an eloquent gesture, had not silenced
+me, I might have made my little speech--good heavens! what _did_ I
+mean to say?--and probably called it another feather in my bonnet. But
+he had stopped me promptly, disgusted with my forwardness, and he had
+shown before all those hundreds what he thought of me. Therein lay the
+sting.
+
+With all my talent for self-analysis, it took me a long time to
+realize the essential pettiness of my trouble. For years--actually for
+years--after that eventful day of mingled triumph and disgrace, I
+could not think of the unhappy incident without inward squirming. I
+remember distinctly how the little scene would suddenly flash upon me
+at night, as I lay awake in bed, and I would turn over impatiently, as
+if to shake off a nightmare; and this so long after the occurrence
+that I was myself amazed at the persistence of the nightmare. I had
+never been reproached by any one for my conduct on Graduation Day. Why
+could I not forgive myself? I studied the matter deeply--it wearies me
+to remember how deeply--till at last I understood that it was wounded
+vanity that hurt so, and no nobler remorse. Then, and only then, was
+the ghost laid. If it ever tried to get up again, after that, I only
+had to call it names to see it scurry back to its grave and pull the
+sod down after it.
+
+Before I had laid my ghost, a friend told me of a similar experience
+of his boyhood. He was present at a small private entertainment, and a
+violinist who should have played being absent, the host asked for a
+volunteer to take his place. My friend, then a boy in his teens,
+offered himself, and actually stood up with the violin in his hands,
+as if to play. But he could not even hold the instrument properly--he
+had never been taught the violin. He told me he never knew what
+possessed him to get up and make a fool of himself before a roomful of
+people; but he was certain that ten thousand imps possessed him and
+tormented him for years and years after if only he remembered the
+incident.
+
+My friend's confession was such a consolation to me that I could not
+help thinking I might do some other poor wretch a world of good by
+offering him my company and that of my friend in his misery. For if it
+took me a long time to find out that I was a vain fool, the corollary
+did not escape me: there must be other vain fools.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+DOVER STREET
+
+
+What happened next was Dover Street.
+
+And what was Dover Street?
+
+Ask rather, What was it not? Dover Street was my fairest garden of
+girlhood, a gate of paradise, a window facing on a broad avenue of
+life. Dover Street was a prison, a school of discipline, a battlefield
+of sordid strife. The air in Dover Street was heavy with evil odors of
+degradation, but a breath from the uppermost heavens rippled through,
+whispering of infinite things. In Dover Street the dragon poverty
+gripped me for a last fight, but I overthrew the hideous creature, and
+sat on his neck as on a throne. In Dover Street I was shackled with a
+hundred chains of disadvantage, but with one free hand I planted
+little seeds, right there in the mud of shame, that blossomed into the
+honeyed rose of widest freedom. In Dover Street there was often no
+loaf on the table, but the hand of some noble friend was ever in mine.
+The night in Dover Street was rent with the cries of wrong, but the
+thunders of truth crashed through the pitiful clamor and died out in
+prophetic silences.
+
+Outwardly, Dover Street is a noisy thoroughfare cut through a South
+End slum, in every essential the same as Wheeler Street. Turn down any
+street in the slums, at random, and call it by whatever name you
+please, you will observe there the same fashions of life, death, and
+endurance. Every one of those streets is a rubbish heap of damaged
+humanity, and it will take a powerful broom and an ocean of soapsuds
+to clean it out.
+
+Dover Street is intersected, near its eastern end, where we lived, by
+Harrison Avenue. That street is to the South End what Salem Street is
+to the North End. It is the heart of the South End ghetto, for the
+greater part of its length; although its northern end belongs to the
+realm of Chinatown. Its multifarious business bursts through the
+narrow shop doors, and overruns the basements, the sidewalk, the
+street itself, in pushcarts and open-air stands. Its multitudinous
+population bursts through the greasy tenement doors, and floods the
+corridors, the doorsteps, the gutters, the side streets, pushing in
+and out among the pushcarts, all day long and half the night besides.
+
+Rarely as Harrison Avenue is caught asleep, even more rarely is it
+found clean. Nothing less than a fire or flood would cleanse this
+street. Even Passover cannot quite accomplish this feat. For although
+the tenements may be scrubbed to their remotest corners, on this one
+occasion, the cleansing stops at the curbstone. A great deal of the
+filthy rubbish accumulated in a year is pitched into the street, often
+through the windows; and what the ashman on his daily round does not
+remove is left to be trampled to powder, in which form it steals back
+into the houses from which it was so lately removed.
+
+The City Fathers provide soap and water for the slums, in the form of
+excellent schools, kindergartens, and branch libraries. And there they
+stop: at the curbstone of the people's life. They cleanse and
+discipline the children's minds, but their bodies they pitch into the
+gutter. For there are no parks and almost no playgrounds in the
+Harrison Avenue district,--in my day there were none,--and such as
+there are have been wrenched from the city by public-spirited citizens
+who have no offices in City Hall. No wonder the ashman is not more
+thorough: he learns from his masters.
+
+It is a pity to have it so, in a queen of enlightened cities like
+Boston. If we of the twentieth century do not believe in baseball as
+much as in philosophy, we have not learned the lesson of modern
+science, which teaches, among other things, that the body is the
+nursery of the soul; the instrument of our moral development; the
+secret chart of our devious progress from worm to man. The great
+achievement of recent science, of which we are so proud, has been the
+deciphering of the hieroglyphic of organic nature. To worship the
+facts and neglect the implications of the message of science is to
+applaud the drama without taking the moral to heart. And we certainly
+are not taking the moral to heart when we try to make a hero out of
+the boy by such foreign appliances as grammar and algebra, while
+utterly despising the fittest instrument for his uplifting--the boy's
+own body.
+
+We had no particular reason for coming to Dover Street. It might just
+as well have been Applepie Alley. For my father had sold, with the
+goods, fixtures, and good-will of the Wheeler Street store, all his
+hopes of ever making a living in the grocery trade; and I doubt if he
+got a silver dollar the more for them. We had to live somewhere, even
+if we were not making a living, so we came to Dover Street, where
+tenements were cheap; by which I mean that rent was low. The ultimate
+cost of life in those tenements, in terms of human happiness, is high
+enough.
+
+Our new home consisted of five small rooms up two flights of
+stairs, with the right of way through the dark corridors. In the
+"parlor" the dingy paper hung in rags and the plaster fell in chunks.
+One of the bedrooms was absolutely dark and air-tight. The kitchen
+windows looked out on a dirty court, at the back of which was the rear
+tenement of the estate. To us belonged, along with the five rooms and
+the right of way aforesaid, a block of upper space the length of a
+pulley line across this court, and the width of an arc described by a
+windy Monday's wash in its remotest wanderings.
+
+   [Illustration: HARRISON AVENUE IS THE HEART OF THE SOUTH END
+   GHETTO]
+
+The little front bedroom was assigned to me, with only one partner, my
+sister Dora. A mouse could not have led a cat much of a chase across
+this room; still we found space for a narrow bed, a crazy bureau, and
+a small table. From the window there was an unobstructed view of a
+lumberyard, beyond which frowned the blackened walls of a factory. The
+fence of the lumberyard was gay with theatre posters and illustrated
+advertisements of tobacco, whiskey, and patent baby foods. When the
+window was open, there was a constant clang and whirr of electric
+cars, varied by the screech of machinery, the clatter of empty wagons,
+or the rumble of heavy trucks.
+
+There was nothing worse in all this than we had had before since our
+exile from Crescent Beach; but I did not take the same delight in the
+propinquity of electric cars and arc lights that I had till now. I
+suppose the tenement began to pall on me.
+
+It must not be supposed that I enjoyed any degree of privacy, because
+I had half a room to myself. We were six in the five rooms; we were
+bound to be always in each other's way. And as it was within our flat,
+so it was in the house as a whole. All doors, beginning with the
+street door, stood open most of the time; or if they were closed, the
+tenants did not wear out their knuckles knocking for admittance. I
+could stand at any time in the unswept entrance hall and tell, from an
+analysis of the medley of sounds and smells that issued from doors
+ajar, what was going on in the several flats from below up. That
+guttural, scolding voice, unremittent as the hissing of a steam pipe,
+is Mrs. Rasnosky. I make a guess that she is chastising the infant
+Isaac for taking a second lump of sugar in his tea. _Spam! Bam!_ Yes,
+and she is rubbing in her objections with the flat of her hand. That
+blubbering and moaning, accompanying an elephantine tread, is fat Mrs.
+Casey, second floor, home drunk from an afternoon out, in fear of the
+vengeance of Mr. Casey; to propitiate whom she is burning a pan of
+bacon, as the choking fumes and outrageous sizzling testify. I hear a
+feeble whining, interrupted by long silences. It is that scabby baby
+on the third floor, fallen out of bed again, with nobody home to pick
+him up.
+
+To escape from these various horrors I ascend to the roof, where bacon
+and babies and child-beating are not. But there I find two figures in
+calico wrappers, with bare red arms akimbo, a basket of wet clothes in
+front of each, and only one empty clothes-line between them. I do not
+want to be dragged in as a witness in a case of assault and battery,
+so I descend to the street again, grateful to note, as I pass, that
+the third-floor baby is still.
+
+In front of the door I squeeze through a group of children. They are
+going to play tag, and are counting to see who should be "it":--
+
+    "My-mother-and-your-mother-went-out-to-hang-clothes;
+    My-mother-gave-your-mother-a-punch-in-the-nose."
+
+If the children's couplet does not give a vivid picture of the life,
+manners, and customs of Dover Street, no description of mine can ever
+do so.
+
+Frieda was married before we came to Dover Street, and went to live in
+East Boston. This left me the eldest of the children at home. Whether
+on this account, or because I was outgrowing my childish carelessness,
+or because I began to believe, on the cumulative evidence of the
+Crescent Beach, Chelsea, and Wheeler Street adventures, that America,
+after all, was not going to provide for my father's family,--whether
+for any or all of these reasons, I began at this time to take
+bread-and-butter matters more to heart, and to ponder ways and means
+of getting rich. My father sought employment wherever work was going
+on. His health was poor; he aged very fast. Nevertheless he offered
+himself for every kind of labor; he offered himself for a boy's wages.
+Here he was found too weak, here too old; here his imperfect English
+was in the way, here his Jewish appearance. He had a few short terms
+of work at this or that; I do not know the name of the form of
+drudgery that my father did not practise. But all told, he did not
+earn enough to pay the rent in full and buy a bone for the soup. The
+only steady source of income, for I do not know what years, was my
+brother's earnings from his newspapers.
+
+Surely this was the time for me to take my sister's place in the
+workshop. I had had every fair chance until now: school, my time to
+myself, liberty to run and play and make friends. I had graduated from
+grammar school; I was of legal age to go to work. What was I doing,
+sitting at home and dreaming?
+
+I was minding my business, of course; with all my might I was minding
+my business. As I understood it, my business was to go to school, to
+learn everything there was to know, to write poetry, become famous,
+and make the family rich. Surely it was not shirking to lay out such a
+programme for myself. I had boundless faith in my future. I was
+certainly going to be a great poet; I was certainly going to take care
+of the family.
+
+Thus mused I, in my arrogance. And my family? They were as bad as I.
+My father had not lost a whit of his ambition for me. Since Graduation
+Day, and the school-committeeman's speech, and half a column about me
+in the paper, his ambition had soared even higher. He was going to
+keep me at school till I was prepared for college. By that time, he
+was sure, I would more than take care of myself. It never for a moment
+entered his head to doubt the wisdom or justice of this course. And my
+mother was just as loyal to my cause, and my brother, and my sister.
+
+It is no wonder if I got along rapidly: I was helped, encouraged, and
+upheld by every one. Even the baby cheered me on. When I asked her
+whether she believed in higher education, she answered, without a
+moment's hesitation, "Ducka-ducka-da!" Against her I remember only
+that one day, when I read her a verse out of a most pathetic piece I
+was composing, she laughed right out, a most disrespectful laugh; for
+which I revenged myself by washing her face at the faucet, and rubbing
+it red on the roller towel.
+
+It was just like me, when it was debated whether I would be best
+fitted for college at the High or the Latin School, to go in person to
+Mr. Tetlow, who was principal of both schools, and so get the most
+expert opinion on the subject. I never send a messenger, you may
+remember, where I can go myself. It was vacation time, and I had to
+find Mr. Tetlow at his home. Away out to the wilds of Roxbury I found
+my way--perhaps half an hour's ride on the electric car from Dover
+Street. I grew an inch taller and broader between the corner of Cedar
+Street and Mr. Tetlow's house, such was the charm of the clean, green
+suburb on a cramped waif from the slums. My faded calico dress, my
+rusty straw sailor hat, the color of my skin and all bespoke the waif.
+But never a bit daunted was I. I went up the steps to the porch, rang
+the bell, and asked for the great man with as much assurance as if I
+were a daily visitor on Cedar Street. I calmly awaited the appearance
+of Mr. Tetlow in the reception room, and stated my errand without
+trepidation.
+
+And why not? I was a solemn little person for the moment, earnestly
+seeking advice on a matter of great importance. That is what Mr.
+Tetlow saw, to judge by the gravity with which he discussed my
+business with me, and the courtesy with which he showed me to the
+door. He saw, too, I fancy, that I was not the least bit conscious of
+my shabby dress; and I am sure he did not smile at my appearance, even
+when my back was turned.
+
+A new life began for me when I entered the Latin School in September.
+Until then I had gone to school with my equals, and as a matter of
+course. Now it was distinctly a feat for me to keep in school, and my
+schoolmates were socially so far superior to me that my poverty became
+conspicuous. The pupils of the Latin School, from the nature of the
+institution, are an aristocratic set. They come from refined homes,
+dress well, and spend the recess hour talking about parties, beaux,
+and the matinée. As students they are either very quick or very
+hard-working; for the course of study, in the lingo of the school
+world, is considered "stiff." The girl with half her brain asleep, or
+with too many beaux, drops out by the end of the first year; or a one
+and only beau may be the fatal element. At the end of the course the
+weeding process has reduced the once numerous tribe of academic
+candidates to a cosey little family.
+
+By all these tokens I should have had serious business on my hands as
+a pupil in the Latin School, but I did not find it hard. To make
+myself letter-perfect in my lessons required long hours of study, but
+that was my delight. To make myself at home in an alien world was also
+within my talents; I had been practising it day and night for the past
+four years. To remain unconscious of my shabby and ill-fitting clothes
+when the rustle of silk petticoats in the schoolroom protested against
+them was a matter still within my moral reach. Half a dress a year had
+been my allowance for many seasons; even less, for as I did not grow
+much I could wear my dresses as long as they lasted. And I had stood
+before editors, and exchanged polite calls with school-teachers,
+untroubled by the detestable colors and archaic design of my garments.
+To stand up and recite Latin declensions without trembling from hunger
+was something more of a feat, because I sometimes went to school with
+little or no breakfast; but even that required no special heroism,--at
+most it was a matter of self-control. I had the advantage of a poor
+appetite, too; I really did not need much breakfast. Or if I was
+hungry it would hardly show; I coughed so much that my unsteadiness
+was self-explained.
+
+Everything helped, you see. My schoolmates helped. Aristocrats though
+they were, they did not hold themselves aloof from me. Some of the
+girls who came to school in carriages were especially cordial. They
+rated me by my scholarship, and not by my father's occupation. They
+teased and admired me by turns for learning the footnotes in the Latin
+grammar by heart; they never reproached me for my ignorance of the
+latest comic opera. And it was more than good breeding that made them
+seem unaware of the incongruity of my presence. It was a generous
+appreciation of what it meant for a girl from the slums to be in the
+Latin School, on the way to college. If our intimacy ended on the
+steps of the school-house, it was more my fault than theirs. Most of
+the girls were democratic enough to have invited me to their homes,
+although to some, of course, I was "impossible." But I had no time for
+visiting; school work and reading and family affairs occupied all the
+daytime, and much of the night time. I did not "go with" any of the
+girls, in the school-girl sense of the phrase. I admired some of them,
+either for good looks, or beautiful manners, or more subtle
+attributes; but always at a distance. I discovered something
+inimitable in the way the Back Bay girls carried themselves; and I
+should have been the first to perceive the incongruity of Commonwealth
+Avenue entwining arms with Dover Street. Some day, perhaps, when I
+should be famous and rich; but not just then. So my companions and I
+parted on the steps of the school-house, in mutual respect; they
+guiltless of snobbishness, I innocent of envy. It was a graciously
+American relation, and I am happy to this day to recall it.
+
+The one exception to this rule of friendly distance was my chum,
+Florence Connolly. But I should hardly have said "chum." Florence and
+I occupied adjacent seats for three years, but we did not walk arm in
+arm, nor call each other nicknames, nor share our lunch, nor
+correspond in vacation time. Florence was quiet as a mouse, and I was
+reserved as an oyster; and perhaps we two had no more in common
+fundamentally than those two creatures in their natural state. Still,
+as we were both very studious, and never strayed far from our desks at
+recess, we practised a sort of intimacy of propinquity. Although
+Florence was of my social order, her father presiding over a cheap
+lunch room, I did not on that account feel especially drawn to her. I
+spent more time studying Florence than loving her, I suppose. And yet
+I ought to have loved her; she was such a good girl. Always perfect in
+her lessons, she was so modest that she recited in a noticeable
+tremor, and had to be told frequently to raise her voice. Florence
+wore her light brown hair brushed flatly back and braided in a single
+plait, at a time when pompadours were six inches high and braids hung
+in pairs. Florence had a pocket in her dress for her handkerchief, in
+a day when pockets were repugnant to fashion. All these things ought
+to have made me feel the kinship of humble circumstances, the
+comradeship of intellectual earnestness; but they did not.
+
+The truth is that my relation to persons and things depended neither
+on social distinctions nor on intellectual or moral affinities. My
+attitude, at this time, was determined by my consciousness of the
+unique elements in my character and history. It seemed to me that I
+had been pursuing a single adventure since the beginning of the world.
+Through highways and byways, underground, overground, by land, by sea,
+ever the same star had guided me, I thought, ever the same purpose
+had divided my affairs from other men's. What that purpose was, where
+was the fixed horizon beyond which my star would not recede, was an
+absorbing mystery to me. But the current moment never puzzled me. What
+I chose instinctively to do I knew to be right and in accordance with
+my destiny. I never hesitated over great things, but answered promptly
+to the call of my genius. So what was it to me whether my neighbors
+spurned or embraced me, if my way was no man's way? Nor should any one
+ever reject me whom I chose to be my friend, because I would make sure
+of a kindred spirit by the coincidence of our guiding stars.
+
+When, where in the harum-scarum life of Dover Street was there time or
+place for such self-communing? In the night, when everybody slept; on
+a solitary walk, as far from home as I dared to go.
+
+I was not unhappy on Dover Street; quite the contrary. Everything of
+consequence was well with me. Poverty was a superficial, temporary
+matter; it vanished at the touch of money. Money in America was
+plentiful; it was only a matter of getting some of it, and I was on my
+way to the mint. If Dover Street was not a pleasant place to abide in,
+it was only a wayside house. And I was really happy, actively happy,
+in the exercise of my mind in Latin, mathematics, history, and the
+rest; the things that suffice a studious girl in the middle teens.
+
+Still I had moments of depression, when my whole being protested
+against the life of the slum. I resented the familiarity of my vulgar
+neighbors. I felt myself defiled by the indecencies I was compelled to
+witness. Then it was I took to running away from home. I went out in
+the twilight and walked for hours, my blind feet leading me. I did
+not care where I went. If I lost my way, so much the better; I never
+wanted to see Dover Street again.
+
+But behold, as I left the crowds behind, and the broader avenues were
+spanned by the open sky, my grievances melted away, and I fell to
+dreaming of things that neither hurt nor pleased. A fringe of trees
+against the sunset became suddenly the symbol of the whole world, and
+I stood and gazed and asked questions of it. The sunset faded; the
+trees withdrew. The wind went by, but dropped no hint in my ear. The
+evening star leaped out between the clouds, and sealed the secret with
+a seal of splendor.
+
+A favorite resort of mine, after dark, was the South Boston Bridge,
+across South Bay and the Old Colony Railroad. This was so near home
+that I could go there at any time when the confusion in the house
+drove me out, or I felt the need of fresh air. I liked to stand
+leaning on the bridge railing, and look down on the dim tangle of
+railroad tracks below. I could barely see them branching out,
+elbowing, winding, and sliding out into the night in pairs. I was
+fascinated by the dotted lights, the significant red and green of
+signal lamps. These simple things stood for a complexity that it made
+me dizzy to think of. Then the blackness below me was split by the
+fiery eye of a monster engine, his breath enveloped me in blinding
+clouds, his long body shot by, rattling a hundred claws of steel; and
+he was gone, with an imperative shriek that shook me where I stood.
+
+So would I be, swift on my rightful business, picking out my proper
+track from the million that cross it, pausing for no obstacles, sure
+of my goal.
+
+   [Illustration: I LIKED TO STAND AND LOOK DOWN ON THE DIM TANGLE
+   OF RAILROAD TRACKS BELOW]
+
+After my watches on the bridge I often stayed up to write or study. It
+is late before Dover Street begins to go to bed. It is past midnight
+before I feel that I am alone. Seated in my stiff little chair before
+my narrow table, I gather in the night sounds through the open window,
+curious to assort and define them. As, little by little, the city
+settles down to sleep, the volume of sound diminishes, and the
+qualities of particular sounds stand out. The electric car lurches by
+with silent gong, taking the empty track by leaps, humming to itself
+in the invisible distance. A benighted team swings recklessly around
+the corner, sharp under my rattling window panes, the staccato pelting
+of hoofs on the cobblestones changed suddenly to an even pounding on
+the bridge. A few pedestrians hurry by, their heavy boots all out of
+step. The distant thoroughfares have long ago ceased their murmur, and
+I know that a million lamps shine idly in the idle streets.
+
+My sister sleeps quietly in the little bed. The rhythmic dripping of a
+faucet is audible through the flat. It is so still that I can hear the
+paper crackling on the wall. Silence upon silence is added to the
+night; only the kitchen clock is the voice of my brooding
+thoughts,--ticking, ticking, ticking.
+
+Suddenly the distant whistle of a locomotive breaks the stillness with
+a long-drawn wail. Like a threatened trouble, the sound comes nearer,
+piercingly near; then it dies out in a mangled silence, complaining to
+the last.
+
+The sleepers stir in their beds. Somebody sighs, and the burden of all
+his trouble falls upon my heart. A homeless cat cries in the alley, in
+the voice of a human child. And the ticking of the kitchen clock is
+the voice of my troubled thoughts.
+
+Many things are revealed to me as I sit and watch the world asleep.
+But the silence asks me many questions that I cannot answer; and I am
+glad when the tide of sound begins to return, by little and little,
+and I welcome the clatter of tin cans that announces the milkman. I
+cannot see him in the dusk, but I know his wholesome face has no
+problem in it.
+
+It is one flight up to the roof; it is a leap of the soul to the
+sunrise. The morning mist rests lightly on chimneys and roofs and
+walls, wreathes the lamp-posts, and floats in gauzy streamers down the
+streets. Distant buildings are massed like palace walls, with turrets
+and spires lost in the rosy clouds. I love my beautiful city spreading
+all about me. I love the world. I love my place in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE LANDLADY
+
+
+From sunrise to sunset the day was long enough for many things besides
+school, which occupied five hours. There was time for me to try to
+earn my living; or at least the rent of our tenement. Rent was a
+standing trouble. We were always behind, and the landlady was very
+angry; so I was particularly ambitious to earn the rent. I had had one
+or two poems published since the celebrated eulogy of George
+Washington, but nobody had paid for my poems--yet. I was coming to
+that, of course, but in the mean time I could not pay the rent with my
+writing. To be sure, my acquaintance with men of letters gave me an
+opening. A friend of mine introduced me to a slightly literary lady
+who introduced me to the editor of the "Boston Searchlight," who
+offered me a generous commission for subscriptions to his paper.
+
+If our rent was three and one-half dollars per week, payable on strong
+demand, and the annual subscription to the "Searchlight" was one
+dollar, and my commission was fifty per cent, how many subscribers did
+I need? How easy! Seven subscribers a week--one a day! Anybody could
+do that. Mr. James, the editor, said so. He said I could get two or
+three any afternoon between the end of school and supper. If I worked
+all Saturday--my head went dizzy computing the amount of my
+commissions. It would be rent and shoes and bonnets and everything for
+everybody.
+
+Bright and early one Saturday morning in the fall I started out
+canvassing, in my hand a neatly folded copy of the "Searchlight," in
+my heart, faith in my lucky star and good-will towards all the world.
+I began with one of the great office buildings on Tremont Street, as
+Mr. James had advised. The first half-hour I lost, wandering through
+the corridors, reading the names on the doors. There were so many
+people in the same office, how should I know, when I entered, which
+was Wilson & Reed, Solicitors, and which C. Jenkins Smith, Mortgages
+and Bonds? I decided that it did not matter: I would call them all
+"Sir."
+
+I selected a door and knocked. After waiting some time, I knocked a
+little louder. The building buzzed with noise,--swift footsteps echoed
+on the stone floors, snappy talk broke out with the opening of every
+door, bells tinkled, elevators hummed,--no wonder they did not hear me
+knock. But I noticed that other people went in without knocking, so
+after a while I did the same.
+
+There were several men and two women in the small, brightly lighted
+room. They were all busy. It was very confusing. Should I say "Sir" to
+the roomful?
+
+"Excuse me, sir," I began. That was a very good beginning, I felt
+sure, but I must speak louder. Lately my voice had been poor in
+school--gave out, sometimes, in the middle of a recitation. I cleared
+my throat, but I did not repeat myself. The back of the bald head that
+I had addressed revolved and presented its complement, a bald front.
+
+"Will you--would you like--I'd like--"
+
+I stared in dismay at the bald gentleman, unable to recall a word of
+what I meant to say; and he stared in impatience at me.
+
+"Well, well!" he snapped, "What is it? What is it?"
+
+That reminded me.
+
+"It's the 'Boston Searchlight,' sir. I take sub--"
+
+"Take it away--take it away. We're busy here." He waved me away over
+his shoulder, the back of his head once more presented to me.
+
+I stole out of the room in great confusion. Was that the way I was
+going to be received? Why, Mr. James had said nobody would hesitate to
+subscribe. It was the best paper in Boston, the "Searchlight," and no
+business man could afford to be without it. I must have made some
+blunder. _Was_ "Mortgages and Bonds" a business? I'd never heard of
+it, and very likely I had spoken to C. Jenkins Smith. I must try
+again--of course I must try again.
+
+I selected a real estate office next. A real estate broker, I knew for
+certain, was a business man. Mr. George A. Hooker must be just waiting
+for the "Boston Searchlight."
+
+Mr. Hooker was indeed waiting, and he was telling "Central" about it.
+
+"Yes, Central; waiting, waiting--What?--Yes, yes; ring _four_--What's
+that?--Since when?--Why didn't you say so at first, then, instead of
+keeping me on the line--What?--Oh, is that so? Well, never mind this
+time, Central.--I see, I see.--All right."
+
+I had become so absorbed in this monologue that when Mr. Hooker swung
+around on me in his revolving chair I was startled, feeling that I had
+been caught eavesdropping. I thought he was going to rebuke me, but he
+only said, "What can I do for you, Miss?"
+
+Encouraged by his forbearance, I said:--
+
+"Would you like to subscribe to the 'Boston Searchlight,' sir?"--"Sir"
+was safer, after all.--"It's a dollar a year."
+
+I was supposed to say that it was the best paper in Boston, etc., but
+Mr. Hooker did not look interested, though he was not cross.
+
+"No, thank you, Miss; no new papers for me. Excuse me, I am very
+busy." And he began to dictate to a stenographer.
+
+Well, that was not so bad. Mr. Hooker was at least polite. I must try
+to make a better speech next time. I stuck to real estate now. O'Lair
+& Kennedy were both in, in my next office, and both apparently
+enjoying a minute of relaxation, tilted back in their chairs behind a
+low railing. Said I, determined to be businesslike at last, and
+addressing myself to the whole firm:--
+
+"Would you like to subscribe to the 'Boston Searchlight?' It's a very
+good paper. No business man can afford it--afford to be without it, I
+mean. It's only a dollar a year."
+
+Both men smiled at my break, and I smiled, too. I wondered would they
+subscribe separately, or would they take one copy for the firm.
+
+"The 'Boston Searchlight,'" repeated one of the partners. "Never heard
+of it. Is that the paper you have there?"
+
+He unfolded the paper I gave him, looked over it, and handed it to his
+partner.
+
+"Ever heard of the 'Searchlight,' O'Lair? What do you think--can we
+afford to be without it?"
+
+"I guess we'll make out somehow," replied Mr. O'Lair, handing me back
+my paper. "But I'll buy this copy of you, Miss," he added, from second
+thoughts.
+
+"And I'll go partner on the bargain," said Mr. Kennedy.
+
+But I objected.
+
+"This is a sample," I said; "I don't sell single papers. I take
+subscriptions for the year. It's one dollar."
+
+"And no business man can afford it, you know." Mr. Kennedy winked as
+he said it, and we all smiled again. It would have been stupid not to
+see the joke.
+
+"I'm sorry I can't sell my sample," I said, with my hand on the
+doorknob.
+
+"That's all right, my dear," said Mr. Kennedy, with a gracious wave of
+the hand. And his partner called after me, "Better luck next door!"
+
+Well, I was getting on! The people grew friendlier all the time. But I
+skipped "next door"; it was "Mortgages and Bonds." I tried
+"Insurance."
+
+"The best paper in Boston, is it?" remarked Mr. Thomas F. Dix, turning
+over my sample. "And who told you that, young lady?"
+
+"Mr. James," was my prompt reply.
+
+"Who is Mr. James?--The _editor_! Oh, I see. And do you also think the
+'Searchlight' the best paper in Boston?"
+
+"I don't know, sir. I like the 'Herald' much better, and the
+'Transcript.'"
+
+At that Mr. Dix laughed. "That's right," he said. "Business is
+business, but you tell the truth. One dollar, is it? Here you are. My
+name is on the door. Good-day."
+
+I think I spent twenty minutes copying the name and room number from
+the door. I did not trust myself to read plain English. What if I made
+a mistake, and the "Searchlight" went astray, and good Mr. Dix
+remained unilluminated? He had paid for the year--it would be
+dreadful to make a mistake.
+
+Emboldened by my one success, I went into the next office without
+considering the kind of business announced on the door. I tried
+brokers, lawyers, contractors, and all, just as they came around the
+corridor; but I copied no more addresses. Most of the people were
+polite. Some men waved me away, like C. Jenkins Smith. Some looked
+impatient at first, but excused themselves politely in the end. Almost
+everybody said, "We're busy here," as if they suspected I wanted them
+to read a whole year's issue of the "Searchlight" at once. At last one
+man told me he did not think it was a nice business for a girl, going
+through the offices like that.
+
+This took me aback. I had not thought anything about the nature of the
+business. I only wanted the money to pay the rent. I wandered through
+miles of stone corridors, unable to see why it was not a nice
+business, and yet reluctant to go on with it, with the doubt in my
+mind. Intent on my new problem, I walked into a messenger boy; and
+looking back to apologize to him, I collided softly with a
+cushion-shaped gentleman getting out of an elevator. I was making up
+my mind to leave the building forever, when I saw an office door
+standing open. It was the first open door I had come across since
+morning--it was past noon now--and it was a sign to me to keep on. I
+must not give up so easily.
+
+Mr. Frederick A. Strong was alone in the office, surreptitiously
+picking his teeth. He had been to lunch. He heard me out
+good-naturedly.
+
+"How much is your commission, if I may ask?" It was the first thing he
+had said.
+
+"Fifty cents, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what I will do. I don't care to subscribe, but
+here's a quarter for you."
+
+If I did not blush, it was because it is not my habit, but all of a
+sudden I choked. A lump jumped into my throat; almost the tears were
+in my eyes. That man was right who said it was not nice to go through
+the offices. I was taken for a beggar: a stranger offered me money for
+nothing.
+
+I could not say a word. I started to go out. But Mr. Strong jumped up
+and prevented me.
+
+"Oh, don't go like that!" he cried. "I didn't mean to offend you; upon
+my word, I didn't. I beg your pardon. I didn't know--you see--Won't
+you sit down a minute to rest? That's kind of you."
+
+Mr. Strong was so genuinely repentant that I could not refuse him.
+Besides, I felt a little weak. I had been on my feet since morning,
+and had had no lunch. I sat down, and Mr. Strong talked. He showed me
+a picture of his wife and little girl, and said I must go and see them
+some time. Pretty soon I was chatting, too, and I told Mr. Strong
+about the Latin School; and of course he asked me if I was French, the
+way people always did when they wanted to say that I had a foreign
+accent. So we got started on Russia, and had such an interesting time
+that we both jumped up, surprised, when a fine young lady in a
+beautiful hat came in to take possession of the idle typewriter.
+
+Mr. Strong introduced me very formally, thanked me for an interesting
+hour, and shook hands with me at the door. I did not add his name to
+my short subscription list, but I counted it a greater triumph that I
+had made a friend.
+
+It would have been seeking an anticlimax to solicit any more in the
+building. I went out, into the roar of Tremont Street, and across the
+Common, still green and leafy. I rested a while on a bench, debating
+where to go next. It was past two by the clock on Park Street Church.
+I had had a long day already, but it was too early to quit work, with
+only one half dollar of my own in my pocket. It was Saturday--in the
+evening the landlady would come. I must try a little longer.
+
+I went out along Columbus Avenue, a popular route for bicyclists at
+that time. The bicycle stores all along the way looked promising to
+me. The people did not look so busy as in the office building: they
+would at least be polite.
+
+They were not particularly rude, but they did not subscribe. Nobody
+wanted the "Searchlight." They had never heard of it--they made jokes
+about it--they did not want it at any price.
+
+I began to lose faith in the paper myself. I got tired of its name. I
+began to feel dizzy. I stopped going into the stores. I walked
+straight along, looking at nothing. I wanted to go back, go home, but
+I wouldn't. I felt like doing myself spite. I walked right along,
+straight as the avenue ran. I did not know where it would lead me. I
+did not care. Everything was horrid. I would go right on until night.
+I would get lost. I would fall in a faint on a strange doorstep, and
+be found dead in the morning, and be pitied.
+
+Wouldn't that be interesting! The adventure might even end happily. I
+might faint at the door of a rich old man's house, who would take me
+in, and order his housekeeper to nurse me, just like in the story
+books. In my delirium--of course I would have a fever--I would talk
+about the landlady, and how I had tried to earn the rent; and the old
+gentleman would wipe his spectacles for pity. Then I would wake up,
+and ask plaintively, "Where am I?" And when I got strong, after a
+delightfully long convalescence, the old gentleman would take me to
+Dover Street--in a carriage!--and we would all be reunited, and laugh
+and cry together. The old gentleman, of course, would engage my father
+as his steward, on the spot, and we would all go to live in one of his
+houses, with a garden around it.
+
+I walked on and on, gleefully aware that I had not eaten since
+morning. Wasn't I beginning to feel shaky? Yes; I should certainly
+faint before long. But I didn't like the houses I passed. They did not
+look fit for my adventure. I must keep up till I reached a better
+neighborhood.
+
+Anybody who knows Boston knows how cheaply my adventure ended.
+Columbus Avenue leads out to Roxbury Crossing. When I saw that the
+houses were getting shabbier, instead of finer, my heart sank. When I
+came out on the noisy, thrice-commonplace street-car centre, my spirit
+collapsed utterly.
+
+I did not swoon. I woke up from my foolish, childish dream with a
+shock. I was disgusted with myself, and frightened besides. It was
+evening now, and I was faint and sick in good earnest, and I did not
+know where I was. I asked a starter at the transfer station the way to
+Dover Street, and he told me to get on a car that was just coming in.
+
+"I'll walk," I said, "if you will please tell me the shortest way."
+How could I spend five cents out of the little I had made?
+
+But the starter discouraged me.
+
+"You can't walk it before midnight--the way you look, my girl. Better
+hop on that car before it goes."
+
+I could not resist the temptation. I rode home in the car, and felt
+like a thief when I paid the fare. Five cents gone to pay for my
+folly!
+
+I was grateful for a cold supper; thrice grateful to hear that Mrs.
+Hutch, the landlady, had been and gone, content with two dollars that
+my father had brought home.
+
+Mrs. Hutch seldom succeeded in collecting the full amount of the rents
+from her tenants. I suppose that made the bookkeeping complicated,
+which must have been wearing on her nerves; and hence her temper. We
+lived, on Dover Street, in fear of her temper. Saturday had a distinct
+quality about it, derived from the imminence of Mrs. Hutch's visit. Of
+course I awoke on Saturday morning with the no-school feeling; but the
+grim thing that leaped to its feet and glowered down on me, while the
+rest of my consciousness was still yawning on its back, was the
+Mrs.-Hutch-is-coming-and-there's-no-rent feeling.
+
+It is hard, if you are a young girl, full of life and inclined to be
+glad, to go to sleep in anxiety and awake in fear. It is apt to
+interfere with the circulation of the vital ether of happiness in the
+young, which is damaging to the complexion of the soul. It is bitter,
+when you are middle-aged and unsuccessful, to go to sleep in
+self-reproach and awake unexonerated. It is likely to cause
+fermentation in the sweetest nature; it is certain to breed gray hairs
+and a premature longing for death. It is pitiful, if you are the
+home-keeping mother of an impoverished family, to drop in your traces
+helpless at night, and awake unstrengthened in the early morning. The
+haunting consciousness of rooted poverty is an improper bedfellow for
+a woman who still bears. It has been known to induce physical and
+spiritual malformations in the babies she nurses.
+
+It did require strength to lift the burden of life, in the gray
+morning, on Dover Street; especially on Saturday morning. Perhaps my
+mother's pack was the heaviest to lift. To the man of the house,
+poverty is a bulky dragon with gripping talons and a poisonous breath;
+but he bellows in the open, and it is possible to give him knightly
+battle, with the full swing of the angry arm that cuts to the enemy's
+vitals. To the housewife, want is an insidious myriapod creature that
+crawls in the dark, mates with its own offspring, breeds all the year
+round, persists like leprosy. The woman has an endless, inglorious
+struggle with the pest; her triumphs are too petty for applause, her
+failures too mean for notice. Care, to the man, is a hound to be kept
+in leash and mastered. To the woman, care is a secret parasite that
+infects the blood.
+
+Mrs. Hutch, of course, was only one symptom of the disease of poverty,
+but there were times when she seemed to me the sharpest tooth of the
+gnawing canker. Surely as sorrow trails behind sin, Saturday evening
+brought Mrs. Hutch. The landlady did not trail. Her movements were
+anything but impassive. She climbed the stairs with determination and
+landed at the top with emphasis. Her knock on the door was clear
+sharp, unfaltering; it was impossible to pretend not to hear it. Her
+"Good-evening" announced business; her manner of taking a chair
+suggested the throwing-down of the gauntlet. Invariably she asked for
+my father, calling him Mr. Anton, and refusing to be corrected; almost
+invariably he was not at home--was out looking for work. Had he left
+her the rent? My mother's gentle "No, ma'am" was the signal for the
+storm. I do not want to repeat what Mrs. Hutch said. It would be hard
+on her, and hard on me. She grew red in the face; her voice grew
+shriller with every word. My poor mother hung her head where she
+stood; the children stared from their corners; the frightened baby
+cried. The angry landlady rehearsed our sins like a prophet
+foretelling doom. We owed so many weeks' rent; we were too lazy to
+work; we never intended to pay; we lived on others; we deserved to be
+put out without warning. She reproached my mother for having too many
+children; she blamed us all for coming to America. She enumerated her
+losses through nonpayment of her rents; told us that she did not
+collect the amount of her taxes; showed us how our irregularities were
+driving a poor widow to ruin.
+
+My mother did not attempt to excuse herself, but when Mrs. Hutch began
+to rail against my absent father, she tried to put in a word in his
+defence. The landlady grew all the shriller at that, and silenced my
+mother impatiently. Sometimes she addressed herself to me. I always
+stood by, if I was at home, to give my mother the moral support of my
+dumb sympathy. I understood that Mrs. Hutch had a special grudge
+against me, because I did not go to work as a cash girl and earn three
+dollars a week. I wanted to explain to her how I was preparing myself
+for a great career, and I was ready to promise her the payment of the
+arrears as soon as I began to get rich. But the landlady would not let
+me put in a word. And I was sorry for her, because she seemed to be
+having such a bad time.
+
+At last Mrs. Hutch got up to leave, marching out as determinedly as
+she had marched in. At the door she turned, in undiminished wrath, to
+shoot her parting dart:--
+
+"And if Mr. Anton does not bring me the rent on Monday, I will serve
+notice of eviction on Tuesday, without fail."
+
+We breathed when she was gone. My mother wiped away a few tears, and
+went to the baby, crying in the windowless, air-tight room.
+
+I was the first to speak.
+
+"Isn't she queer, mamma!" I said. "She never remembers how to say our
+name. She insists on saying _Anton--Anton_. Celia, say _Anton_." And I
+made the baby laugh by imitating the landlady, who had made her cry.
+
+But when I went to my little room I did not mock Mrs. Hutch. I thought
+about her, thought long and hard, and to a purpose. I decided that she
+must hear me out once. She must understand about my plans, my future,
+my good intentions. It was too irrational to go on like this, we
+living in fear of her, she in distrust of us. If Mrs. Hutch would only
+trust me, and the tax collectors would trust her, we could all live
+happily forever.
+
+I was the more certain that my argument would prevail with the
+landlady, if only I could make her listen, because I understood her
+point of view. I even sympathized with her. What she said about the
+babies, for instance, was not all unreasonable to me. There was this
+last baby, my mother's sixth, born on Mrs. Hutch's premises--yes, in
+the windowless, air-tight bedroom. Was there any need of this baby?
+When May was born, two years earlier, on Wheeler Street, I had
+accepted her; after a while I even welcomed her. She was born an
+American, and it was something to me to have one genuine American
+relative. I had to sit up with her the whole of her first night on
+earth, and I questioned her about the place she came from, and so we
+got acquainted. As my mother was so ill that my sister Frieda, who was
+nurse, and the doctor from the dispensary had all they could do to
+take care of her, the baby remained in my charge a good deal, and so I
+got used to her. But when Celia came I was two years older, and my
+outlook was broader; I could see around a baby's charms, and discern
+the disadvantages of possessing the baby. I was supplied with all
+kinds of relatives now--I had a brother-in-law, and an American-born
+nephew, who might become a President. Moreover, I knew there was not
+enough to eat before the baby's advent, and she did not bring any
+supplies with her that I could see. The baby was one too many. There
+was no need of her. I resented her existence. I recorded my resentment
+in my journal.
+
+I was pleased with my broad-mindedness, that enabled me to see all
+sides of the baby question. I could regard even the rent question
+disinterestedly, like a philosopher reviewing natural phenomena. It
+seemed not unreasonable that Mrs. Hutch should have a craving for the
+rent as such. A school-girl dotes on her books, a baby cries for its
+rattle, and a landlady yearns for her rents. I could easily believe
+that it was doing Mrs. Hutch spiritual violence to withhold the rent
+from her; and hence the vehemence with which she pursued the arrears.
+
+Yes, I could analyze the landlady very nicely. I was certainly
+qualified to act as peacemaker between her and my family. But I must
+go to her own house, and _not_ on a rent day. Saturday evening, when
+she was embittered by many disappointments, was no time to approach
+her with diplomatic negotiations. I must go to her house on a day of
+good omen.
+
+And I went, as soon as my father could give me a week's rent to take
+along. I found Mrs. Hutch in the gloom of a long, faded parlor.
+Divested of the ample black coat and widow's bonnet in which I had
+always seen her, her presence would have been less formidable had I
+not been conscious that I was a mere rumpled sparrow fallen into the
+lion's den. When I had delivered the money, I should have begun my
+speech; but I did not know what came first of all there was to say.
+While I hesitated, Mrs. Hutch observed me. She noticed my books, and
+asked about them. I thought this was my opening, and I showed her
+eagerly my Latin grammar, my geometry, my Virgil. I began to tell her
+how I was to go to college, to fit myself to write poetry, and get
+rich, and pay the arrears. But Mrs. Hutch cut me short at the mention
+of college. She broke out with her old reproaches, and worked herself
+into a worse fury than I had ever witnessed before. I was all alone in
+the tempest, and a very old lady was sitting on a sofa, drinking tea;
+and the tidy on the back of the sofa was sliding down.
+
+I was so bewildered by the suddenness of the onslaught, I felt so
+helpless to defend myself, that I could only stand and stare at Mrs.
+Hutch. She kept on railing without stopping for breath, repeating
+herself over and over. At last I ceased to hear what she said; I
+became hypnotized by the rapid motions of her mouth. Then the moving
+tidy caught my eye and the spell was broken. I went over to the sofa
+with a decided step and carefully replaced the tidy.
+
+It was now the landlady's turn to stare, and I stared back, surprised
+at my own action. The old lady also stared, her teacup suspended under
+her nose. The whole thing was so ridiculous! I had come on such a
+grand mission, ready to dictate the terms of a noble peace. I was met
+with anger and contumely; the dignity of the ambassador of peace
+rubbed off at a touch, like the golden dust from the butterfly's wing.
+I took my scolding like a meek child; and then, when she was in the
+middle of a trenchant phrase, her eye fixed daggerlike on mine, I
+calmly went to put the enemy's house in order! It was ridiculous, and
+I laughed.
+
+Immediately I was sorry. I wanted to apologize, but Mrs. Hutch didn't
+give me a chance. If she had been harsh before, she was terrific now.
+Did I come there to insult her?--she wanted to know. Wasn't it enough
+that I and my family lived on her, that I must come to her on purpose
+to rile her with my talk about college--_college!_ these beggars!--and
+laugh in her face? "What did you come for? Who sent you? Why do you
+stand there staring? Say something! _College!_ these beggars! And do
+you think I'll keep you till you go to college? _You_, learning
+geometry! Did you ever figure out how much rent your father owes me?
+You are all too lazy--Don't say a word! Don't speak to me! Coming here
+to laugh in my face! I don't believe you can say one sensible word.
+_Latin_--and _French_! Oh, these beggars! You ought to go to work, if
+you know enough to do one sensible thing. _College!_ Go home and tell
+your father never to send you again. Laughing in my face--and staring!
+Why don't you say something? How old are you?"
+
+Mrs. Hutch actually stopped, and I jumped into the pause.
+
+"I'm seventeen," I said quickly, "and I feel like seventy."
+
+This was too much, even for me who had spoken. I had not meant to say
+the last. It broke out, like my wicked laugh. I was afraid, if I
+stayed any longer, Mrs. Hutch would have the apoplexy; and I felt that
+I was going to cry. I moved towards the door, but the landlady got in
+another speech before I had escaped.
+
+"Seventeen--seventy! And looks like twelve! The child is silly. Can't
+even tell her own age. No wonder, with her Latin, and French, and--"
+
+I did cry when I got outside, and I didn't care if I was noticed. What
+was the use of anything? Everything I did was wrong. Everything I
+tried to do for Mrs. Hutch turned out bad. I tried to sell papers, for
+the sake of the rent, and nobody wanted the "Searchlight," and I was
+told it was not a nice business. I wanted to take her into my
+confidence, and she wouldn't hear a word, but scolded and called me
+names. She was an unreasonable, ungrateful landlady. I wished she
+_would_ put us out, then we should be rid of her.--But wasn't it funny
+about that tidy? What made me do that? I never meant to. Curious, the
+way we sometimes do things we don't want to at all.--The old lady must
+be deaf; she didn't say anything all that time.--Oh, I have a whole
+book of the "Æneid" to review, and it's getting late. I must hurry
+home.
+
+It was impossible to remain despondent long. The landlady came only
+once a week, I reflected, as I walked, and the rest of the time I was
+surrounded by friends. Everybody was good to me, at home, of course,
+and at school; and there was Miss Dillingham, and her friend who took
+me out in the country to see the autumn leaves, and her friend's
+friend who lent me books, and Mr. Hurd, who put my poems in the
+"Transcript," and gave me books almost every time I came, and a dozen
+others who did something good for me all the time, besides the several
+dozen who wrote me such nice letters. Friends? If I named one for
+every block I passed I should not get through before I reached home.
+There was Mr. Strong, too, and he wanted me to meet his wife and
+little girl. And Mr. Pastor! I had almost forgotten Mr. Pastor. I
+arrived at the corner of Washington and Dover Streets, on my way home,
+and looked into Mr. Pastor's showy drug store as I passed, and that
+reminded me of the history of my latest friendship.
+
+My cough had been pretty bad--kept me awake nights. My voice gave out
+frequently. The teachers had spoken to me several times, suggesting
+that I ought to see a doctor. Of course the teachers did not know that
+I could not afford a doctor, but I could go to the free dispensary,
+and I did. They told me to come again, and again, and I lost precious
+hours sitting in the waiting-room, watching for my turn. I was
+examined, thumped, studied, and sent out with prescriptions and
+innumerable directions. All that was said about food, fresh air, sunny
+rooms, etc., was, of course, impossible; but I would try the medicine.
+A bottle of medicine was a definite thing with a fixed price. You
+either could or could not afford it, on a given day. Once you began
+with milk and eggs and such things, there was no end of it. You were
+always going around the corner for more, till the grocer said he could
+give no more credit. No; the medicine bottle was the only safe thing.
+
+I had taken several bottles, and was told that I was looking better,
+when I went, one day, to have my prescription renewed. It was just
+after a hard rain, and the pools on the broken pavements were full of
+blue sky. I was delighted with the beautiful reflections; there were
+even the white clouds moving across the blue, there, at my feet, on
+the pavement! I walked with my head down all the way to the drug
+store, which was all right; but I should not have done it going back,
+with the new bottle of medicine in my hand.
+
+In front of a cigar store, halfway between Washington Street and
+Harrison Avenue, stood a wooden Indian with a package of wooden cigars
+in his hand. My eyes on the shining rain pools, I walked plump into
+the Indian, and the bottle was knocked out of my hand and broke with a
+crash.
+
+I was horrified at the catastrophe. The medicine cost fifty cents. My
+mother had given me the last money in the house. I must not be without
+my medicine; the dispensary doctor was very emphatic about that. It
+would be dreadful to get sick and have to stay out of school. What was
+to be done?
+
+I made up my mind in less than five minutes. I went back to the drug
+store and asked for Mr. Pastor himself. He knew me; he often sold me
+postage stamps, and joked about my large correspondence, and heard a
+good deal about my friends. He came out, on this occasion, from his
+little office in the back of the store; and I told him of my accident,
+and that there was no more money at home, and asked him to give me
+another bottle, to be paid for as soon as possible. My father had a
+job as night watchman in a store. I should be able to pay very soon.
+
+"Certainly, my dear, certainly," said Mr. Pastor; "very glad to oblige
+you. It's doing you good, isn't it?--That's right. You're such a
+studious young lady, with all those books, and so many letters to
+write--you need something to build you up. There you are.--Oh, don't
+mention it! Any time at all. And lookout for wild Indians!"
+
+Of course we were great friends after that, and this is the way my
+troubles often ended on Dover Street. To bump into a wooden Indian was
+to bump into good luck, a hundred times a week. No wonder I was happy
+most of the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE BURNING BUSH
+
+
+Just when Mrs. Hutch was most worried about the error of my ways, I
+entered on a new chapter of adventures, even more remote from the cash
+girl's career than Latin and geometry. But I ought not to name such
+harsh things as landladies at the opening of the fairy story of my
+girlhood. I have reached what was the second transformation of my
+life, as truly as my coming to America was the first great
+transformation.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his delightful essays, credits the
+lover with a feeling of remorse and shame at the contemplation of that
+part of his life which he lived without his beloved, content with his
+barren existence. It is with just such a feeling of remorse that I
+look back to my bookworm days, before I began the study of natural
+history outdoors; and with a feeling of shame akin to the lover's I
+confess how late in my life nature took the first place in my
+affections.
+
+The subject of nature study is better developed in the public schools
+to-day than it was in my time. I remember my teacher in the Chelsea
+grammar school who encouraged us to look for different kinds of
+grasses in the empty lots near home, and to bring to school samples of
+the cereals we found in our mothers' pantries. I brought the grasses
+and cereals, as I did everything the teacher ordered, but I was
+content when nature study was over and the arithmetic lesson began. I
+was not interested, and the teacher did not make it interesting.
+
+In the boys' books I was fond of reading I came across all sorts of
+heroes, and I sympathized with them all. The boy who ran away to sea;
+the boy who delighted in the society of ranchmen and cowboys; the
+stage-struck boy, whose ambition was to drive a pasteboard chariot in
+a circus; the boy who gave up his holidays in order to earn money for
+books; the bad boy who played tricks on people; the clever boy who
+invented amusing toys for his blind little sister--all these boys I
+admired. I could put myself in the place of any one of these heroes,
+and delight in their delights. But there was one sort of hero I never
+could understand, and that was the boy whose favorite reading was
+natural history, who kept an aquarium, collected beetles, and knew all
+about a man by the name of Agassiz. This style of boy always had a
+seafaring uncle, or a missionary aunt, who sent him all sorts of queer
+things from China and the South Sea Islands; and the conversation
+between this boy and the seafaring uncle home on a visit, I was
+perfectly willing to skip. The impossible hero usually kept snakes in
+a box in the barn, where his little sister was fond of playing with
+her little friends. The snakes escaped at least once before the end of
+the story; and the things the boy said to the frightened little girls,
+about the harmless and fascinating qualities of snakes, was something
+I had no patience to read.
+
+No, I did not care for natural history. I would read about travels,
+about deserts, and nameless islands, and strange peoples; but snakes
+and birds and minerals and butterflies did not interest me in the
+least. I visited the Natural History Museum once or twice, because it
+was my way to enter every open door, so as to miss nothing that was
+free to the public; but the curious monsters that filled the glass
+cases and adorned the walls and ceilings failed to stir my
+imagination, and the slimy things that floated in glass vessels were
+too horrid for a second glance.
+
+Of all the horrid things that ever passed under my eyes when I lifted
+my nose from my book, spiders were the worst. Mice were bad enough,
+and so were flies and worms and June bugs; but spiders were absolutely
+the most loathsome creatures I knew. And yet it was the spider that
+opened my eyes to the wonders of nature, and touched my girlish
+happiness with the hues of the infinite.
+
+And it happened at Hale House.
+
+It was not Dr. Hale, though it might have been, who showed me the way
+to the settlement house on Garland Street which bears his name. Hale
+House is situated in the midst of the labyrinth of narrow streets and
+alleys that constitutes the slum of which Harrison Avenue is the
+backbone, and of which Dover Street is a member.
+
+Bearing in mind the fact that there are almost no playgrounds in all
+this congested district, you will understand that Hale House has
+plenty of work on its hands to carry a little sunshine into the grimy
+tenement homes. The beautiful story of how that is done cannot be told
+here, but what Hale House did for me I may not omit to mention.
+
+It was my brother Joseph who discovered Hale House. He started a
+debating club, and invited his chums to help him settle the problems
+of the Republic on Sunday afternoon. The club held its first session
+in our empty parlor on Dover Street, and the United States Government
+was in a fair way to be put on a sound basis at last, when the
+numerous babies belonging to our establishment broke up the meeting,
+leaving the Administration in suspense as to its future course.
+
+The next meeting was held in Isaac Maslinsky's parlor, and the orators
+were beginning to jump to their feet and shake their fists at each
+other, in excellent parliamentary form, when Mrs. Maslinsky sallied
+in, to smile at the boys' excitement. But at the sight of seven pairs
+of boys' boots scuffling on her cherished parlor carpet, the fringed
+cover of the centre table hanging by one corner, and the plush
+photograph album unceremoniously laid aside, indignation took the
+place of good humor in Mrs. Maslinsky's ample bosom, and she ordered
+the boys to clear out, threatening "Ike" with dire vengeance if ever
+again he ventured to enter the parlor with ungentle purpose.
+
+On the following Sunday Harry Rubinstein offered the club the
+hospitality of _his_ parlor, and the meeting began satisfactorily. The
+subject on the table was the Tariff, and the pros and antis were about
+evenly divided. Congress might safely have taken a nap, with the Hub
+Debating Club to handle its affairs, if Harry Rubinstein's big brother
+Jake had not interfered. He came out of the kitchen, where he had been
+stuffing the baby with peanuts, and stood in the doorway of the parlor
+and winked at the dignified chairman. The chairman turned his back on
+him, whereupon Jake pelted him with peanut shells. He mocked the
+speakers, and called them "kids," and wanted to know how they could
+tell the Tariff from a sunstroke, anyhow. "We've got to have free
+trade," he mocked. "Pa, listen to the kids! 'In the interests of the
+American laborer.' Hoo-ray! Listen to the kids, pa!"
+
+Flesh and blood could not bear this. The political reformers
+adjourned indefinitely, and the club was in danger of extinction for
+want of a sheltering roof, when one of the members discovered that
+Hale House, on Garland Street, was waiting to welcome the club.
+
+How the debating-club prospered in the genial atmosphere of the
+settlement house; how from a little club it grew to be a big club, as
+the little boys became young men; how Joseph and Isaac and Harry and
+the rest won prizes in public debates; how they came to be a part of
+the multiple influence for good that issues from Garland Street--all
+this is a piece of the history of Hale House, whose business in the
+slums is to mould the restless children on the street corners into
+noble men and women. I brought the debating-club into my story just to
+show how naturally the children of the slums drift toward their
+salvation, if only some island of safety lies in the course of their
+innocent activities. Not a child in the slums is born to be lost. They
+are all born to be saved, and the raft that carries them unharmed
+through the perilous torrent of tenement life is the child's
+unconscious aspiration for the best. But there must be lighthouses to
+guide him midstream.
+
+Dora followed Joseph to Hale House, joining a club for little girls
+which has since become famous in the Hale House district. The leader
+of this club, under pretence of teaching the little girls the proper
+way to sweep and make beds, artfully teaches them how to beautify a
+tenement home by means of noble living.
+
+Joseph and Dora were so enthusiastic about Hale House that I had to go
+over and see what it was all about. And I found the Natural History
+Club.
+
+I do not know how Mrs. Black, who was then the resident, persuaded me
+to try the Natural History Club, in spite of my aversion for bugs. I
+suppose she tried me in various girls' clubs, and found that I did not
+fit, any more than I fitted in the dancing-club that I attempted years
+before. I dare say she decided that I was an old maid, and urged me to
+come to the meetings of the Natural History Club, which was composed
+of adults. The members of this club were not people from the
+neighborhood, I understood, but workers at Hale House and their
+friends; and they often had eminent naturalists, travellers, and other
+notables lecture before them. My curiosity to see a real live
+naturalist probably induced me to accept Mrs. Black's invitation in
+the end; for up to that time I had never met any one who enjoyed the
+creepy society of snakes and worms, except in books.
+
+The Natural History Club sat in a ring around the reception room,
+facing the broad doorway of the adjoining room. Mrs. Black introduced
+me, and I said "Glad to meet you" all around the circle, and sat down
+in a kindergarten chair beside the piano. It was Friday evening, and I
+had the sense of leisure which pervades the school-girl's
+consciousness when there is to be no school on the morrow. I liked the
+pleasant room, pleasanter than any at home. I liked the faces of the
+company I was in. I was prepared to have an agreeable evening, even if
+I was a little bored.
+
+The tall, lean gentleman with the frank blue eyes got up to read the
+minutes of the last meeting. I did not understand what he read, but I
+noticed that it gave him great satisfaction. This man had greeted me
+as if he had been waiting for my coming all his life. What did Mrs.
+Black call him? He looked and spoke as if he was happy to be alive. I
+liked him. Oh, yes! this was Mr. Winthrop.
+
+I let my thoughts wander, with my eyes, all around the circle, trying
+to read the characters of my new friends in their faces. But suddenly
+my attention was arrested by a word. Mr. Winthrop had finished reading
+the minutes, and was introducing the speaker of the evening. "We are
+very fortunate in having with us Mr. Emerson, whom we all know as an
+authority on spiders."
+
+_Spiders!_ What hard luck! Mr. Winthrop pronounced the word "spiders"
+with unmistakable relish, as if he doted on the horrid creatures; but
+I--My nerves contracted into a tight knot. I gripped the arms of my
+little chair, determined _not_ to run, with all those strangers
+looking on. I watched Mr. Emerson, to see when he would open a box of
+spiders. I recalled a hideous experience of long ago, when, putting on
+a dress that had hung on the wall for weeks, I felt a thing with a
+hundred legs crawling down my bare arm, and shook a spider out of my
+sleeve. I watched the lecturer, but I was _not_ going to run. It was
+too bad that Mrs. Black had not warned me.
+
+After a while I realized that the lecturer had no menagerie in his
+pockets. He talked, in a familiar way, about different kinds of
+spiders and their ways; and as he talked, he wove across the doorway,
+where he stood, a gigantic spider's web, unwinding a ball of twine in
+his hand, and looping various lengths on invisible tacks he had ready
+in the door frame.
+
+I was fascinated by the progress of the web. I forgot my terrors; I
+began to follow Mr. Emerson's discourse. I was surprised to hear how
+much there was to know about a dusty little spider, besides that he
+could spin his webs as fast as my broom could sweep them away. The
+drama of the spider's daily life became very real to me as the
+lecturer went on. His struggle for existence; his wars with his
+enemies; his wiles, his traps, his patient labors; the intricate
+safeguards of his simple existence; the fitness of his body for his
+surroundings, of his instincts for his vital needs--the whole picture
+of the spider's pursuit of life under the direction of definite laws
+filled me with a great wonder and left no room in my mind for
+repugnance or fear. It was the first time the natural history of a
+living creature had been presented to me under such circumstances that
+I could not avoid hearing and seeing, and I was surprised at my
+dulness in the past when I had rejected books on natural history.
+
+I did not become an enthusiastic amateur naturalist at once; I did not
+at once begin to collect worms and bugs. But on the next sweeping-day
+I stood on a chair, craning my neck, to study the spider webs I
+discovered in the corners of the ceiling; and one or two webs of more
+than ordinary perfection I suffered to remain undisturbed for weeks,
+although it was my duty, as a house-cleaner, to sweep the ceiling
+clean. I began to watch for the mice that were wont to scurry across
+the floor when the house slept and I alone waked. I even placed a
+crust for them on the threshold of my room, and cultivated a
+breathless intimacy with them, when the little gray beasts
+acknowledged my hospitality by nibbling my crust in full sight. And so
+by degrees I came to a better understanding of my animal neighbors on
+all sides, and I began to look forward to the meetings of the Natural
+History Club.
+
+The club had frequent field excursions, in addition to the regular
+meetings. At the seashore, in the woods, in the fields; at high
+tide and low tide, in summer and winter, by sunlight and by moonlight,
+the marvellous story of orderly nature was revealed to me, in
+fragments that allured the imagination and made me beg for more. Some
+of the members of the club were school-teachers, accustomed to
+answering questions. All of them were patient; some of them took
+special pains with me. But nobody took me seriously as a member of the
+club. They called me the club mascot, and appointed me curator of the
+club museum, which was not in existence, at a salary of ten cents a
+year, which was never paid. And I was well pleased with my unique
+position in the club, delighted with my new friends, enraptured with
+my new study.
+
+   [Illustration: THE NATURAL HISTORY CLUB HAD FREQUENT FIELD
+   EXCURSIONS]
+
+More and more, as the seasons rolled by, and page after page of the
+book of nature was turned before my eager eyes, did I feel the wonder
+and thrill of the revelations of science, till all my thoughts became
+colored with the tints of infinite truths. My days arranged themselves
+around the meetings of the club as a centre. The whole structure of my
+life was transfigured by my novel experiences outdoors. I realized,
+with a shock at first, but afterwards with complacency, that books
+were taking a secondary place in my life, my irregular studies in
+natural history holding the first place. I began to enjoy the Natural
+History rooms; and I was obliged to admit to myself that my heart hung
+with a more thrilling suspense over the fate of some beans I had
+planted in a window box than over the fortunes of the classic hero
+about whom we were reading at school.
+
+But for all my enthusiasm about animals, plants, and rocks,--for all
+my devotion to the Natural History Club,--I did not become a thorough
+naturalist. My scientific friends were right not to take me
+seriously. Mr. Winthrop, in his delightfully frank way, called me a
+fraud; and I did not resent it. I dipped into zoölogy, botany,
+geology, ornithology, and an infinite number of other ologies, as the
+activities of the club or of particular members of it gave me
+opportunity, but I made no systematic study of any branch of science;
+at least not until I went to college. For what enthralled my
+imagination in the whole subject of natural history was not the
+orderly array of facts, but the glimpse I caught, through this or that
+fragment of science, of the grand principles underlying the facts. By
+asking questions, by listening when my wise friends talked, by
+reading, by pondering and dreaming, I slowly gathered together the
+kaleidoscopic bits of the stupendous panorama which is painted in the
+literature of Darwinism. Everything I had ever learned at school was
+illumined by this new knowledge; the world lay newly made under my
+eyes. Vastly as my mind had stretched to embrace the idea of a great
+country, when I exchanged Polotzk for America, it was no such
+enlargement as I now experienced, when in place of the measurable
+earth, with its paltry tale of historic centuries, I was given the
+illimitable universe to contemplate, with the numberless æons of
+infinite time.
+
+As the meaning of nature was deepened for me, so was its aspect
+beautified. Hitherto I had loved in nature the spectacular,--the
+blazing sunset, the whirling tempest, the flush of summer, the
+snow-wonder of winter. Now, for the first time, my heart was satisfied
+with the microscopic perfection of a solitary blossom. The harmonious
+murmur of autumn woods broke up into a hundred separate melodies, as
+the pelting acorn, the scurrying squirrel, the infrequent chirp of
+the lingering cricket, and the soft speed of ripe pine cones through
+dense-grown branches, each struck its discriminate chord in the
+scented air. The outdoor world was magnified in every dimension;
+inanimate things were vivified; living things were dignified.
+
+No two persons set the same value on any given thing, and so it may
+very well be that I am boasting of the enrichment of my life through
+the study of natural history to ears that hear not. I need only recall
+my own obtuseness to the subject, before the story of the spider
+sharpened my senses, to realize that these confessions of a nature
+lover may bore every other person who reads them. But I do not pretend
+to be concerned about the reader at this point. I never hope to
+explain to my neighbor the exact value of a winter sunrise in my
+spiritual economy, but I know that my life has grown better since I
+learned to distinguish between a butterfly and a moth; that my faith
+in man is the greater because I have watched for the coming of the
+song sparrow in the spring; and my thoughts of immortality are the
+less wavering because I have cherished the winter duckweed on my lawn.
+
+Those who find their greatest intellectual and emotional satisfaction
+in the study of nature are apt to refer their spiritual problems also
+to science. That is how it went with me. Long before my introduction
+to natural history I had realized, with an uneasy sense of the
+breaking of peace, that the questions which I thought to have been
+settled years before were beginning to tease me anew. In Russia I had
+practised a prescribed religion, with little faith in what I
+professed, and a restless questioning of the universe. When I came to
+America I lightly dropped the religious forms that I had half mocked
+before, and contented myself with a few novel phrases employed by my
+father in his attempt to explain the riddle of existence. The busy
+years flew by, when from morning till night I was preoccupied with the
+process of becoming an American; and no question arose in my mind that
+my books or my teachers could not fully answer. Then came a time when
+the ordinary business of my girl's life discharged itself
+automatically, and I had leisure once more to look over and around
+things. This period coinciding with my moody adolescence, I rapidly
+entangled myself in a net of doubts and questions, after the
+well-known manner of a growing girl. I asked once more, How did I come
+to be?--and I found that I was no whit wiser than poor Reb' Lebe, whom
+I had despised for his ignorance. For all my years of America and
+schooling, I could give no better answer to my clamoring questions
+than the teacher of my childhood. Whence came the fair world? Was
+there a God, after all? And if so, what did He intend when He made me?
+
+It was always my way, if I wanted anything, to turn my daily life into
+a pursuit of that thing. "Have you seen the treasure I seek?" I asked
+of every man I met. And if it was God that I desired, I made all my
+friends search their hearts for evidence of His being. I asked all the
+wise people I knew what they were going to do with themselves after
+death; and if the wise failed to satisfy me, I questioned the simple,
+and listened to the babies talking in their sleep.
+
+Still the imperative clamor of my mind remained unallayed. Was all my
+life to be a hunger and a questioning? I complained of my teachers,
+who stuffed my head with facts and gave my soul no crumb to feed on.
+I blamed the stars for their silence. I sat up nights brooding over
+the emptiness of knowledge, and praying for revelations.
+
+Sometimes I lived for days in a chimera of doubts, feeling that it was
+hardly worth while living at all if I was never to know why I was born
+and why I could not live forever. It was in one of these prolonged
+moods that I heard that a friend of mine, a distinguished man of
+letters whom I greatly admired, was coming to Boston for a short
+visit. A terrific New England blizzard arrived some hours in advance
+of my friend's train, but so intent was I on questioning him that I
+disregarded the weather, and struggled through towering snowdrifts, in
+the teeth of the wild wind, to the railroad station. There I nearly
+perished of weariness while waiting for the train, which was delayed
+by the storm. But when my friend emerged from one of the snow-crusted
+cars I was rewarded; for the blizzard had kept the reporters away, and
+the great man could give me his undivided attention.
+
+No doubt he understood the pressing importance of the matter to me,
+from the trouble I had taken to secure an early interview with him. He
+heard me out very soberly, and answered my questions as honestly as a
+thinking man could. Not a word of what he said remains in my mind, but
+I remember going away with the impression that it was possible to live
+without knowing everything, after all, and that I might even try to be
+happy in a world full of riddles.
+
+In such ways as this I sought peace of mind, but I never achieved more
+than a brief truce. I was coming to believe that only the stupid could
+be happy, and that life was pretty hard on the philosophical, when
+the great new interest of science came into my life, and scattered my
+blue devils as the sun scatters the night damps.
+
+Some of my friends in the Natural History Club were deeply versed in
+the principles of evolutionary science, and were able to guide me in
+my impetuous rush to learn everything in a day. I was in a hurry to
+deduce, from the conglomeration of isolated facts that I picked up in
+the lectures, the final solution of all my problems. It took both
+patience and wisdom to check me and at the same time satisfy me, I
+have no doubt; but then I was always fortunate in my friends. Wisdom
+and patience in plenty were spent on me, and I was instructed and
+inspired and comforted. Of course my wisest teacher was not able to
+tell me how the original spark of life was kindled, nor to point out,
+on the starry map of heaven, my future abode. The bread of absolute
+knowledge I do not hope to taste in this life. But all creation was
+remodelled on a grander scale by the utterances of my teachers; and my
+problems, though they deepened with the expansion of all nameable
+phenomena, were carried up to the heights of the impersonal, and
+ceased to torment me. Seeing how life and death, beginning and end,
+were all parts of the process of being, it mattered less in what
+particular ripple of the flux of existence I found myself. If past
+time was a trooping of similar yesterdays, back over the unbroken
+millenniums, to the first moment, it was simple to think of future
+time as a trooping of knowable to-days, on and on, to infinity.
+Possibly, also, the spark of life that had persisted through the
+geological ages, under a million million disguises, was vital enough
+to continue for another earth-age, in some shape as potent as the
+first or last. Thinking in æons and in races, instead of in years and
+individuals, somehow lightened the burden of intelligence, and filled
+me anew with a sense of youth and well-being, that I had almost lost
+in the pit of my narrow personal doubts.
+
+No one who understands the nature of youth will be misled, by this
+summary of my intellectual history, into thinking that I actually
+arranged my newly acquired scientific knowledge into any such orderly
+philosophy as, for the sake of clearness, I have outlined above. I had
+long passed my teens, and had seen something of life that is not
+revealed to poetizing girls, before I could give any logical account
+of what I read in the book of cosmogony. But the high peaks of the
+promised land of evolution did flash on my vision in the earlier days,
+and with these to guide me I rebuilt the world, and found it much
+nobler than it had ever been before, and took great comfort in it.
+
+I did not become a finished philosopher from hearing a couple of
+hundred lectures on scientific subjects. I did not even become a
+finished woman. If anything, I grew rather more girlish. I remember
+myself as very merry in the midst of my serious scientific friends,
+and I can think of no time when I was more inclined to play the tomboy
+than when off for a day in the woods, in quest of botanical and
+zoological specimens. The freedom of outdoors, the society of
+congenial friends, the delight of my occupation--all acted as a strong
+wine on my mood, and sent my spirits soaring to immoderate heights I
+am very much afraid I made myself a nuisance, at times, to some of the
+more sedate of my grown-up companions. I wish they could know that I
+have truly repented. I wish they had known at the time that it was
+the exuberance of my happiness that played tricks, and no wicked
+desire to annoy kind friends. But I am sure that those who were
+offended have long since forgotten or forgiven, and I need remember
+nothing of those wonderful days other than that a new sun rose above a
+new earth for me, and that my happiness was like unto the iridescent
+dews.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS
+
+
+I did not always wait for the Natural History Club to guide me to
+delectable lands. Some of the happiest days of that happy time I spent
+with my sister in East Boston. We had a merry time at supper, Moses
+making clever jokes, without cracking a smile himself; and the baby
+romping in his high chair, eating what wasn't good for him. But the
+best of the evening came later, when father and baby had gone to bed,
+and the dishes were put away, and there was not a crumb left on the
+red-and-white checked tablecloth. Frieda took out her sewing, and I
+took a book; and the lamp was between us, shining on the table, on the
+large brown roses on the wall, on the green and brown diamonds of the
+oil cloth on the floor, on the baby's rattle on a shelf, and on the
+shining stove in the corner. It was such a pleasant kitchen--such a
+cosey, friendly room--that when Frieda and I were left alone I was
+perfectly happy just to sit there. Frieda had a beautiful parlor, with
+plush chairs and a velvet carpet and gilt picture frames; but we
+preferred the homely, homelike kitchen.
+
+I read aloud from Longfellow, or Whittier, or Tennyson; and it was as
+great a treat to me as it was to Frieda. Her attention alone was
+inspiring. Her delight, her eager questions doubled the meaning of the
+lines I read. Poor Frieda had little enough time for reading, unless
+she stole it from the sewing or the baking or the mending. But she was
+hungry for books, and so grateful when I came to read to her that it
+made me ashamed to remember all the beautiful things I had and did not
+share with her.
+
+It is true I shared what could be shared. I brought my friends to her.
+At her wedding were some of the friends of whom I was most proud. Miss
+Dillingham came, and Mr. Hurd; and the humbler guests stared in
+admiration at our school-teachers and editors. But I had so many
+delightful things that I could not bring to Frieda--my walks, my
+dreams, my adventures of all sorts. And yet when I told her about
+them, I found that she partook of everything. For she had her talent
+for vicarious enjoyment, by means of which she entered as an actor
+into my adventures, was present as a witness at the frolic of my
+younger life. Or if I narrated things that were beyond her, on account
+of her narrower experience, she listened with an eager longing to
+understand that was better than some people's easy comprehension. My
+world ever rang with good tidings, and she was grateful if I brought
+her the echo of them, to ring again within the four walls of the
+kitchen that bounded her life. And I, who lived on the heights, and
+walked with the learned, and bathed in the crystal fountains of youth,
+sometimes climbed the sublimest peak in my sister's humble kitchen,
+there caught the unfaltering accents of inspiration, and rejoiced in
+silver pools of untried happiness.
+
+The way she reached out for everything fine was shown by her interest
+in the incomprehensible Latin and French books that I brought. She
+liked to hear me read my Cicero, pleased by the movement of the
+sonorous periods. I translated Ovid and Virgil for her; and her
+pleasure illumined the difficult passages, so that I seldom needed to
+have recourse to the dictionary. I shall never forget the evening I
+read to her, from the "Æneid," the passage in the fourth book
+describing the death of Dido. I read the Latin first, and then my own
+version in English hexameters, that I had prepared for a recitation at
+school. Frieda forgot her sewing in her lap, and leaned forward in
+rapt attention. When I was through, there were tears of delight in her
+eyes; and I was surprised myself at the beauty of the words I had just
+pronounced.
+
+I do not dare to confess how much of my Latin I have forgotten, lest
+any of the devoted teachers who taught me should learn the sad truth;
+but I shall always boast of some acquaintance with Virgil, through
+that scrap of the "Æneid" made memorable by my sister's enjoyment of
+it.
+
+Truly my education was not entirely in the hands of persons who had
+licenses to teach. My sister's fat baby taught me things about the
+origin and ultimate destiny of dimples that were not in any of my
+school-books. Mr. Casey, of the second floor, who was drunk whenever
+his wife was sober, gave me an insight into the psychology of the beer
+mug that would have added to the mental furniture of my most scholarly
+teacher. The bold-faced girls who passed the evening on the corner, in
+promiscuous flirtation with the cock-eyed youths of the neighborhood,
+unconsciously revealed to me the eternal secrets of adolescence. My
+neighbor of the third floor, who sat on the curbstone with the scabby
+baby in her bedraggled lap, had things to say about the fine ladies
+who came in carriages to inspect the public bathhouse across the
+street that ought to be repeated in the lecture halls of every school
+of philanthropy. Instruction poured into my brain at such a rate that
+I could not digest it all at the time; but in later years, when my
+destiny had led me far from Dover Street, the emphatic moral of those
+lessons became clear. The memory of my experience on Dover Street
+became the strength of my convictions, the illumined index of my
+purpose, the aureola of my happiness. And if I paid for those lessons
+with days of privation and dread, with nights of tormenting anxiety, I
+count the price cheap. Who would not go to a little trouble to find
+out what life is made of? Life in the slums spins busily as a
+schoolboy's top, and one who has heard its humming never forgets. I
+look forward to telling, when I get to be a master of language, what I
+read in the crooked cobblestones when I revisited Dover Street the
+other day.
+
+Dover Street was never really my residence--at least, not the whole of
+it. It happened to be the nook where my bed was made, but I inhabited
+the City of Boston. In the pearl-misty morning, in the ruby-red
+evening, I was empress of all I surveyed from the roof of the tenement
+house. I could point in any direction and name a friend who would
+welcome me there. Off towards the northwest, in the direction of
+Harvard Bridge, which some day I should cross on my way to Radcliffe
+College, was one of my favorite palaces, whither I resorted every day
+after school.
+
+A low, wide-spreading building with a dignified granite front it was,
+flanked on all sides by noble old churches, museums, and
+school-houses, harmoniously disposed around a spacious triangle,
+called Copley Square. Two thoroughfares that came straight from the
+green suburbs swept by my palace, one on either side, converged at the
+apex of the triangle, and pointed off, past the Public Garden, across
+the historic Common, to the domed State House sitting on a height.
+
+It was my habit to go very slowly up the low, broad steps to the
+palace entrance, pleasing my eyes with the majestic lines of the
+building, and lingering to read again the carved inscriptions: _Public
+Library_--_Built by the People_--_Free to All_.
+
+Did I not say it was my palace? Mine, because I was a citizen; mine,
+though I was born an alien; mine, though I lived on Dover Street. My
+palace--_mine_!
+
+I loved to lean against a pillar in the entrance hall, watching the
+people go in and out. Groups of children hushed their chatter at the
+entrance, and skipped, whispering and giggling in their fists, up the
+grand stairway, patting the great stone lions at the top, with an eye
+on the aged policemen down below. Spectacled scholars came slowly down
+the stairs, loaded with books, heedless of the lofty arches that
+echoed their steps. Visitors from out of town lingered long in the
+entrance hall, studying the inscriptions and symbols on the marble
+floor. And I loved to stand in the midst of all this, and remind
+myself that I was there, that I had a right to be there, that I was at
+home there. All these eager children, all these fine-browed women, all
+these scholars going home to write learned books--I and they had this
+glorious thing in common, this noble treasure house of learning. It
+was wonderful to say, _This is mine_; it was thrilling to say, _This
+is ours_.
+
+I visited every part of the building that was open to the public. I
+spent rapt hours studying the Abbey pictures. I repeated to myself
+lines from Tennyson's poem before the glowing scenes of the Holy
+Grail. Before the "Prophets" in the gallery above I was mute, but
+echoes of the Hebrew Psalms I had long forgotten throbbed somewhere in
+the depths of my consciousness. The Chavannes series around the main
+staircase I did not enjoy for years. I thought the pictures looked
+faded, and their symbolism somehow failed to move me at first.
+
+Bates Hall was the place where I spent my longest hours in the
+library. I chose a seat far at one end, so that looking up from my
+books I would get the full effect of the vast reading-room. I felt the
+grand spaces under the soaring arches as a personal attribute of my
+being.
+
+The courtyard was my sky-roofed chamber of dreams. Slowly strolling
+past the endless pillars of the colonnade, the fountain murmured in my
+ear of all the beautiful things in all the beautiful world. I imagined
+that I was a Greek of the classic days, treading on sandalled feet
+through the glistening marble porticoes of Athens. I expected to see,
+if I looked over my shoulder, a bearded philosopher in a drooping
+mantle, surrounded by beautiful youths with wreathed locks. Everything
+I read in school, in Latin or Greek, everything in my history books,
+was real to me here, in this courtyard set about with stately columns.
+
+Here is where I liked to remind myself of Polotzk, the better to bring
+out the wonder of my life. That I who was born in the prison of the
+Pale should roam at will in the land of freedom was a marvel that it
+did me good to realize. That I who was brought up to my teens almost
+without a book should be set down in the midst of all the books that
+ever were written was a miracle as great as any on record. That an
+outcast should become a privileged citizen, that a beggar should dwell
+in a palace--this was a romance more thrilling than poet ever sung.
+Surely I was rocked in an enchanted cradle.
+
+   [Illustration: BATES HALL, WHERE I SPENT MY LONGEST HOURS IN THE
+   LIBRARY]
+
+From the Public Library to the State House is only a step, and I found
+my way there without a guide. The State House was one of the places I
+could point to and say that I had a friend there to welcome me. I do
+not mean the representative of my district, though I hope he was a
+worthy man. My friend was no less a man than the Honorable Senator
+Roe, from Worcester, whose letters to me, written under the embossed
+letter head of the Senate Chamber, I could not help exhibiting to
+Florence Connolly.
+
+How did I come by a Senator? Through being a citizen of Boston, of
+course. To be a citizen of the smallest village in the United States
+which maintains a free school and a public library is to stand in the
+path of the splendid processions of opportunity. And as Boston has
+rather better schools and a rather finer library than some other
+villages, it comes natural there for children in the slums to summon
+gentlemen from the State House to be their personal friends.
+
+It is so simple, in Boston! You are a school-girl, and your teacher
+gives you a ticket for the annual historical lecture in the Old South
+Church, on Washington's Birthday. You hear a stirring discourse on
+some subject in your country's history, and you go home with a heart
+bursting with patriotism. You sit down and write a letter to the
+speaker who so moved you, telling him how glad you are to be an
+American, explaining to him, if you happen to be a recently made
+American, why you love your adopted country so much better than your
+native land. Perhaps the patriotic lecturer happens to be a Senator,
+and he reads your letter under the vast dome of the State House; and
+it occurs to him that he and his eminent colleagues and the stately
+capitol and the glorious flag that floats above it, all gathered on
+the hill above the Common, do his country no greater honor than the
+outspoken admiration of an ardent young alien. The Senator replies to
+your letter, inviting you to visit him at the State House; and in the
+renowned chamber where the august business of the State is conducted,
+you, an obscure child from the slums, and he, a chosen leader of the
+people, seal a democratic friendship based on the love of a common
+flag.
+
+Even simpler than to meet a Senator was it to become acquainted with a
+man like Edward Everett Hale. "The Grand Old Man of Boston," the
+people called him, from the manner of his life among them. He kept
+open house in every public building in the city. Wherever two citizens
+met to devise a measure for the public weal, he was a third. Wherever
+a worthy cause needed a champion, Dr. Hale lifted his mighty voice. At
+some time or another his colossal figure towered above an eager
+multitude from every pulpit in the city, from every lecture platform.
+And where is the map of Boston that gives the names of the lost alleys
+and back ways where the great man went in search of the lame in body,
+who could not join the public assembly, in quest of the maimed in
+spirit, who feared to show their faces in the open? If all the little
+children who have sat on Dr. Hale's knee were started in a procession
+on the State House steps, standing four abreast, there would be a lane
+of merry faces across the Common, out to the Public Library, over
+Harvard Bridge, and away beyond to remoter landmarks.
+
+That I met Dr. Hale is no wonder. It was as inevitable as that I
+should be a year older every twelvemonth. He was a part of Boston, as
+the salt wave is a part of the sea. I can hardly say whether he came
+to me or I came to him. We met, and my adopted country took me closer
+to her breast.
+
+A day or two after our first meeting I called on Dr. Hale, at his
+invitation. It was only eight o'clock in the morning, you may be sure,
+because he had risen early to attend to a hundred great affairs, and I
+had risen early so as to talk with a great man before I went to
+school. I think we liked each other a little the more for the fact
+that when so many people were still asleep, we were already busy in
+the interests of citizenship and friendship. We certainly liked each
+other.
+
+I am sure I did not stay more than fifteen minutes, and all that I
+recall of our conversation was that Dr. Hale asked me a great many
+questions about Russia, in a manner that made me feel that I was an
+authority on the subject; and with his great hand in good-bye he gave
+me a bit of homely advice, namely, that I should never study before
+breakfast!
+
+That was all, but for the rest of the day I moved against a background
+of grandeur. There was a noble ring to Virgil that day that even my
+teacher's firm translation had never brought out before. Obscure
+points in the history lesson were clear to me alone, of the thirty
+girls in the class. And it happened that the tulips in Copley Square
+opened that day, and shone in the sun like lighted lamps.
+
+Any one could be happy a year on Dover Street, after spending half an
+hour on Highland Street. I enjoyed so many half-hours in the great
+man's house that I do not know how to convey the sense of my
+remembered happiness. My friend used to keep me in conversation a few
+minutes, in the famous study that was fit to have been preserved as a
+shrine; after which he sent me to roam about the house, and explore
+his library, and take away what books I pleased. Who would feel
+cramped in a tenement, with such royal privileges as these?
+
+Once I brought Dr. Hale a present, a copy of a story of mine that had
+been printed in a journal; and from his manner of accepting it you
+might have thought that I was a princess dispensing gifts from a
+throne. I wish I had asked him, that last time I talked with him, how
+it was that he who was so modest made those who walked with him so
+great.
+
+Modest as the man was the house in which he lived. A gray old house of
+a style that New England no longer builds, with a pillared porch
+curtained by vines, set back in the yard behind the old trees.
+Whatever cherished flowers glowed in the garden behind the house, the
+common daisy was encouraged to bloom in front. And was there sun or
+snow on the ground, the most timid hand could open the gate, the most
+humble visitor was sure of a welcome. Out of that modest house the
+troubled came comforted, the fallen came uplifted, the noble came
+inspired.
+
+My explorations of Dr. Hale's house might not have brought me to the
+gables, but for my friend's daughter, the artist, who had a studio at
+the top of the house. She asked me one day if I would sit for a
+portrait, and I consented with the greatest alacrity. It would be an
+interesting experience, and interesting experiences were the bread of
+life to me. I agreed to come every Saturday morning, and felt that
+something was going to happen to Dover Street.
+
+   [Illustration: THE FAMOUS STUDY, THAT WAS FIT TO HAVE BEEN
+   PRESERVED AS A SHRINE]
+
+When I came home from my talk with Miss Hale, I studied myself long in
+my blotched looking-glass. I saw just what I expected. My face was too
+thin, my nose too large, my complexion too dull. My hair, which was
+curly enough, was too short to be described as luxurious tresses; and
+the color was neither brown nor black. My hands were neither white nor
+velvety; the fingers ended decidedly, instead of tapering off like
+rosy dreams. I was disgusted with my wrists; they showed too far below
+the tight sleeves of my dress of the year before last, and they looked
+consumptive.
+
+No, it was not for my beauty that Miss Hale wanted to paint me. It was
+because I was a girl, a person, a piece of creation. I understood
+perfectly. If I could write an interesting composition about a broom,
+why should not an artist be able to make an interesting picture of me?
+I had done it with the broom, and the milk wagon, and the rain spout.
+It was not what a thing was that made it interesting, but what I was
+able to draw out of it. It was exciting to speculate as to what Miss
+Hale was going to draw out of me.
+
+The first sitting was indeed exciting. There was hardly any sitting to
+it. We did nothing but move around the studio, and move the easel
+around, and try on ever so many backgrounds, and ever so many poses.
+In the end, of course, we left everything just as it had been at the
+start, because Miss Hale had had the right idea from the beginning;
+but I understood that a preliminary tempest in the studio was the
+proper way to test that idea.
+
+I was surprised to find that I should not be obliged to hold my
+breath, and should be allowed to wink all I wanted. Posing was just
+sitting with my hands in my lap, and enjoying the most interesting
+conversation with the artist. We hit upon such out-of-the-way
+topics--once, I remember, we talked about the marriage laws of
+different states! I had a glorious time, and I believe Miss Hale did
+too. I watched the progress of the portrait with utter lack of
+comprehension, and with perfect faith in the ultimate result. The
+morning flew so fast that I could have sat right on into the afternoon
+without tiring.
+
+Once or twice I stayed to lunch, and sat opposite the artist's mother
+at table. It was like sitting face to face with Martha Washington, I
+thought. Everything was wonderful in that wonderful old house.
+
+One thing disturbed my enjoyment of those Saturday mornings. It was a
+small thing, hardly as big as a pen-wiper. It was a silver coin which
+Miss Hale gave me regularly when I was going. I knew that models were
+paid for sitting, but I was not a professional model. When people sat
+for their portraits they usually paid the artist, instead of the
+artist paying them. Of course I had not ordered this portrait, but I
+had such a good time sitting that it did not seem to me I could be
+earning money. But what troubled me was not the suspicion that I did
+not earn the money, but that I did not know what was in my friend's
+mind when she gave it to me. Was it possible that Miss Hale had asked
+me to sit on purpose to be able to pay me, so that I could help pay
+the rent? Everybody knew about the rent sooner or later, because I was
+always asking my friends what a girl could do to make the landlady
+happy. Very possibly Miss Hale had my landlady in mind when she asked
+me to pose. I might have asked her--I dearly loved explanations, which
+cleared up hidden motives--but her answer would not have made any
+real difference. I should have accepted the money just the same. Miss
+Hale was not a stranger, like Mr. Strong when he offered me a quarter.
+She knew me, she believed in my cause, and she wanted to contribute to
+it. Thus I, in my hair-splitting analyses of persons and motives;
+while the portrait went steadily on.
+
+It was Miss Hale who first found a use for our superfluous baby. She
+came to Dover Street several times to study our tiny Celia, in
+swaddling clothes improvised by my mother, after the fashion of the
+old country. Miss Hale wanted a baby for a picture of the Nativity
+which she was doing for her father's church; and of all the babies in
+Boston, our Celia, our little Jewish Celia, was posing for the Christ
+Child! It does not matter in this connection that the Infant that lies
+in the lantern light, brooded over by the Mother's divine sorrow of
+love, in the beautiful altar piece in Dr. Hale's church, was not
+actually painted from my mother's baby, in the end. The point is that
+my mother, in less than half a dozen years of America, had so far
+shaken off her ancient superstitions that she feared no evil
+consequence from letting her child pose for a Christian picture.
+
+A busy life I led, on Dover Street; a happy, busy life. When I was not
+reciting lessons, nor writing midnight poetry, nor selling papers, nor
+posing, nor studying sociology, nor pickling bugs, nor interviewing
+statesmen, nor running away from home, I made long entries in nay
+journal, or wrote forty-page letters to my friends. It was a happy
+thing that poor Mrs. Hutch did not know what sums I spent for
+stationery and postage stamps. She would have gone into consumption, I
+do believe, from inexpressible indignation; and she would have been
+in the right--to be indignant, not to go into consumption. I admit it;
+she would have been justified--from her point of view. From my point
+of view I was also in the right; of course I was. To make friends
+among the great was an important part of my education, and was not to
+be accomplished without a liberal expenditure of paper and postage
+stamps. If Mrs. Hutch had not repulsed my offer of confidences, I
+could have shown her long letters written to me by people whose mere
+signature was prized by autograph hunters. It is true that I could not
+turn those letters directly into rent-money,--or if I could, I would
+not,--but indirectly my interesting letters did pay a week's rent now
+and then. Through the influence of my friends my father sometimes
+found work that he could not have got in any other way. These
+practical results of my costly pursuit of friendships might have given
+Mrs. Hutch confidence in my ultimate solvency, had she not remained
+obstinately deaf to my plea for time, her heart being set on direct,
+immediate, convertible cash payment.
+
+That was very narrow-minded, even though I say it who should not. The
+grocer on Harrison Avenue who supplied our table could have taught her
+to take a more liberal view. We were all anxious to teach her, if she
+only would have listened. Here was this poor grocer, conducting his
+business on the same perilous credit system which had driven my father
+out of Chelsea and Wheeler Street, supplying us with tea and sugar and
+strong butter, milk freely splashed from rusty cans, potent yeast, and
+bananas done to a turn,--with everything, in short, that keeps a poor
+man's family hearty in spite of what they eat,--and all this for the
+consideration of part payment, with the faintest prospect of a future
+settlement in full. Mr. Rosenblum had an intimate knowledge of the
+financial situation of every family that traded with him, from the
+gossip of his customers around his herring barrel. He knew without
+asking that my father had no regular employment, and that,
+consequently, it was risky to give us credit. Nevertheless he gave us
+credit by the week, by the month, accepted partial payment with
+thanks, and let the balance stand by the year.
+
+We owed him as much as the landlady, I suppose, every time he balanced
+our account. But he never complained; nay, he even insisted on my
+mother's taking almonds and raisins for a cake for the holidays. He
+knew, as well as Mrs. Hutch, that my father kept a daughter at school
+who was of age to be put to work; but so far was he from reproaching
+him for it that he detained my father by the half-hour, inquiring
+about my progress and discussing my future. He knew very well, did the
+poor grocer, who it was that burned so much oil in my family; but when
+I came in to have my kerosene can filled, he did not fall upon me with
+harsh words of blame. Instead, he wanted to hear about my latest
+triumph at school, and about the great people who wrote me letters and
+even came to see me; and he called his wife from the kitchen behind
+the store to come and hear of these grand doings. Mrs. Rosenblum, who
+could not sign her name, came out in her faded calico wrapper, and
+stood with her hands folded under her apron, shy and respectful before
+the embryo scholar; and she nodded her head sideways in approval,
+drinking in with envious pleasure her husband's Yiddish version of my
+tale. If her black-eyed Goldie happened to be playing jackstones on
+the curb, Mrs. Rosenblum pulled her into the store, to hear what
+distinction Mr. Antin's daughter had won at school, bidding her take
+example from Mary, if she would also go far in education.
+
+"Hear you, Goldie? She has the best marks, in everything, Goldie, all
+the time. She is only five years in the country, and she'll be in
+college soon. She beats them all in school, Goldie--her father says
+she beats them all. She studies all the time--all night--and she
+writes, it is a pleasure to hear. She writes in the paper, Goldie. You
+ought to hear Mr. Antin read what she writes in the paper. Long
+pieces--"
+
+"You don't understand what he reads, ma," Goldie interrupts
+mischievously; and I want to laugh, but I refrain. Mr. Rosenblum does
+not fill my can; I am forced to stand and hear myself eulogized.
+
+"Not understand? Of course I don't understand. How should I
+understand? I was not sent to school to learn. Of course I don't
+understand. But _you_ don't understand, Goldie, and that's a shame. If
+you would put your mind on it, and study hard, like Mary Antin, you
+would also stand high, and you would go to high school, and be
+somebody."
+
+"Would you send me to high school, pa?" Goldie asks, to test her
+mother's promises. "Would you really?"
+
+"Sure as I am a Jew," Mr. Rosenblum promptly replies, a look of
+aspiration in his deep eyes. "Only show yourself worthy, Goldie, and
+I'll keep you in school till you get to something. In America
+everybody can get to something, if he only wants to. I would even send
+you farther than high school--to be a teacher, maybe. Why not? In
+America everything is possible. But you have to work hard, Goldie,
+like Mary Antin--study hard, put your mind on it."
+
+"Oh, I know it, pa!" Goldie exclaims, her momentary enthusiasm
+extinguished at the thought of long lessons indefinitely prolonged.
+Goldie was a restless little thing who could not sit long over her
+geography book. She wriggled out of her mother's grasp now, and made
+for the door, throwing a "back-hand" as she went, without losing a
+single jackstone. "I hate long lessons," she said. "When I graduate
+grammar school next year I'm going to work in Jordan-Marsh's big
+store, and get three dollars a week, and have lots of fun with the
+girls. I can't write pieces in the paper, anyhow.--Beckie! Beckie
+Hurvich! Where you going? Wait a minute, I'll go along." And she was
+off, leaving her ambitious parents to shake their heads over her
+flightiness.
+
+Mr. Rosenblum gave me my oil. If he had had postage stamps in stock,
+he would have given me all I needed, and felt proud to think that he
+was assisting in my important correspondences. And he was a poor man,
+and had a large family, and many customers who paid as irregularly as
+we. He ran the risk of ruin, of course, but he did not scold--not us,
+at any rate. For he _understood_. He was himself an immigrant Jew of
+the type that values education, and sets a great price on the higher
+development of the child. He would have done in my father's place just
+what my father was doing: borrow, beg, go without, run in
+debt--anything to secure for a promising child the fulfilment of the
+promise. That is what America was for. The land of opportunity it was,
+but opportunities must be used, must be grasped, held, squeezed dry.
+To keep a child of working age in school was to invest the meagre
+present for the sake of the opulent future. If there was but one
+child in a family of twelve who promised to achieve an intellectual
+career, the other eleven, and father, and mother, and neighbors must
+devote themselves to that one child's welfare, and feed and clothe and
+cheer it on, and be rewarded in the end by hearing its name mentioned
+with the names of the great.
+
+So the poor grocer helped to keep me in school for I do not know how
+many years. And this is one of the things that is done on Harrison
+Avenue, by the people who pitch rubbish through their windows. Let the
+City Fathers strike the balance.
+
+Of course this is wretched economics. If I had a son who wanted to go
+into the grocery business, I should take care that he was well
+grounded in the principles of sound bookkeeping and prudence. But I
+should not fail to tell him the story of the Harrison Avenue grocer,
+hoping that he would puzzle out the moral.
+
+Mr. Rosenblum himself would be astonished to hear that any one was
+drawing morals from his manner of conducting his little store, and yet
+it is from men like him that I learn the true values of things. The
+grocer weighed me out a quarter of a pound of butter, and when the
+scales were even he threw in another scrap. "_Na!_" he said, smiling
+across the counter, "you can carry that much around the corner!"
+Plainly he was showing me that if I have not as many houses as my
+neighbor, that should not prevent me from cultivating as many graces.
+If I made some shame-faced reference to the unpaid balance, Mr.
+Rosenblum replied, "I guess you're not thinking of running away from
+Boston yet. You haven't finished turning the libraries inside out,
+have you?" In this way he reminded me that there were things more
+important than conventional respectability. The world belongs to those
+who can use it to the best advantage, the grocer seemed to argue; and
+I found that I had the courage to test this philosophy.
+
+From my little room on Dover Street I reached out for the world, and
+the world came to me. Through books, through the conversation of noble
+men and women, through communion with the stars in the depth of night,
+I entered into every noble chamber of the palace of life. I employed
+no charm to win admittance. The doors opened to me because I had a
+right to be within. My patent of nobility was the longing for the
+abundance of life with which I was endowed at birth; and from the time
+I could toddle unaided I had been gathering into my hand everything
+that was fine in the world around me. Given health and standing-room,
+I should have worked out my salvation even on a desert island. Being
+set down in the garden of America, where opportunity waits on
+ambition, I was bound to make my days a triumphal march toward my
+goal. The most unfriendly witness of my life will not venture to deny
+that I have been successful. For aside from subordinate desires for
+greatness or wealth or specific achievement, my chief ambition in life
+has been _to live_, and I have lived. A glowing life has been mine,
+and the fires that blazed highest in all my days were kindled on Dover
+Street.
+
+I have never had a dull hour in my life; I have never had a livelier
+time than in the slums. In all my troubles I was thrilled through and
+through with a prophetic sense of how they were to end. A halo of
+romance floated before every to-morrow; the wings of future
+adventures rustled in the dead of night. Nothing could be quite common
+that touched my life, because I had a power for attracting uncommon
+things. And when my noblest dreams shall have been realized I shall
+meet with nothing finer, nothing more remote from the commonplace,
+than some of the things that came into my life on Dover Street.
+
+Friends came to me bearing noble gifts of service, inspiration, and
+love. There came one, to talk with whom was to double the volume of
+life. She left roses on my pillow when I lay ill, and in my heart she
+planted a longing for greatness that I have yet to satisfy. Another
+came whose soul was steeped in sunshine, whose eyes saw through every
+pretence, whose lips mocked nothing holy. And one came who carried the
+golden key that unlocked the last secret chamber of life for me.
+Friends came trooping from everywhere, and some were poor, and some
+were rich, but all were devoted and true; and they left no niche in my
+heart unfilled, and no want unsatisfied.
+
+To be alive in America, I found out long ago, is to ride on the
+central current of the river of modern life; and to have a conscious
+purpose is to hold the rudder that steers the ship of fate. I was
+alive to my finger tips, back there on Dover Street, and all my
+girlish purposes served one main purpose. It would have been amazing
+if I had stuck in the mire of the slum. By every law of my nature I
+was bound to soar above it, to attain the fairer places that wait for
+every emancipated immigrant.
+
+A characteristic thing about the aspiring immigrant is the fact that
+he is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect
+success in his eyes. He must take his family with him as he rises. So
+when I refused to be adopted by a rich old man, and clung to my
+family in the slums, I was only following the rule; and I can tell it
+without boasting, because it is no more to my credit than that I wake
+refreshed after a night's sleep.
+
+This suggests to me a summary of my virtues, through the exercise of
+which I may be said to have attracted my good fortune. I find that I
+have always given nature a chance, I have used my opportunities, and
+have practised self-expression. So much my enemies will grant me; more
+than this my friends cannot claim for me.
+
+In the Dover Street days I did not philosophize about my private
+character, nor about the immigrant and his ways. I lived the life, and
+the moral took care of itself. And after Dover Street came Applepie
+Alley, Letterbox Lane, and other evil corners of the slums of Boston,
+till it must have looked to our neighbors as if we meant to go on
+forever exploring the underworld. But we found a short-cut--we found a
+short-cut! And the route we took from the tenements of the stifling
+alleys to a darling cottage of our own, where the sun shines in at
+every window, and the green grass runs up to our very doorstep, was
+surveyed by the Pilgrim Fathers, who trans-scribed their field notes
+on a very fine parchment and called it the Constitution of the United
+States.
+
+It was good to get out of Dover Street--it was better for the growing
+children, better for my weary parents, better for all of us, as the
+clean grass is better than the dusty pavement. But I must never forget
+that I came away from Dover Street with my hands full of riches. I
+must not fail to testify that in America a child of the slums owns the
+land and all that is good in it. All the beautiful things I saw
+belonged to me, if I wanted to use them; all the beautiful things I
+desired approached me. I did not need to seek my kingdom. I had only
+to be worthy, and it came to me, even on Dover Street. Everything that
+was ever to happen to me in the future had its germ or impulse in the
+conditions of my life on Dover Street. My friendships, my advantages
+and disadvantages, my gifts, my habits, my ambitions--these were the
+materials out of which I built my after life, in the open workshop of
+America. My days in the slums were pregnant with possibilities; it
+only needed the ripeness of events to make them fruit forth in
+realities. Steadily as I worked to win America, America advanced to
+lie at my feet. I was an heir, on Dover Street, awaiting maturity. I
+was a princess waiting to be led to the throne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE HERITAGE
+
+
+One of the inherent disadvantages of premature biography is that it
+cannot go to the natural end of the story. This difficulty threatened
+me in the beginning, but now I find I do not need to tax my judgment
+to fix the proper stopping-place. Sudden qualms of reluctance warn me
+where the past and present meet. I have reached a point where my
+yesterdays lie in a quick heap, and I cannot bear to prod and turn
+them and set them up to be looked at. For that matter, I am not sure
+that I should add anything really new, even if I could force myself to
+cross the line of discretion. I have already shown what a real thing
+is this American freedom that we talk about, and in what manner a
+certain class of aliens make use of it. Anything that I might add of
+my later adventures would be a repetition, in substance, of what I
+have already described. Having traced the way an immigrant child may
+take from the ship through the public schools, passed on from hand to
+hand by the ready teachers; through free libraries and lecture halls,
+inspired by every occasion of civic consciousness; dragging through
+the slums the weight of private disadvantage, but heartened for the
+effort by public opportunity; welcomed at a hundred open doors of
+instruction, initiated with pomp and splendor and flags unfurled
+seeking, in American minds, the American way, and finding it in the
+thoughts of the noble,--striving against the odds of foreign birth and
+poverty, and winning, through the use of abundant opportunity, a
+place as enviable as that of any native child,--having traced the
+footsteps of the young immigrant almost to the college gate, the rest
+of the course may be left to the imagination. Let us say that from the
+Latin School on I lived very much as my American schoolmates lived,
+having overcome my foreign idiosyncrasies, and the rest of my outward
+adventures you may read in any volume of American feminine statistics.
+
+But lest I be reproached for a sudden affectation of reserve, after
+having trained my reader to expect the fullest particulars, I am
+willing to add a few details. I went to college, as I proposed, though
+not to Radcliffe. Receiving an invitation to live in New York that I
+did not like to refuse, I went to Barnard College instead. There I
+took all the honors that I deserved; and if I did not learn to write
+poetry, as I once supposed I should, I learned at least to think in
+English without an accent. Did I get rich? you may want to know,
+remembering my ambition to provide for the family. I can reply that I
+have earned enough to pay Mrs. Hutch the arrears, and satisfy all my
+wants. And where have I lived since I left the slums? My favorite
+abode is a tent in the wilderness, where I shall be happy to serve you
+a cup of tea out of a tin kettle, and answer further questions.
+
+And is this really to be the last word? Yes, though a long chapter of
+the romance of Dover Street is left untold. I could fill another book
+with anecdotes, telling how I took possession of Beacon Street, and
+learned to distinguish the lord of the manor from the butler in full
+dress. I might trace my steps from my bare room overlooking the
+lumber-yard to the satin drawing-rooms of the Back Bay, where I drank
+afternoon tea with gentle ladies whose hands were as delicate as
+their porcelain cups. My journal of those days is full of comments on
+the contrasts of life, that I copied from my busy thoughts in the
+evening, after a visit to my aristocratic friends. Coming straight
+from the cushioned refinement of Beacon Street, where the maid who
+brought my hostess her slippers spoke in softer accents than the
+finest people on Dover Street, I sometimes stumbled over poor Mr.
+Casey lying asleep in the corridor; and the shock of the contrast was
+like a searchlight turned suddenly on my life, and I pondered over the
+revelation, and wrote touching poems, in which I figured as a heroine
+of two worlds.
+
+I might quote from my journals and poems, and build up the picture of
+that double life. I might rehearse the names of the gracious friends
+who admitted me to their tables, although I came direct from the
+reeking slums. I might enumerate the priceless gifts they showered on
+me; gifts bought not with gold but with love. It would be a pleasant
+task to recall the high things that passed in the gilded drawing-rooms
+over the afternoon tea. It would add a splendor to my simple narrative
+to weave in the portraits of the distinguished men and women who
+busied themselves with the humble fortunes of a school-girl. And
+finally, it would relieve my heart of a burden of gratitude to
+publish, once for all, the amount of my indebtedness to the devoted
+friends who took me by the hand when I walked in the paths of
+obscurity, and led me, by a pleasanter lane than I could have found by
+myself, to the open fields where obstacles thinned and opportunities
+crowded to meet me. Outside America I should hardly be believed if I
+told how simply, in my experience, Dover Street merged into the Back
+Bay. These are matters to which I long to testify, but I must wait
+till they recede into the past.
+
+I can conjure up no better symbol of the genuine, practical equality
+of all our citizens than the Hale House Natural History Club, which
+played an important part in my final emancipation from the slums. For
+all I was regarded as a plaything by the serious members of the club,
+the attention and kindness they lavished on me had a deep
+significance. Every one of those earnest men and women unconsciously
+taught me my place in the Commonwealth, as the potential equal of the
+best of them. Few of my friends in the club, it is true, could have
+rightly defined their benevolence toward me. Perhaps some of them
+thought they befriended me for charity's sake, because I was a starved
+waif from the slums. Some of them imagined they enjoyed my society,
+because I had much to say for myself, and a gay manner of meeting
+life. But all these were only secondary motives. I myself, in my
+unclouded perception of the true relation of things that concerned me,
+could have told them all why they spent their friendship on me. They
+made way for me because I was their foster sister. They opened their
+homes to me that I might learn how good Americans lived. In the least
+of their attentions to me, they cherished the citizen in the making.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Natural History Club had spent the day at Nahant, studying marine
+life in the tide pools, scrambling up and down the cliffs with no
+thought for decorum, bent only on securing the starfish, limpets,
+sea-urchins, and other trophies of the chase. There had been a merry
+luncheon on the rocks, with talk and laughter between sandwiches, and
+strange jokes, intelligible only to the practising naturalist. The
+tide had rushed in at its proper time, stealing away our seaweed
+cushions, drowning our transparent pools, spouting in the crevices,
+booming and hissing, and tossing high the snowy foam.
+
+   [Illustration: THE TIDE HAD RUSHED IN, STEALING AWAY OUR SEAWEED
+   CUSHIONS]
+
+From the deck of the jolly excursion steamer which was carrying us
+home, we had watched the rosy sun dip down below the sea. The members
+of the club, grouped in twos and threes, discussed the day's
+successes, compared specimens, exchanged field notes, or watched the
+western horizon in sympathetic silence.
+
+It had been a great day for me. I had seen a dozen new forms of life,
+had caught a hundred fragments of the song of nature by the sea; and
+my mind was seething with meanings that crowded in. I do not remember
+to which of my learned friends I addressed my questions on this
+occasion, but he surely was one of the most learned. For he took up
+all my fragments of dawning knowledge in his discourse, and welded
+them into a solid structure of wisdom, with windows looking far down
+the past and a tower overlooking the future. I was so absorbed in my
+private review of creation that I hardly realized when we landed, or
+how we got into the electric cars, till we were a good way into the
+city.
+
+At the Public Library I parted from my friends, and stood on the broad
+stone steps, my jar of specimens in my hand, watching the car that
+carried them glide out of sight. My heart was full of a stirring
+wonder. I was hardly conscious of the place where I stood, or of the
+day, or the hour. I was in a dream, and the familiar world around me
+was transfigured. My hair was damp with sea spray; the roar of the
+tide was still in my ears. Mighty thoughts surged through my dreams,
+and I trembled with understanding.
+
+I sank down on the granite ledge beside the entrance to the Library,
+and for a mere moment I covered my eyes with my hand. In that moment I
+had a vision of myself, the human creature, emerging from the dim
+places where the torch of history has never been, creeping slowly into
+the light of civilized existence, pushing more steadily forward to the
+broad plateau of modern life, and leaping, at last, strong and glad,
+to the intellectual summit of the latest century.
+
+What an awful stretch of years to contemplate! What a weighty past to
+carry in memory! How shall I number the days of my life, except by the
+stars of the night, except by the salt drops of the sea?
+
+But hark to the clamor of the city all about! This is my latest home,
+and it invites me to a glad new life. The endless ages have indeed
+throbbed through my blood, but a new rhythm dances in my veins. My
+spirit is not tied to the monumental past, any more than my feet were
+bound to my grandfather's house below the hill. The past was only my
+cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am grown too big; just as
+the little house in Polotzk, once my home, has now become a toy of
+memory, as I move about at will in the wide spaces of this splendid
+palace, whose shadow covers acres. No! it is not I that belong to the
+past, but the past that belongs to me. America is the youngest of the
+nations, and inherits all that went before in history. And I am the
+youngest of America's children, and into my hands is given all her
+priceless heritage, to the last white star espied through the
+telescope, to the last great thought of the philosopher. Mine is the
+whole majestic past, and mine is the shining future.
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
+
+
+    _To my mother who bore me; to my father who endowed me; to my
+    brothers and sisters who believed in me; to my friends who loved
+    me; to my teachers who inspired me; to my neighbors who
+    befriended me; to my daughter who enlarged me; to my husband who
+    opened the door of the greater life for me;--to all these who
+    helped to make this book, I give my thanks._
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+KEY TO PRONUNCIATION
+
+
+     a as in man
+     ä as in far
+     e as in met
+  [=e] as in meet
+     ë as long e in German Leder
+     i as in pin
+  [=i] as in file
+     o as in not
+  [=o] as in note
+     ö as in German König
+     u as in circus
+  [=u] as in mute
+  [.u] as in pull
+    ai as in aisle
+    oi as in joint
+    ch as in German ach, Scotch loch
+  [h.] as in German ach, Scotch loch
+     l as in failure
+     ñ as in cañon
+    zh as z in seizure.
+
+  +----------------------------------------------------------------+
+  | Transcriber's Note:                                            |
+  |                                                                |
+  | The diacritical marks used in the pronunciations for the       |
+  | original text are not available in the standard text           |
+  | character set.                                                 |
+  |                                                                |
+  | The following substitutions have been made:                    |
+  |                                                                |
+  | The macron (long bar) used over e, i, o, and u are represented |
+  | as [=e], [=i], [=o] and [=u].                                  |
+  | The diacritical u with a dot above, is represented as [.u].    |
+  | The diacritical h with a dot below, is represented as [h.].    |
+  | The diacritical l with a circumflex (hat ^) above, is          |
+  | represented as [^l].                                           |
+  +----------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+_Explanations_
+
+The abbreviations _Germ._ (= German), _Hebr._ (= Hebrew), _Russ._
+(= Russian), and _Yid._ (= Yiddish) indicate the origin of a word.
+Most of the names marked _Yiddish_ are such in form only, the roots
+being for the most part Hebrew.
+
+Prop. n = proper name.
+
+The endings _ke_ and _le_ of Yiddish proper names (Mashke, Perele)
+have a diminutive or endearing value, like the German _chen_
+(Helenchen).
+
+Double names are given under the first name.
+
+The religious customs described prevail among the Orthodox Jews of
+European countries. In the United States they have been considerably
+modified, especially among the Reformed Jews.
+
+ =Ab= (äb) _Hebr._ The fifth month of the Hebrew calendar. The
+    ninth of Ab is a day of fasting and mourning, in commemoration
+    of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
+
+ =Adonai= (ä-do-nai´), _Hebr._ An appellation of God.
+
+ =Aleph= (ä'-lef), _Hebr._ The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
+
+ =Atonement, Day of= (Hebrew, _Yom Kippur_). The most solemn of the
+    Hebrew festivals, observed by fasting and an elaborate
+    ceremonial.
+
+
+ =Bahur= (bä´-hur), _Hebr._ A young unmarried man, particularly a
+    student of the Talmud. (See _Yeshibah bahur_.)
+
+ =Berl= (berl). _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Cabala= (käb-ä´-lä), _Hebr._ A system of Hebrew mystic philosophy
+    which flourished in the Middle Ages.
+
+ =Candle Prayer= (Yiddish, _licht bentschen_). Prayer pronounced
+    over lighted candles by the women and older girls of the
+    household at the commencement of the Sabbath.
+
+ =Canopy, wedding= (Hebrew _huppah_). A portable canopy under which
+    the marriage ceremony is performed, usually outdoors.
+
+ =Cossaks= (kos´-aks), _Russ._ A name given to certain Russian
+    tribes, formerly distinguished for their freebooting habits, now
+    best known for their position in the army.
+
+
+ =Dayyan= (dai´-an), _Hebr._ A judge to whom are submitted civil
+    disputes, as distinguished from purely religious questions,
+    which are decided by the Rav.
+
+ =Dinke= (din´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Dvina= (dv[=e]´-nä), _Russ._ Name of a river.
+
+ =Dvornik= (dvor´-nik), _Russ._ An outdoor man; a choreman.
+
+ =Dvoshe= (dvo´-she), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Earlocks= (Hebrew _peath_). Two locks of hair allowed to grow long
+    and hang in front of the ears. Among the fanatical Hasidim, a
+    mark of piety.
+
+ =Eidtkuhnen= (eit-koo´-ñen), _Germ._ Name of a Russo-German
+    frontier town.
+
+
+ =Fetchke= (fëtch´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Fringes, sacred= (Hebrew _zizit_). Specially prepared fringes
+    fastened to the four corners of the _arba kanfot_ (literally,
+    "four-corners"), a garment worn by all pious males underneath
+    the jacket or frock coat, usually with the fringes showing. The
+    latter play a part in the daily ritual.
+
+
+ =Goluth= (gol´-ut), _Hebr._ Banishment; exile.
+
+ =Good Jew= (Yiddish _guter id_). Among the Hasidim, a title
+    popularly accorded to more or less learned individuals
+    distinguished for their piety, and credited with supernatural
+    powers of healing, divination, etc. Pilgrimages to some renowned
+    "Good Jew" were often undertaken by the very pious, on occasions
+    of perplexity or trouble, for the purpose of obtaining his
+    advice or help.
+
+ =Groschen= (gro´-shen), _Germ._ A popular name for various coins of
+    small denomination, especially the half-kopeck.
+
+ =Gutke= (gut´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Hannah Hayye= ([h.]än´-a [h.]ai´-e), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hasid=, pl. =Hasidim= ([h.]äs´-id, [h.]as-id´-im), _Hebr._ A
+    numerous sect of Jews distinguished for their enthusiasm in
+    religious observance, a fanatical worship of their rabbis and
+    many superstitious practices.
+
+ =Haven Mirel= ([h.]a´-ve mirl), _Hebr._ and _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hayye Dvoshe= ([h.]ai´-e dvo´-she), _Hebr._ and _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hayyim= ([h.]ai´-im), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hazzan= ([h.]äz-an), _Hebr._ Cantor in a synagogue.
+
+ =Heder= ([h.]ë´-der), _Hebr._ Elementary Hebrew school, usually
+    held at the teacher's residence.
+
+ =Henne Rösel= (he´-ñe rözl), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hirshel= (hir´-shl), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hode= (ho´-de), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Horn, ram's= (Hebrew _shofar_). Ritual horn, used in the synagogue
+    during the great festivals.
+
+ =Hossen= ([h.]o´-ssn), _Hebr._ Bridegroom; prospective bridegroom;
+    betrothed.
+
+ =Humesh= ([h.][.u]´-mesh), _Hebr._ The Pentateuch.
+
+
+ =Icon= ([=i]´-kon) _Russ._ A representation of Christ or some
+    saint, usually in an elaborate frame, found in every orthodox
+    Russian house.
+
+ =Itke= (it´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Jew, Good.= See under =Good=.
+
+
+ =Kibart= (ki-bärt´), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+ =Kiddush= (kid´-ush), _Hebr._ Benediction pronounced over a cup of
+    wine before the Sabbath evening meal.
+
+ =Kimanye= (ki-mä´-ñe), _Russ._ Name of a village.
+
+ =Kimanyer= (ki-mä´-ñer), _Yid._ Belonging to or hailing from the
+    village of Kimanye.
+
+ =Knupf= (knupf), _Yid._ A sort of turban.
+
+ =Kopeck= (ko´-pek), _Russ._ A copper coin, the 1/100 part of a
+    ruble, worth about half a cent.
+
+ =Kopistch= (ko´-pistch), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+ =Kosher= (ko´-sher), _Hebr._ Clean, according to Jewish ritual law;
+    opposed to =tref=, unclean. Applied chiefly to articles of diet
+    and cooking and eating vessels.
+
+
+ =Lamden= (läm´-den), _Hebr._ Scholar; one versed in Hebrew
+    learning.
+
+ =Law, the= (specifically used). The Mosaic Law; the Torah.
+
+ =Lebe= (lë´-be), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Loaf, Sabbath.= See under Sabbath.
+
+ =Lozhe= (lo´-zhe), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Lubavitch= (l[.u]-bäv´-itch), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+
+ =Maryashe= (mär-yä´-she), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mashinke= (mä´-shin-ke), _Yid._ A diminutive of Mashke.
+
+ =Mashke= (mäsh´-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mendele= (men´-del-e), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mezuzah= (me-zu´-zä), _Hebr._ A piece of parchment inscribed with
+    a passage of Scripture, rolled in a case and tacked to the
+    doorpost. The pious touch or kiss this when leaving or entering
+    a house.
+
+ =Mikweh= (mik´-we), _Hebr._ Ritual bath, constructed and used
+    according to minute directions.
+
+ =Mirele= (mir´-e-le), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mishka= (mish´-kä), _Russ._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Moon, blessing of.= Benediction pronounced at the appearance of
+    the new moon.
+
+ =Moshe= (mo´-she), _Yid._ Prop, n., a form of Moses.
+
+ =Möshele= (mo´-she-le), _Yid._ Prop, n., diminutive of Moshe.
+
+ =Mulke= (m[.u][^l]´-ke), _Yid._ Prop, n., diminutive of Mulye.
+
+ =Mulye= (m[.u][^l]´-e), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Na!= (nä), _Yid._ Here you are! Take it!
+
+ =Nohem= (no´-[h.]em), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Nu, nu!= (n[.u], n[.u]), _Yid._ Well, well.
+
+
+ =Oi, weh!= (oi, vë), _Yid._ Woe is me!
+
+ =Oven, sealing of.= As no fire is kindled on the Sabbath, the
+    Sabbath dinner is cooked on Friday afternoon and left in the
+    brick oven overnight. The oven is tightly closed with a board or
+    sheet of metal, wet rags being stuffed into the interstices.
+
+
+ =Passover= (Hebrew, _pesech_). The feast of Unleavened Bread,
+    commemorating the escape of the Israelites from Egypt.
+
+ =Passport, foreign.= A special passport required of any Russian
+    subject wishing to go to a foreign country. To avoid the
+    necessity of procuring such a passport, travellers often cross
+    the border by stealth.
+
+ =Perele= (per´-e-le), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Phylacteries= (fi-lak´-ter-is; Hebrew _tefillin_). Two small
+    leathern boxes containing parchments inscribed with certain
+    passages of Scripture, worn during morning prayer, one on the
+    forehead and one on the left arm, where they are fastened by
+    means of straps, in a manner carefully prescribed. The wearing
+    of the _tefillin_ is obligatory on all males over thirteen years
+    of age (the age of confirmation).
+
+ =Pinchus= (pin´-chus), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Pogrom= (po-grom´), _Russ._ An organized massacre of Jews.
+
+ =Poll= (pol), _Yid._ A series of steps in the bathing-room, where
+    cupping, etc., is done under a high temperature.
+
+ =Polota= (Po-lo-tä´), _Russ._ Name of a river.
+
+ =Polotzk= (po´-lotzk), _Russ._, also spelled Polotsk. A town in the
+    government of Vitebsk, Russia, since early times a stronghold of
+    Jewish orthodoxy. _N.B._ Polotzk must not be confused with
+    Plotzk (also spelled Plock), the capital of the government of
+    Plotzk, in Russian Poland, about 400 miles southwest of Polotzk.
+
+ =Praying Shawl= (Hebrew, _tallit_). A fine white woollen shawl with
+    sacred fringes (_zizit_), in the four corners, worn by males
+    after marriage, during certain devotional exercises.
+
+ =Purim= (p[.u]´-rim), _Hebr._ A feast in commemoration of the
+    deliverance of the Persian Jews, through the intervention of
+    Esther, from the massacre planned by Haman. Masquerading,
+    feasting, exchange of presents, and general license make this
+    celebration the jolliest of the Jewish year.
+
+
+ =Questions, the Four.= At the Passover feast, the youngest son (or,
+    in the absence of a son of suitable age, a daughter) asks four
+    questions as to the significance of various symbolic articles
+    used in the ceremonial, in reply to which the family read the
+    story of Exodus.
+
+
+ =Rabbi= (rab´-[=i]), _Hebr._ A title accorded to men distinguished
+    for learning and authorized to teach the Law. As used in the
+    present work, _rabbi_ is identical with the official title of
+    _rav_, which see.
+
+ =Rabbonim= (räb-on´-im), _Hebr._ Plural of _rabbi_.
+
+ =Rav= (räv), _Hebr._ The spiritual head of a Jewish community,
+    whose duties include the settlement of ritualistic questions.
+
+ =Reb'= (reb), _Yid._ An abbreviation of _rebbe_, used as a title of
+    respect, equivalent to the old-fashioned English "master."
+
+ =Rebbe= (reb´-e), _Yid._ Colloquial form of _rabbi_. A Hebrew
+    teacher. Applied usually to teachers of lesser rank; also used
+    as a title for a "Good Jew"; as, the Rebbe of Kopistch.
+
+ =Rebbetzin= (reb´-e-tzin), _Yid._ Female Hebrew teacher.
+
+ =Riga= (ri´-gä), _Russ._ Name of a city.
+
+ =Ruble= (r[.u]´-bl), _Russ._ The monetary unit of Russia. A silver
+    coin (or, more commonly, a paper bill) worth a little over fifty
+    cents.
+
+
+ =Sabbath Loaf= (Hebrew, _hallah_). A wheaten loaf of peculiar shape
+    used in the Sabbath ceremonial.
+
+ =Sacred Fringes.= See under =Fringes=.
+
+ =Shadchan= (shäd´-chan), _Hebr._ Professional match-maker; marriage
+    broker.
+
+ =Shawl, Praying.= See under =Praying=.
+
+ =Shema= (shmä), _Hebr._ The verse recited as the Jewish confession
+    of faith ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One");
+    so called from the initial word. The "Shema" recurs constantly
+    in the daily ritual, and is informally repeated on every
+    occasion of distress, or as a charm to ward off evil
+    influences.
+
+ =Shohat= (sho´-[h.]at), _Hebr._ Slaughterer of cattle according to
+    ritual law.
+
+ =Succoth= (s[.u]´-kot), _Hebr._ The feast of Tabernacles,
+    celebrated with many symbolic rites, among these being the
+    eating of the festive meals outdoors, in a booth or bower of
+    lattice work covered with evergreens.
+
+
+ =Talakno= (täl-äk-no´), _Russ._ Meal made of ground oats, often
+    mixed with other grains or with weeds. An important article of
+    diet among the peasants, generally moistened with cold water and
+    eaten raw.
+
+ =Talmudists= (tal´-m[.u]d-ists; from Hebrew _talmud_). The
+    compilers of the Talmud (the body of Jewish traditional lore);
+    scholars versed in the teachings of the Talmud.
+
+ =Tav= (täv), _Hebr._ The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
+
+ =Torah= (t[=o]´-rä), _Hebr._ The Mosaic Law; the book or scroll of
+    the Law; sacred learning.
+
+ =Trefah= (trëf´-a), _Hebr._ Unclean, according to ritual law;
+    opposed to kosher, clean. Chiefly applied to articles of food
+    and eating and cooking vessels.
+
+
+ =Versbolovo= (vers-bo-lo´-vä), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+ =Verst= (vyerst), _Russ._ A measure of length, about two-thirds of
+    an English mile.
+
+ =Vilna= (vil´-nä), _Russ._ Name of a city.
+
+ =Vitebsk= (vi´-tebsk), _Russ._ Name of a city.
+
+ =Vodka= (vod´-kä), _Russ._ A kind of whiskey distilled from barley
+    or from potatoes, constantly indulged in by the lower classes in
+    Russia, especially by the peasants.
+
+
+ =Wedding Canopy.= See under =Canopy=.
+
+
+ =Yachne= (Yäch´-ne), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yakub= (yä-k[.u]b´), _Russ._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yankel= (yän´-kl), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yeshibah= (ye-shib´-ä), _Hebr._ Rabbinical school or seminary.
+
+ =Yeshibah Bachur=, a student in a _yeshibah_.
+
+ =Yiddish= (yid´-ish), _Yid._ Judeo-German, the language of the Jews
+    of Eastern Europe. The basis is an archaic form of German, on
+    which are grafted many words of Hebrew origin, and words from
+    the vernacular of the country.
+
+ =Yochem= (yo´-chem), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yuchovitch= (y[.u]-chov-itch´), _Russ._ Name of a village.
+
+
+ =Zaddik= (tzä´-dik), _Hebr._ A man of piety; a holy man.
+
+ =Zalmen= (zäl´-men), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Zimbler= (tzim´-bler), _Yid._ A performer on the _zimble_, an
+    instrument constructed like a wooden tray, with several wires
+    stretched across lengthwise, and played by means of two short
+    rods.
+
+
+The Riverside Press
+CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
+U.S.A.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page 168: Moshele replaced with Möshele                   |
+    | Page 334: namable replaced with nameable                  |
+    | Page 344: Whereever replaced with Wherever                |
+    | Page 368: expecially replaced with especially             |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promised Land, by Mary Antin
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of  The Promised Land, by Mary Antin.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promised Land, by Mary Antin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Promised Land
+
+Author: Mary Antin
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2007 [EBook #20885]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROMISED LAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<br />
+<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved.</p>
+<p class="noin">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text.<br />
+For a complete list, please see the <a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</p>
+<p class="noin">Click on the images to see a larger version.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h1>THE PROMISED LAND</h1>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a>
+<a href="images/frontis.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/frontis.jpg" width="45%" alt="Mashke and Fetchke" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">MASHKE AND FETCHKE<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h1>THE<br />
+PROMISED LAND</h1>
+<br />
+<h2>BY MARY ANTIN</h2>
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS<br />
+FROM PHOTOGRAPHS</h4>
+<br />
+<br />
+<div class="img">
+<img border="0" src="images/logo.png" alt="Publisher's Logo" />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h5>BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br />
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br />
+The Riverside Press Cambridge<br />
+1912</h5>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>COPYRIGHT, 1911 AND 1912, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY<br />
+COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br />
+<br />
+<i>Published April 1912</i></h5>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h3>To the Memory of<br />
+JOSEPHINE LAZARUS<br />
+Who lives in the fulfilment<br />
+of her prophecies</h3>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr" width="10%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc" width="70%"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb" width="20%">xi</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Within the Pale</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">1</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Children of the Law</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">29</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Both Their Houses</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">42</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Daily Bread</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">60</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">V.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">I Remember</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">79</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">The Tree of Knowledge</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">111</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">The Boundaries Stretch</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">137</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">The Exodus</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">163</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">The Promised Land</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">180</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">X.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Initiation</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">206</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XI.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">"My Country"</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">222</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XII.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Miracles</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">241</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">A Child's Paradise</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">252</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XIV.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Manna</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">264</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XV.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Tarnished Laurels</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">276</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XVI.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">Dover Street</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">286</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XVII.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">The Landlady</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">301</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XVIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">The Burning Bush</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">321</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XIX.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">A Kingdom in the Slums</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">337</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XX.</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">The Heritage</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">359</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS">Acknowledgments</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">365</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#GLOSSARY">Glossary</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">367</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toi" id="toi"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="List of Illustrations">
+  <tr>
+  <td width="80%" class="tdlsc"><a href="#frontis">Mashke and Fetchke</a></td>
+  <td width="20%" class="tdrb"><i>Frontispiece</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep024">The Grave-Digger of Polotzk</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">24</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep034">Heder (Hebrew School) for Boys in Polotzk</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">34</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep052">The Wood Market, Polotzk</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">52</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep070">My Father's Portrait</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">70</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep080">My Grandfather's House, where I was born</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">80</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep098">The Meat Market, Polotzk</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">98</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep124">Sabbath Loaves for Sale (Bread Market, Polotzk)</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">124</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep144">Winter Scene on the Dvina</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">144</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep184">Union Place (Boston) where my New Home waited for Me</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">184</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep230">Twoscore of my Fellow-Citizens&mdash;Public School, Chelsea</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">230</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep264">Wheeler Street, in the Lower South End of Boston</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">264</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep288">Harrison Avenue is the Heart of the South End Ghetto</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">288</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep298">I liked to stand and look down on the Dim Tangle of  Railroad Tracks below</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">298</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep328">The Natural History Club had Frequent Field Excursions</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">328</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep342">Bates Hall, where I spent my Longest Hours in the  Library</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">342</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep346">The Famous Study, that was fit to have been preserved as a  Shrine</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">346</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#imagep362">The Tide had rushed in, stealing away our Seaweed  Cushions</a></td>
+  <td class="tdrb">362</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>INTRODUCTION<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>I was born, I have lived, and I have been made over. Is it not time to
+write my life's story? I am just as much out of the way as if I were
+dead, for I am absolutely other than the person whose story I have to
+tell. Physical continuity with my earlier self is no disadvantage. I
+could speak in the third person and not feel that I was masquerading.
+I can analyze my subject, I can reveal everything; for <i>she</i>, and not
+<i>I</i>, is my real heroine. My life I have still to live; her life ended
+when mine began.</p>
+
+<p>A generation is sometimes a more satisfactory unit for the study of
+humanity than a lifetime; and spiritual generations are as easy to
+demark as physical ones. Now I am the spiritual offspring of the
+marriage within my conscious experience of the Past and the Present.
+My second birth was no less a birth because there was no distinct
+incarnation. Surely it has happened before that one body served more
+than one spiritual organization. Nor am I disowning my father and
+mother of the flesh, for they were also partners in the generation of
+my second self; copartners with my entire line of ancestors. They gave
+me body, so that I have eyes like my father's and hair like my
+mother's. The spirit also they gave me, so that I reason like my
+father and endure like my mother. But did they set me down in a
+sheltered garden, where the sun should warm me, and no winter should
+hurt, while they fed me from their hands? No; they early let me run in
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>fields&mdash;perhaps because I would not be held&mdash;and eat of the wild
+fruits and drink of the dew. Did they teach me from books, and tell me
+what to believe? I soon chose my own books, and built me a world of my
+own.</p>
+
+<p>In these discriminations <i>I</i> emerged, a new being, something that had
+not been before. And when I discovered my own friends, and ran home
+with them to convert my parents to a belief in their excellence, did I
+not begin to make my father and mother, as truly as they had ever made
+me? Did I not become the parent and they the children, in those
+relations of teacher and learner? And so I can say that there has been
+more than one birth of myself, and I can regard my earlier self as a
+separate being, and make it a subject of study.</p>
+
+<p>A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so
+much work to do that he has no time to contemplate his yesterdays; for
+to-day and to-morrow are here, with their impatient tasks. The world
+is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man's unfinished
+work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs
+masterpieces. Still there are circumstances by which a man is
+justified in pausing in the middle of his life to contemplate the
+years already passed. One who has completed early in life a distinct
+task may stop to give an account of it. One who has encountered
+unusual adventures under vanishing conditions may pause to describe
+them before passing into the stable world. And perhaps he also might
+be given an early hearing, who, without having ventured out of the
+familiar paths, without having achieved any signal triumph, has lived
+his simple life so intensely, so thoughtfully, as to have discovered
+in his own experience an interpretation of the universal life.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span>I am not yet thirty, counting in years, and I am writing my life
+history. Under which of the above categories do I find my
+justification? I have not accomplished anything, I have not discovered
+anything, not even by accident, as Columbus discovered America. My
+life has been unusual, but by no means unique. And this is the very
+core of the matter. It is because I understand my history, in its
+larger outlines, to be typical of many, that I consider it worth
+recording. My life is a concrete illustration of a multitude of
+statistical facts. Although I have written a genuine personal memoir,
+I believe that its chief interest lies in the fact that it is
+illustrative of scores of unwritten lives. I am only one of many whose
+fate it has been to live a page of modern history. We are the strands
+of the cable that binds the Old World to the New. As the ships that
+brought us link the shores of Europe and America, so our lives span
+the bitter sea of racial differences and misunderstandings. Before we
+came, the New World knew not the Old; but since we have begun to come,
+the Young World has taken the Old by the hand, and the two are
+learning to march side by side, seeking a common destiny.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I have taken needless trouble to furnish an excuse for my
+autobiography. My age alone, my true age, would be reason enough for
+my writing. I began life in the Middle Ages, as I shall prove, and
+here am I still, your contemporary in the twentieth century, thrilling
+with your latest thought.</p>
+
+<p>Had I no better excuse for writing, I still might be driven to it by
+my private needs. It is in one sense a matter of my personal
+salvation. I was at a most impressionable age when I was transplanted
+to the new soil. I was in that period when even normal children,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span>undisturbed in their customary environment, begin to explore their own
+hearts, and endeavor to account for themselves and their world. And my
+zest for self-exploration seems not to have been distracted by the
+necessity of exploring a new outer universe. I embarked on a double
+voyage of discovery, and an exciting life it was! I took note of
+everything. I could no more keep my mind from the shifting, changing
+landscape than an infant can keep his eyes from the shining candle
+moved across his field of vision. Thus everything impressed itself on
+my memory, and with double associations; for I was constantly
+referring my new world to the old for comparison, and the old to the
+new for elucidation. I became a student and philosopher by force of
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Had I been brought to America a few years earlier, I might have
+written that in such and such a year my father emigrated, just as I
+would state what he did for a living, as a matter of family history.
+Happening when it did, the emigration became of the most vital
+importance to me personally. All the processes of uprooting,
+transportation, replanting, acclimatization, and development took
+place in my own soul. I felt the pang, the fear, the wonder, and the
+joy of it. I can never forget, for I bear the scars. But I want to
+forget&mdash;sometimes I long to forget. I think I have thoroughly
+assimilated my past&mdash;I have done its bidding&mdash;I want now to be of
+to-day. It is painful to be consciously of two worlds. The Wandering
+Jew in me seeks forgetfulness. I am not afraid to live on and on, if
+only I do not have to remember too much. A long past vividly
+remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you
+would run. And I have thought of a charm that should release <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span>me from
+the folds of my clinging past. I take the hint from the Ancient
+Mariner, who told his tale in order to be rid of it. I, too, will tell
+my tale, for once, and never hark back any more. I will write a bold
+"Finis" at the end, and shut the book with a bang!</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span><br />
+
+<h1>THE PROMISED LAND</h1>
+<br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>WITHIN THE PALE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>When I was a little girl, the world was divided into two parts;
+namely, Polotzk, the place where I lived, and a strange land called
+Russia. All the little girls I knew lived in Polotzk, with their
+fathers and mothers and friends. Russia was the place where one's
+father went on business. It was so far off, and so many bad things
+happened there, that one's mother and grandmother and grown-up aunts
+cried at the railroad station, and one was expected to be sad and
+quiet for the rest of the day, when the father departed for Russia.</p>
+
+<p>After a while there came to my knowledge the existence of another
+division, a region intermediate between Polotzk and Russia. It seemed
+there was a place called Vitebsk, and one called Vilna, and Riga, and
+some others. From those places came photographs of uncles and cousins
+one had never seen, and letters, and sometimes the uncles themselves.
+These uncles were just like people in Polotzk; the people in Russia,
+one understood, were very different. In answer to one's questions, the
+visiting uncles said all sorts of silly things, to make everybody
+laugh; and so one never found out why Vitebsk and Vilna, since they
+were not Polotzk, were not as sad as Russia. Mother hardly cried at
+all when the uncles went away.</p>
+
+<p>One time, when I was about eight years old, one of my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>grown-up
+cousins went to Vitebsk. Everybody went to see her off, but I didn't.
+I went with her. I was put on the train, with my best dress tied up in
+a bandana, and I stayed on the train for hours and hours, and came to
+Vitebsk. I could not tell, as we rushed along, where the end of
+Polotzk was. There were a great many places on the way, with strange
+names, but it was very plain when we got to Vitebsk.</p>
+
+<p>The railroad station was a big place, much bigger than the one in
+Polotzk. Several trains came in at once, instead of only one. There
+was an immense buffet, with fruits and confections, and a place where
+books were sold. My cousin never let go my hand, on account of the
+crowd. Then we rode in a cab for ever so long, and I saw the most
+beautiful streets and shops and houses, much bigger and finer than any
+in Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p>We remained in Vitebsk several days, and I saw many wonderful things,
+but what gave me my one great surprise was something that wasn't new
+at all. It was the river&mdash;the river Dvina. Now the Dvina is in
+Polotzk. All my life I had seen the Dvina. How, then, could the Dvina
+be in Vitebsk? My cousin and I had come on the train, but everybody
+knew that a train could go everywhere, even to Russia. It became clear
+to me that the Dvina went on and on, like a railroad track, whereas I
+had always supposed that it stopped where Polotzk stopped. I had never
+seen the end of Polotzk; I meant to, when I was bigger. But how could
+there be an end to Polotzk now? Polotzk was everything on both sides
+of the Dvina, as all my life I had known; and the Dvina, it now turned
+out, never broke off at all. It was very curious that the Dvina should
+remain the same, while Polotzk changed into Vitebsk!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>The mystery of this transmutation led to much fruitful thinking. The
+boundary between Polotzk and the rest of the world was not, as I had
+supposed, a physical barrier, like the fence which divided our garden
+from the street. The world went like this now: Polotzk&mdash;more
+Polotzk&mdash;more Polotzk&mdash;Vitebsk! And Vitebsk was not so different, only
+bigger and brighter and more crowded. And Vitebsk was not the end. The
+Dvina, and the railroad, went on beyond Vitebsk,&mdash;went on to Russia.
+Then was Russia more Polotzk? Was here also no dividing fence? How I
+wanted to see Russia! But very few people went there. When people went
+to Russia it was a sign of trouble; either they could not make a
+living at home, or they were drafted for the army, or they had a
+lawsuit. No, nobody went to Russia for pleasure. Why, in Russia lived
+the Czar, and a great many cruel people; and in Russia were the
+dreadful prisons from which people never came back.</p>
+
+<p>Polotzk and Vitebsk were now bound together by the continuity of the
+earth, but between them and Russia a formidable barrier still
+interposed. I learned, as I grew older, that much as Polotzk disliked
+to go to Russia, even more did Russia object to letting Polotzk come.
+People from Polotzk were sometimes turned back before they had
+finished their business, and often they were cruelly treated on the
+way. It seemed there were certain places in Russia&mdash;St. Petersburg,
+and Moscow, and Kiev&mdash;where my father or my uncle or my neighbor must
+never come at all, no matter what important things invited them. The
+police would seize them and send them back to Polotzk, like wicked
+criminals, although they had never done any wrong.</p>
+
+<p>It was strange enough that my relatives should be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>treated like this,
+but at least there was this excuse for sending them back to Polotzk,
+that they belonged there. For what reason were people driven out of
+St. Petersburg and Moscow who had their homes in those cities, and had
+no other place to go to? Ever so many people, men and women and even
+children, came to Polotzk, where they had no friends, with stories of
+cruel treatment in Russia; and although they were nobody's relatives,
+they were taken in, and helped, and set up in business, like
+unfortunates after a fire.</p>
+
+<p>It was very strange that the Czar and the police should want all
+Russia for themselves. It was a very big country; it took many days
+for a letter to reach one's father in Russia. Why might not everybody
+be there who wanted to?</p>
+
+<p>I do not know when I became old enough to understand. The truth was
+borne in on me a dozen times a day, from the time I began to
+distinguish words from empty noises. My grandmother told me about it,
+when she put me to bed at night. My parents told me about it, when
+they gave me presents on holidays. My playmates told me, when they
+drew me back into a corner of the gateway, to let a policeman pass.
+Vanka, the little white-haired boy, told me all about it, when he ran
+out of his mother's laundry on purpose to throw mud after me when I
+happened to pass. I heard about it during prayers, and when women
+quarrelled in the market place; and sometimes, waking in the night, I
+heard my parents whisper it in the dark. There was no time in my life
+when I did not hear and see and feel the truth&mdash;the reason why Polotzk
+was cut off from the rest of Russia. It was the first lesson a little
+girl in Polotzk had to learn. But for a long while I did not
+understand. Then there came a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>time when I knew that Polotzk and
+Vitebsk and Vilna and some other places were grouped together as the
+"Pale of Settlement," and within this area the Czar commanded me to
+stay, with my father and mother and friends, and all other people like
+us. We must not be found outside the Pale, because we were Jews.</p>
+
+<p>So there was a fence around Polotzk, after all. The world was divided
+into Jews and Gentiles. This knowledge came so gradually that it could
+not shock me. It trickled into my consciousness drop by drop. By the
+time I fully understood that I was a prisoner, the shackles had grown
+familiar to my flesh.</p>
+
+<p>The first time Vanka threw mud at me, I ran home and complained to my
+mother, who brushed off my dress and said, quite resignedly, "How can
+I help you, my poor child? Vanka is a Gentile. The Gentiles do as they
+like with us Jews." The next time Vanka abused me, I did not cry, but
+ran for shelter, saying to myself, "Vanka is a Gentile." The third
+time, when Vanka spat on me, I wiped my face and thought nothing at
+all. I accepted ill-usage from the Gentiles as one accepts the
+weather. The world was made in a certain way, and I had to live in it.</p>
+
+<p>Not quite all the Gentiles were like Vanka. Next door to us lived a
+Gentile family which was very friendly. There was a girl as big as I,
+who never called me names, and gave me flowers from her father's
+garden. And there were the Parphens, of whom my grandfather rented his
+store. They treated us as if we were not Jews at all. On our festival
+days they visited our house and brought us presents, carefully
+choosing such things as Jewish children might accept; and they liked
+to have everything explained to them, about the wine and the fruit and
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>candles, and they even tried to say the appropriate greetings and
+blessings in Hebrew. My father used to say that if all the Russians
+were like the Parphens, there would be no trouble between Gentiles and
+Jews; and Fedora Pavlovna, the landlady, would reply that the Russian
+<i>people</i> were not to blame. It was the priests, she said, who taught
+the people to hate the Jews. Of course she knew best, as she was a
+very pious Christian. She never passed a church without crossing
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>The Gentiles were always crossing themselves; when they went into a
+church, and when they came out, when they met a priest, or passed an
+image in the street. The dirty beggars on the church steps never
+stopped crossing themselves; and even when they stood on the corner of
+a Jewish street, and received alms from Jewish people, they crossed
+themselves and mumbled Christian prayers. In every Gentile house there
+was what they called an "icon," which was an image or picture of the
+Christian god, hung up in a corner, with a light always burning before
+it. In front of the icon the Gentiles said their prayers, on their
+knees, crossing themselves all the time.</p>
+
+<p>I tried not to look in the corner where the icon was, when I came into
+a Gentile house. I was afraid of the cross. Everybody was, in
+Polotzk&mdash;all the Jews, I mean. For it was the cross that made the
+priests, and the priests made our troubles, as even some Christians
+admitted. The Gentiles said that we had killed their God, which was
+absurd, as they never had a God&mdash;nothing but images. Besides, what
+they accused us of had happened so long ago; the Gentiles themselves
+said it was long ago. Everybody had been dead for ages who could have
+had anything to do with it. Yet they put up crosses everywhere, and
+wore them on their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>necks, on purpose to remind themselves of these
+false things; and they considered it pious to hate and abuse us,
+insisting that we had killed their God. To worship the cross and to
+torment a Jew was the same thing to them. That is why we feared the
+cross.</p>
+
+<p>Another thing the Gentiles said about us was that we used the blood of
+murdered Christian children at the Passover festival. Of course that
+was a wicked lie. It made me sick to think of such a thing. I knew
+everything that was done for Passover, from the time I was a very
+little girl. The house was made clean and shining and holy, even in
+the corners where nobody ever looked. Vessels and dishes that were
+used all the year round were put away in the garret, and special
+vessels were brought out for the Passover week. I used to help unpack
+the new dishes, and find my own blue mug. When the fresh curtains were
+put up, and the white floors were uncovered, and everybody in the
+house put on new clothes, and I sat down to the feast in my new dress,
+I felt clean inside and out. And when I asked the Four Questions,
+about the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs and the other things,
+and the family, reading from their books, answered me, did I not know
+all about Passover, and what was on the table, and why? It was wicked
+of the Gentiles to tell lies about us. The youngest child in the house
+knew how Passover was kept.</p>
+
+<p>The Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from the land
+of Egypt, and felt so glad and thankful, as if it had only just
+happened, was the time our Gentile neighbors chose to remind us that
+Russia was another Egypt. That is what I heard people say, and it was
+true. It was not so bad in Polotzk, within the Pale; but in Russian
+cities, and even more in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>country districts, where Jewish families
+lived scattered, by special permission of the police, who were always
+changing their minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the
+Passover a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that
+lie about murdering Christian children, and the stupid peasants would
+get mad about it, and fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill
+the Jews. They attacked them with knives and clubs and scythes and
+axes, killed them or tortured them, and burned their houses. This was
+called a "pogrom." Jews who escaped the pogroms came to Polotzk with
+wounds on them, and horrible, horrible stories, of little babies torn
+limb from limb before their mothers' eyes. Only to hear these things
+made one sob and sob and choke with pain. People who saw such things
+never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived; and sometimes
+their hair turned white in a day, and some people became insane on the
+spot.</p>
+
+<p>Often we heard that the pogrom was led by a priest carrying a cross
+before the mob. Our enemies always held up the cross as the excuse of
+their cruelty to us. I never was in an actual pogrom, but there were
+times when it threatened us, even in Polotzk; and in all my fearful
+imaginings, as I hid in dark corners, thinking of the horrible things
+the Gentiles were going to do to me, I saw the cross, the cruel cross.</p>
+
+<p>I remember a time when I thought a pogrom had broken out in our
+street, and I wonder that I did not die of fear. It was some Christian
+holiday, and we had been warned by the police to keep indoors. Gates
+were locked; shutters were barred. If a child cried, the nurse
+threatened to give it to the priest, who would soon be passing by.
+Fearful and yet curious, we looked through <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>the cracks in the
+shutters. We saw a procession of peasants and townspeople, led by a
+number of priests, carrying crosses and banners and images. In the
+place of honor was carried a casket, containing a relic from the
+monastery in the outskirts of Polotzk. Once a year the Gentiles
+paraded with this relic, and on that occasion the streets were
+considered too holy for Jews to be about; and we lived in fear till
+the end of the day, knowing that the least disturbance might start a
+riot, and a riot lead to a pogrom.</p>
+
+<p>On the day when I saw the procession through a crack in the shutter,
+there were soldiers and police in the street. This was as usual, but I
+did not know it. I asked the nurse, who was pressing to the crack over
+my head, what the soldiers were for. Thoughtlessly she answered me,
+"In case of a pogrom." Yes, there were the crosses and the priests and
+the mob. The church bells were pealing their loudest. Everything was
+ready. The Gentiles were going to tear me in pieces, with axes and
+knives and ropes. They were going to burn me alive. The cross&mdash;the
+cross! What would they do to me first?</p>
+
+<p>There was one thing the Gentiles might do to me worse than burning or
+rending. It was what was done to unprotected Jewish children who fell
+into the hands of priests or nuns. They might baptize me. That would
+be worse than death by torture. Rather would I drown in the Dvina than
+a drop of the baptismal water should touch my forehead. To be forced
+to kneel before the hideous images, to kiss the cross,&mdash;sooner would I
+rush out to the mob that was passing, and let them tear my vitals out.
+To forswear the One God, to bow before idols,&mdash;rather would I be
+seized with the plague, and be eaten up by vermin. I was only a little
+girl, and not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>very brave; little pains made me ill, and I cried. But
+there was no pain that I would not bear&mdash;no, none&mdash;rather than submit
+to baptism.</p>
+
+<p>Every Jewish child had that feeling. There were stories by the dozen
+of Jewish boys who were kidnapped by the Czar's agents and brought up
+in Gentile families, till they were old enough to enter the army,
+where they served till forty years of age; and all those years the
+priests tried, by bribes and daily tortures, to force them to accept
+baptism, but in vain. This was in the time of Nicholas I, but men who
+had been through this service were no older than my grandfather, when
+I was a little girl; and they told their experiences with their own
+lips, and one knew it was true, and it broke one's heart with pain and
+pride.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these soldiers of Nicholas, as they were called, were taken as
+little boys of seven or eight&mdash;snatched from their mothers' laps. They
+were carried to distant villages, where their friends could never
+trace them, and turned over to some dirty, brutal peasant, who used
+them like slaves and kept them with the pigs. No two were ever left
+together; and they were given false names, so that they were entirely
+cut off from their own world. And then the lonely child was turned
+over to the priests, and he was flogged and starved and terrified&mdash;a
+little helpless boy who cried for his mother; but still he refused to
+be baptized. The priests promised him good things to eat, and fine
+clothes, and freedom from labor; but the boy turned away, and said his
+prayers secretly&mdash;the Hebrew prayers.</p>
+
+<p>As he grew older, severer tortures were invented for him; still he
+refused baptism. By this time he had forgotten his mother's face, and
+of his prayers perhaps only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>the "Shema" remained in his memory; but
+he was a Jew, and nothing would make him change. After he entered the
+army, he was bribed with promises of promotions and honors. He
+remained a private, and endured the cruellest discipline. When he was
+discharged, at the age of forty, he was a broken man, without a home,
+without a clue to his origin, and he spent the rest of his life
+wandering among Jewish settlements, searching for his family; hiding
+the scars of torture under his rags, begging his way from door to
+door. If he were one who had broken down under the cruel torments, and
+allowed himself to be baptized, for the sake of a respite, the Church
+never let him go again, no matter how loudly he protested that he was
+still a Jew. If he was caught practicing Jewish rites, he was
+subjected to the severest punishment.</p>
+
+<p>My father knew of one who was taken as a small boy, who never yielded
+to the priests under the most hideous tortures. As he was a very
+bright boy, the priests were particularly eager to convert him. They
+tried him with bribes that would appeal to his ambition. They promised
+to make a great man of him&mdash;a general, a noble. The boy turned away
+and said his prayers. Then they tortured him, and threw him into a
+cell; and when he lay asleep from exhaustion, the priest came and
+baptized him. When he awoke, they told him he was a Christian, and
+brought him the crucifix to kiss. He protested, threw the crucifix
+from him, but they held him to it that he was a baptized Jew, and
+belonged to the Church; and the rest of his life he spent between the
+prison and the hospital, always clinging to his faith, saying the
+Hebrew prayers in defiance of his tormentors, and paying for it with
+his flesh.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>There were men in Polotzk whose faces made you old in a minute. They
+had served Nicholas I, and come back unbaptized. The white church in
+the square&mdash;how did it look to them? I knew. I cursed the church in my
+heart every time I had to pass it; and I was afraid&mdash;afraid.</p>
+
+<p>On market days, when the peasants came to church, and the bells kept
+ringing by the hour, my heart was heavy in me, and I could find no
+rest. Even in my father's house I did not feel safe. The church bell
+boomed over the roofs of the houses, calling, calling, calling. I
+closed my eyes, and saw the people passing into the church: peasant
+women with bright embroidered aprons and glass beads; barefoot little
+girls with colored kerchiefs on their heads; boys with caps pulled too
+far down over their flaxen hair; rough men with plaited bast sandals,
+and a rope around the waist,&mdash;crowds of them, moving slowly up the
+steps, crossing themselves again and again, till they were swallowed
+by the black doorway, and only the beggars were left squatting on the
+steps. <i>Boom, boom!</i> What are the people doing in the dark, with the
+waxen images and the horrid crucifixes? <i>Boom, boom, boom!</i> They are
+ringing the bell for me. Is it in the church they will torture me,
+when I refuse to kiss the cross?</p>
+
+<p>They ought not to have told me those dreadful stories. They were long
+past; we were living under the blessed "New R&eacute;gime." Alexander III was
+no friend of the Jews; still he did not order little boys to be taken
+from their mothers, to be made into soldiers and Christians. Every man
+had to serve in the army for four years, and a Jewish recruit was
+likely to be treated with severity, no matter if his behavior were
+perfect; but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>that was little compared to the dreadful conditions of
+the old r&eacute;gime.</p>
+
+<p>The thing that really mattered was the necessity of breaking the
+Jewish laws of daily life while in the service. A soldier often had to
+eat trefah and work on Sabbath. He had to shave his beard and do
+reverence to Christian things. He could not attend daily services at
+the synagogue; his private devotions were disturbed by the jeers and
+insults of his coarse Gentile comrades. He might resort to all sorts
+of tricks and shams, still he was obliged to violate Jewish law. When
+he returned home, at the end of his term of service, he could not rid
+himself of the stigma of those enforced sins. For four years he had
+led the life of a Gentile.</p>
+
+<p>Piety alone was enough to make the Jews dread military service, but
+there were other things that made it a serious burden. Most men of
+twenty-one&mdash;the age of conscription&mdash;were already married and had
+children. During their absence their families suffered, their business
+often was ruined. At the end of their term they were beggars. As
+beggars, too, they were sent home from their military post. If they
+happened to have a good uniform at the time of their dismissal, it was
+stripped from them, and replaced by a shabby one. They received a free
+ticket for the return journey, and a few kopecks a day for expenses.
+In this fashion they were hurried back into the Pale, like escaped
+prisoners. The Czar was done with them. If within a limited time they
+were found outside the Pale, they would be seized and sent home in
+chains.</p>
+
+<p>There were certain exceptions to the rule of compulsory service. The
+only son of a family was exempt, and certain others. In the physical
+examination <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>preceding conscription, many were rejected on account of
+various faults. This gave the people the idea of inflicting injuries
+on themselves, so as to produce temporary deformities on account of
+which they might be rejected at the examination. Men would submit to
+operations on their eyes, ears, or limbs, which caused them horrible
+sufferings, in the hope of escaping the service. If the operation was
+successful, the patient was rejected by the examining officers, and in
+a short time he was well, and a free man. Often, however, the
+deformity intended to be temporary proved incurable, so that there
+were many men in Polotzk blind of one eye, or hard of hearing, or
+lame, as a result of these secret practices; but these things were
+easier to bear than the memory of four years in the Czar's service.</p>
+
+<p>Sons of rich fathers could escape service without leaving any marks on
+their persons. It was always possible to bribe conscription officers.
+This was a dangerous practice,&mdash;it was not the officers who suffered
+most in case the negotiations leaked out,&mdash;but no respectable family
+would let a son be taken as a recruit till it had made every effort to
+save him. My grandfather nearly ruined himself to buy his sons out of
+service; and my mother tells thrilling anecdotes of her younger
+brother's life, who for years lived in hiding, under assumed names and
+in various disguises, till he had passed the age of liability for
+service.</p>
+
+<p>If it were cowardice that made the Jews shrink from military service
+they would not inflict on themselves physical tortures greater than
+any that threatened them in the army, and which often left them maimed
+for life. If it were avarice&mdash;the fear of losing the gains from their
+business for four years&mdash;they would not empty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>their pockets and sell
+their houses and sink into debt, on the chance of successfully bribing
+the Czar's agents. The Jewish recruit dreaded, indeed, brutality and
+injustice at the hands of officers and comrades; he feared for his
+family, which he left, often enough, as dependents on the charity of
+relatives; but the fear of an unholy life was greater than all other
+fears. I know, for I remember my cousin who was taken as a soldier.
+Everything had been done to save him. Money had been spent freely&mdash;my
+uncle did not stop at his unmarried daughter's portion, when
+everything else was gone. My cousin had also submitted to some secret
+treatment,&mdash;some devastating drug administered for months before the
+examination,&mdash;but the effects were not pronounced enough, and he was
+passed. For the first few weeks his company was stationed in Polotzk.
+I saw my cousin drill on the square, carrying a gun, <i>on a Sabbath</i>. I
+felt unholy, as if I had sinned the sin in my own person. It was easy
+to understand why mothers of conscript sons fasted and wept and prayed
+and worried themselves to their graves.</p>
+
+<p>There was a man in our town called David the Substitute, because he
+had gone as a soldier in another's stead, he himself being exempt. He
+did it for a sum of money. I suppose his family was starving, and he
+saw a chance to provide for them for a few years. But it was a sinful
+thing to do, to go as a soldier and be obliged to live like a Gentile,
+of his own free will. And David knew how wicked it was, for he was a
+pious man at heart. When he returned from service, he was aged and
+broken, bowed down with the sense of his sins. And he set himself a
+penance, which was to go through the streets every Sabbath morning,
+calling the people to prayer. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>Now this was a hard thing to do,
+because David labored bitterly all the week, exposed to the weather,
+summer or winter; and on Sabbath morning there was nobody so tired and
+lame and sore as David. Yet he forced himself to leave his bed before
+it was yet daylight, and go from street to street, all over Polotzk,
+calling on the people to wake and go to prayer. Many a Sabbath morning
+I awoke when David called, and lay listening to his voice as it passed
+and died out; and it was so sad that it hurt, as beautiful music
+hurts. I was glad to feel my sister lying beside me, for it was lonely
+in the gray dawn, with only David and me awake, and God waiting for
+the people's prayers.</p>
+
+<p>The Gentiles used to wonder at us because we cared so much about
+religious things,&mdash;about food, and Sabbath, and teaching the children
+Hebrew. They were angry with us for our obstinacy, as they called it,
+and mocked us and ridiculed the most sacred things. There were wise
+Gentiles who understood. These were educated people, like Fedora
+Pavlovna, who made friends with their Jewish neighbors. They were
+always respectful, and openly admired some of our ways. But most of
+the Gentiles were ignorant and distrustful and spiteful. They would
+not believe that there was any good in our religion, and of course we
+dared not teach them, because we should be accused of trying to
+convert them, and that would be the end of us.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, if they could only understand! Vanka caught me on the street one
+day, and pulled my hair, and called me names; and all of a sudden I
+asked myself <i>why</i>&mdash;<i>why?</i>&mdash;a thing I had stopped asking years before.
+I was so angry that I could have punished him; for one moment I was
+not afraid to hit back. But this <i>why</i>&mdash;<i>why?</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>broke out in my heart,
+and I forgot to revenge myself. It was so wonderful&mdash;Well, there were
+no words in my head to say it, but it meant that Vanka abused me only
+because <i>he did not understand</i>. If he could feel with my heart, if he
+could be a little Jewish boy for one day, I thought, he would know&mdash;he
+would know. If he could understand about David the Substitute, now,
+without being told, as I understood. If he could wake in my place on
+Sabbath morning, and feel his heart break in him with a strange pain,
+because a Jew had dishonored the law of Moses, and God was bending
+down to pardon him. Oh, why could I not make Vanka understand? I was
+so sorry that my heart hurt me, worse than Vanka's blows. My anger and
+my courage were gone. Vanka was throwing stones at me now from his
+mother's doorway, and I continued on my errand, but I did not hurry.
+The thing that hurt me most I could not run away from.</p>
+
+<p>There was one thing the Gentiles always understood, and that was
+money. They would take any kind of bribe at any time. Peace cost so
+much a year in Polotzk. If you did not keep on good terms with your
+Gentile neighbors, they had a hundred ways of molesting you. If you
+chased their pigs when they came rooting up your garden, or objected
+to their children maltreating your children, they might complain
+against you to the police, stuffing their case with false accusations
+and false witnesses. If you had not made friends with the police, the
+case might go to court; and there you lost before the trial was
+called, unless the judge had reason to befriend you. The cheapest way
+to live in Polotzk was to pay as you went along. Even a little girl
+understood that, in Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps your parents were in business,&mdash;usually <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>they were, as almost
+everybody kept store,&mdash;and you heard a great deal about the chief of
+police, and excise officers, and other agents of the Czar. Between the
+Czar whom you had never seen, and the policeman whom you knew too
+well, you pictured to yourself a long row of officials of all sorts,
+all with their palms stretched out to receive your father's money. You
+knew your father hated them all, but you saw him smile and bend as he
+filled those greedy palms. You did the same, in your petty way, when
+you saw Vanka coming toward you on a lonely street, and you held out
+to him the core of the apple you had been chewing, and forced your
+unwilling lips into a smile. It hurt, that false smile; it made you
+feel black inside.</p>
+
+<p>In your father's parlor hung a large colored portrait of Alexander
+III. The Czar was a cruel tyrant,&mdash;oh, it was whispered when doors
+were locked and shutters tightly barred, at night,&mdash;he was a Titus, a
+Haman, a sworn foe of all Jews,&mdash;and yet his portrait was seen in a
+place of honor in your father's house. You knew why. It looked well
+when police or government officers came on business.</p>
+
+<p>You went out to play one morning, and saw a little knot of people
+gathered around a lamp-post. There was a notice on it&mdash;a new order
+from the chief of police. You pushed into the crowd, and stared at the
+placard, but you could not read. A woman with a ragged shawl looked
+down upon you, and said, with a bitter kind of smile, "Rejoice,
+rejoice, little girl! The chief of police bids you rejoice. There
+shall be a pretty flag flying from every housetop to-day, because it
+is the Czar's birthday, and we must celebrate. Come and watch the poor
+people pawn their samovars and candlesticks, to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>raise money for a
+pretty flag. It is a holiday, little girl. Rejoice!"</p>
+
+<p>You know the woman is mocking,&mdash;you are familiar with the quality of
+that smile,&mdash;but you accept the hint and go and watch the people buy
+their flags. Your cousin keeps a dry-goods store, where you have a
+fine view of the proceedings. There is a crowd around the counter, and
+your cousin and the assistant are busily measuring off lengths of
+cloth, red, and blue, and white.</p>
+
+<p>"How much does it take?" somebody asks. "May I know no more of sin
+than I know of flags," another replies. "How is it put together?" "Do
+you have to have all three colors?" One customer puts down a few
+kopecks on the counter, saying, "Give me a piece of flag. This is all
+the money I have. Give me the red and the blue; I'll tear up my shirt
+for the white."</p>
+
+<p>You know it is no joke. The flag must show from every house, or the
+owner will be dragged to the police station, to pay a fine of
+twenty-five rubles. What happened to the old woman who lives in that
+tumble-down shanty over the way? It was that other time when flags
+were ordered up, because the Grand Duke was to visit Polotzk. The old
+woman had no flag, and no money. She hoped the policeman would not
+notice her miserable hut. But he did, the vigilant one, and he went up
+and kicked the door open with his great boot, and he took the last
+pillow from the bed, and sold it, and hoisted a flag above the rotten
+roof. I knew the old woman well, with her one watery eye and her
+crumpled hands. I often took a plate of soup to her from our kitchen.
+There was nothing but rags left on her bed, when the policeman had
+taken the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>The Czar always got his dues, no matter if it ruined a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>family. There
+was a poor locksmith who owed the Czar three hundred rubles, because
+his brother had escaped from Russia before serving his term in the
+army. There was no such fine for Gentiles, only for Jews; and the
+whole family was liable. Now, the locksmith never could have so much
+money, and he had no valuables to pawn. The police came and attached
+his household goods, everything he had, including his young bride's
+trousseau; and the sale of the goods brought thirty-five rubles. After
+a year's time the police came again, looking for the balance of the
+Czar's dues. They put their seal on everything they found. The bride
+was in bed with her first baby, a boy. The circumcision was to be next
+day. The police did not leave a sheet to wrap the child in when he is
+handed up for the operation.</p>
+
+<p>Many bitter sayings came to your ears if you were a Jewish little girl
+in Polotzk. "It is a false world," you heard, and you knew it was so,
+looking at the Czar's portrait, and at the flags. "Never tell a police
+officer the truth," was another saying, and you knew it was good
+advice. That fine of three hundred rubles was a sentence of lifelong
+slavery for the poor locksmith, unless he freed himself by some trick.
+As fast as he could collect a few rags and sticks, the police would be
+after them. He might hide under a false name, if he could get away
+from Polotzk on a false passport; or he might bribe the proper
+officials to issue a false certificate of the missing brother's death.
+Only by false means could he secure peace for himself and his family,
+as long as the Czar was after his dues.</p>
+
+<p>It was bewildering to hear how many kinds of duties and taxes we owed
+the Czar. We paid taxes on our houses, and taxes on the rents from the
+houses, taxes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>on our business, taxes on our profits. I am not sure
+whether there were taxes on our losses. The town collected taxes, and
+the county, and the central government; and the chief of police we had
+always with us. There were taxes for public works, but rotten
+pavements went on rotting year after year; and when a bridge was to be
+built, special taxes were levied. A bridge, by the way, was not always
+a public highway. A railroad bridge across the Dvina, while open to
+the military, could be used by the people only by individual
+permission.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle explained to me all about the excise duties on tobacco.
+Tobacco being a source of government revenue, there was a heavy tax on
+it. Cigarettes were taxed at every step of their process. The tobacco
+was taxed separately, and the paper, and the mouthpiece, and on the
+finished product an additional tax was put. There was no tax on the
+smoke. The Czar must have overlooked it.</p>
+
+<p>Business really did not pay when the price of goods was so swollen by
+taxes that the people could not buy. The only way to make business pay
+was to cheat&mdash;cheat the Government of part of the duties. But playing
+tricks on the Czar was dangerous, with so many spies watching his
+interests. People who sold cigarettes without the government seal got
+more gray hairs than bank notes out of their business. The constant
+risk, the worry, the dread of a police raid in the night, and the
+ruinous fines, in case of detection, left very little margin of profit
+or comfort to the dealer in contraband goods. "But what can one do?"
+the people said, with the shrug of the shoulders that expresses the
+helplessness of the Pale. "What can one do? One must live."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>It was not easy to live, with such bitter competition as the
+congestion of population made inevitable. There were ten times as many
+stores as there should have been, ten times as many tailors, cobblers,
+barbers, tinsmiths. A Gentile, if he failed in Polotzk, could go
+elsewhere, where there was less competition. A Jew could make the
+circle of the Pale, only to find the same conditions as at home.
+Outside the Pale he could only go to certain designated localities, on
+payment of prohibitive fees, augmented by a constant stream of bribes;
+and even then he lived at the mercy of the local chief of police.</p>
+
+<p>Artisans had the right to reside outside the Pale, on fulfilment of
+certain conditions. This sounded easy to me, when I was a little girl,
+till I realized how it worked. There was a capmaker who had duly
+qualified, by passing an examination and paying for his trade papers,
+to live in a certain city. The chief of police suddenly took it into
+his head to impeach the genuineness of his papers. The capmaker was
+obliged to travel to St. Petersburg, where he had qualified in the
+first place, to repeat the examination. He spent the savings of years
+in petty bribes, trying to hasten the process, but was detained ten
+months by bureaucratic red tape. When at length he returned to his
+home town, he found a new chief of police, installed during his
+absence, who discovered a new flaw in the papers he had just obtained,
+and expelled him from the city. If he came to Polotzk, there were then
+eleven capmakers where only one could make a living.</p>
+
+<p>Merchants fared like the artisans. They, too, could buy the right of
+residence outside the Pale, permanent or temporary, on conditions that
+gave them no real security. I was proud to have an uncle who was a
+merchant of the First Guild, but it was very expensive for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>my uncle.
+He had to pay so much a year for the title, and a certain percentage
+on the profits from his business. This gave him the right to travel on
+business outside the Pale, twice a year, for not more than six months
+in all. If he were found outside the Pale after his permit expired, he
+had to pay a fine that exceeded all he had gained by his journey,
+perhaps. I used to picture my uncle on his Russian travels, hurrying,
+hurrying to finish his business in the limited time; while a policeman
+marched behind him, ticking off the days and counting up the hours.
+That was a foolish fancy, but some of the things that were done in
+Russia really were very funny.</p>
+
+<p>There were things in Polotzk that made you laugh with one eye and weep
+with the other, like a clown. During an epidemic of cholera, the city
+officials, suddenly becoming energetic, opened stations for the
+distribution of disinfectants to the people. A quarter of the
+population was dead when they began, and most of the dead were buried,
+while some lay decaying in deserted houses. The survivors, some of
+them crazy from horror, stole through the empty streets, avoiding one
+another, till they came to the appointed stations, where they pushed
+and crowded to get their little bottles of carbolic acid. Many died
+from fear in those horrible days, but some must have died from
+laughter. For only the Gentiles were allowed to receive the
+disinfectant. Poor Jews who had nothing but their new-made graves were
+driven away from the stations.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was wrong of us to think of our Gentile neighbors as a
+different species of beings from ourselves, but such madness as that
+did not help to make them more human in our eyes. It was easier to be
+friends with the beasts in the barn than with some of the Gentiles.
+The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>cow and the goat and the cat responded to kindness, and
+remembered which of the housemaids was generous and which was cross.
+The Gentiles made no distinctions. A Jew was a Jew, to be hated and
+spat upon and used spitefully.</p>
+
+<p>The only Gentiles, besides the few of the intelligent kind, who did
+not habitually look upon us with hate and contempt, were the stupid
+peasants from the country, who were hardly human themselves. They
+lived in filthy huts together with their swine, and all they cared for
+was how to get something to eat. It was not their fault. The land laws
+made them so poor that they had to sell themselves to fill their
+bellies. What help was there for us in the good will of such wretched
+slaves? For a cask of vodka you could buy up a whole village of them.
+They trembled before the meanest townsman, and at a sign from a
+long-haired priest they would sharpen their axes against us.</p>
+
+<p>The Gentiles had their excuse for their malice. They said our
+merchants and money-lenders preyed upon them, and our shopkeepers gave
+false measure. People who want to defend the Jews ought never to deny
+this. Yes, I say, we cheated the Gentiles whenever we dared, because
+it was the only thing to do. Remember how the Czar was always sending
+us commands,&mdash;you shall not do this and you shall not do that, until
+there was little left that we might honestly do, except pay tribute
+and die. There he had us cooped up, thousands of us where only
+hundreds could live, and every means of living taxed to the utmost.
+When there are too many wolves in the prairie, they begin to prey upon
+each other. We starving captives of the Pale&mdash;we did as do the hungry
+brutes. But our humanity showed in our discrimination <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>between our
+victims. Whenever we could, we spared our own kind, directing against
+our racial foes the cunning wiles which our bitter need invented. Is
+not that the code of war? Encamped in the midst of the enemy, we could
+practice no other. A Jew could hardly exist in business unless he
+developed a dual conscience, which allowed him to do to the Gentile
+what he would call a sin against a fellow Jew. Such spiritual
+deformities are self-explained in the step-children of the Czar. A
+glance over the statutes of the Pale leaves you wondering that the
+Russian Jews have not lost all semblance to humanity.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep024" id="imagep024"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep024.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep024.jpg" width="53%" alt="The Grave Digger of Polotzk" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">THE GRAVE DIGGER OF POLOTZK<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A favorite complaint against us was that we were greedy for gold. Why
+could not the Gentiles see the whole truth where they saw half? Greedy
+for profits we were, eager for bargains, for savings, intent on
+squeezing the utmost out of every business transaction. But why? Did
+not the Gentiles know the reason? Did they not know what price we had
+to pay for the air we breathed? If a Jew and a Gentile kept store side
+by side, the Gentile could content himself with smaller profits. He
+did not have to buy permission to travel in the interests of his
+business. He did not have to pay three hundred rubles fine if his son
+evaded military service. He was saved the expense of hushing inciters
+of pogroms. Police favor was retailed at a lower price to him than to
+the Jew. His nature did not compel him to support schools and
+charities. It cost nothing to be a Christian; on the contrary, it
+brought rewards and immunities. To be a Jew was a costly luxury, the
+price of which was either money or blood. Is it any wonder that we
+hoarded our pennies? What his shield is to the soldier in battle, that
+was the ruble to the Jew in the Pale.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>The knowledge of such things as I am telling leaves marks upon the
+flesh and spirit. I remember little children in Polotzk with old, old
+faces and eyes glazed with secrets. I knew how to dodge and cringe and
+dissemble before I knew the names of the seasons. And I had plenty of
+time to ponder on these things, because I was so idle. If they had let
+me go to school, now&mdash;But of course they didn't.</p>
+
+<p>There was no free school for girls, and even if your parents were rich
+enough to send you to a private school, you could not go very far. At
+the high school, which was under government control, Jewish children
+were admitted in limited numbers,&mdash;only ten to every hundred,&mdash;and
+even if you were among the lucky ones, you had your troubles. The
+tutor who prepared you talked all the time about the examinations you
+would have to pass, till you were scared. You heard on all sides that
+the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining
+officers did not like the turn of their noses. You went up to be
+examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that
+matter of your nose. There was a special examination for the Jewish
+candidates, of course; a nine-year-old Jewish child had to answer
+questions that a thirteen-year-old Gentile was hardly expected to
+understand. But that did not matter so much. You had been prepared for
+the thirteen-year-old test; you found the questions quite easy. You
+wrote your answers triumphantly&mdash;and you received a low rating, and
+there was no appeal.</p>
+
+<p>I used to stand in the doorway of my father's store, munching an apple
+that did not taste good any more, and watch the pupils going home from
+school in twos and threes; the girls in neat brown dresses and black
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>aprons and little stiff hats, the boys in trim uniforms with many
+buttons. They had ever so many books in the satchels on their backs.
+They would take them out at home, and read and write, and learn all
+sorts of interesting things. They looked to me like beings from
+another world than mine. But those whom I envied had their own
+troubles, as I often heard. Their school life was one struggle against
+injustice from instructors, spiteful treatment from fellow students,
+and insults from everybody. Those who, by heroic efforts and
+transcendent good luck, successfully finished the course, found
+themselves against a new wall, if they wished to go on. They were
+turned down at the universities, which admitted them in the ratio of
+three Jews to a hundred Gentiles, under the same debarring entrance
+conditions as at the high school,&mdash;especially rigorous examinations,
+dishonest marking, or arbitrary rulings without disguise. No, the Czar
+did not want us in the schools.</p>
+
+<p>I heard from my mother of a different state of affairs, at the time
+when her brothers were little boys. The Czar of those days had a
+bright idea. He said to his ministers: "Let us educate the people. Let
+us win over those Jews through the public schools, instead of allowing
+them to persist in their narrow Hebrew learning, which teaches them no
+love for their monarch. Force has failed with them; the unwilling
+converts return to their old ways whenever they dare. Let us try
+education."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps peaceable conversion of the Jews was not the Czar's only
+motive when he opened public schools everywhere and compelled parents
+to send their boys for instruction. Perhaps he just wanted to be good,
+and really hoped to benefit the country. But to the Jews the public
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>schools appeared as a trap door to the abyss of apostasy. The
+instructors were always Christians, the teaching was Christian, and
+the regulations of the schoolroom, as to hours, costume, and manners,
+were often in opposition to Jewish practices. The public school
+interrupted the boy's sacred studies in the Hebrew school. Where would
+you look for pious Jews, after a few generations of boys brought up by
+Christian teachers? Plainly the Czar was after the souls of the Jewish
+children. The church door gaped for them at the end of the school
+course. And all good Jews rose up against the schools, and by every
+means, fair or foul, kept their boys away. The official appointed to
+keep the register of boys for school purposes waxed rich on the bribes
+paid him by anxious parents who kept their sons in hiding.</p>
+
+<p>After a while the wise Czar changed his mind, or he died,&mdash;probably he
+did both,&mdash;and the schools were closed, and the Jewish boys perused
+their Hebrew books in peace, wearing the sacred fringes<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> in plain
+sight, and never polluting their mouths with a word of Russian.</p>
+
+<p>And then it was the Jews who changed their minds&mdash;some of them. They
+wanted to send their children to school, to learn histories and
+sciences, because they had discovered that there was good in such
+things as well as in the Sacred Law. These people were called
+progressive, but they had no chance to progress. All the czars that
+came along persisted in the old idea, that for the Jew no door should
+be opened,&mdash;no door out of the Pale, no door out of their medi&aelig;valism.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+<br />
+
+<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A four-cornered cloth with specially prepared fringes is
+worn by pious males under the outer garments, but with, the fringes
+showing. The latter play a part in the daily ritual.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>CHILDREN OF THE LAW</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>As I look back to-day I see, within the wall raised around my
+birthplace by the vigilance of the police, another wall, higher,
+thicker, more impenetrable. This is the wall which the Czar with all
+his minions could not shake, the priests with their instruments of
+torture could not pierce, the mob with their firebrands could not
+destroy. This wall within the wall is the religious integrity of the
+Jews, a fortress erected by the prisoners of the Pale, in defiance of
+their jailers; a stronghold built of the ruins of their pillaged
+homes, cemented with the blood of their murdered children.</p>
+
+<p>Harassed on every side, thwarted in every normal effort, pent up
+within narrow limits, all but dehumanized, the Russian Jew fell back
+upon the only thing that never failed him,&mdash;his hereditary faith in
+God. In the study of the Torah he found the balm for all his wounds;
+the minute observance of traditional rites became the expression of
+his spiritual cravings; and in the dream of a restoration to Palestine
+he forgot the world.</p>
+
+<p>What did it matter to us, on a Sabbath or festival, when our life was
+centred in the synagogue, what czar sat on the throne, what evil
+counsellors whispered in his ear? They were concerned with revenues
+and policies and ephemeral trifles of all sorts, while we were intent
+on renewing our ancient covenant with God, to the end that His promise
+to the world should be fulfilled, and His justice overwhelm the
+nations.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>On a Friday afternoon the stores and markets closed early. The clatter
+of business ceased, the dust of worry was laid, and the Sabbath peace
+flooded the quiet streets. No hovel so mean but what its casement sent
+out its consecrated ray, so that a wayfarer passing in the twilight
+saw the spirit of God brooding over the lowly roof.</p>
+
+<p>Care and fear and shrewishness dropped like a mask from every face.
+Eyes dimmed with weeping kindled with inmost joy. Wherever a head bent
+over a sacred page, there rested the halo of God's presence.</p>
+
+<p>Not on festivals alone, but also on the common days of the week, we
+lived by the Law that had been given us through our teacher Moses. How
+to eat, how to bathe, how to work&mdash;everything had been written down
+for us, and we strove to fulfil the Law. The study of the Torah was
+the most honored of all occupations, and they who engaged in it the
+most revered of all men.</p>
+
+<p>My memory does not go back to a time when I was too young to know that
+God had made the world, and had appointed teachers to tell the people
+how to live in it. First came Moses, and after him the great rabbis,
+and finally the Rav of Polotzk, who read all day in the sacred books,
+so that he could tell me and my parents and my friends what to do
+whenever we were in doubt. If my mother cut up a chicken and found
+something wrong in it,&mdash;some hurt or mark that should not be,&mdash;she
+sent the housemaid with it to the rav, and I ran along, and saw the
+rav look in his big books; and whatever he decided was right. If he
+called the chicken "trefah" I must not eat of it; no, not if I had to
+starve. And the rav knew about everything: about going on a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>journey,
+about business, about marrying, about purifying vessels for Passover.</p>
+
+<p>Another great teacher was the dayyan, who heard people's quarrels and
+settled them according to the Law, so that they should not have to go
+to the Gentile courts. The Gentiles were false, judges and witnesses
+and all. They favored the rich man against the poor, the Christian
+against the Jew. The dayyan always gave true judgments. Nohem
+Rabinovitch, the richest man in Polotzk, could not win a case against
+a servant maid, unless he were in the right.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the rav and the dayyan there were other men whose callings
+were holy,&mdash;the shohat, who knew how cattle and fowls should be
+killed; the hazzan and the other officers of the synagogue; the
+teachers of Hebrew, and their pupils. It did not matter how poor a man
+was, he was to be respected and set above other men, if he were
+learned in the Law.</p>
+
+<p>In the synagogue scores of men sat all day long over the Hebrew books,
+studying and disputing from early dawn till candles were brought in at
+night, and then as long as the candles lasted. They could not take
+time for anything else, if they meant to become great scholars. Most
+of them were strangers in Polotzk, and had no home except the
+synagogue. They slept on benches, on tables, on the floor; they picked
+up their meals wherever they could. They had come from distant cities,
+so as to be under good teachers in Polotzk; and the townspeople were
+proud to support them by giving them food and clothing and sometimes
+money to visit their homes on holidays. But the poor students came in
+such numbers that there were not enough rich families to provide for
+all, so that some of them suffered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>privation. You could pick out a
+poor student in a crowd, by his pale face and shrunken form.</p>
+
+<p>There was almost always a poor student taking meals at our house. He
+was assigned a certain day, and on that day my grandmother took care
+to have something especially good for dinner. It was a very shabby
+guest who sat down with us at table, but we children watched him with
+respectful eyes. Grandmother had told us that he was a lamden
+(scholar), and we saw something holy in the way he ate his cabbage.</p>
+
+<p>Not every man could hope to be a rav, but no Jewish boy was allowed to
+grow up without at least a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew. The
+scantiest income had to be divided so as to provide for the boys'
+tuition. To leave a boy without a teacher was a disgrace upon the
+whole family, to the remotest relative. For the children of the
+destitute there was a free school, supported by the charity of the
+pious. And so every boy was sent to heder (Hebrew school) almost as
+soon as he could speak; and usually he continued to study until his
+confirmation, at thirteen years of age, or as much longer as his
+talent and ambition carried him. My brother was five years old when he
+entered on his studies. He was carried to the heder, on the first day,
+covered over with a praying-shawl, so that nothing unholy should look
+on him; and he was presented with a bun, on which were traced, in
+honey, these words: "The Torah left by Moses is the heritage of the
+children of Jacob."</p>
+
+<p>After a boy entered heder, he was the hero of the family. He was
+served before the other children at table, and nothing was too good
+for him. If the family were very poor, all the girls might go
+barefoot, but the heder boy must have shoes; he must have a plate of
+hot soup, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>though the others ate dry bread. When the rebbe (teacher)
+came on Sabbath afternoon, to examine the boy in the hearing of the
+family, everybody sat around the table and nodded with satisfaction,
+if he read his portion well; and he was given a great saucerful of
+preserves, and was praised, and blessed, and made much of. No wonder
+he said, in his morning prayer, "I thank Thee, Lord, for not having
+created me a female." It was not much to be a girl, you see. Girls
+could not be scholars and rabbonim.</p>
+
+<p>I went to my brother's heder, sometimes, to bring him his dinner, and
+saw how the boys studied. They sat on benches around the table, with
+their hats on, of course, and the sacred fringes hanging beneath their
+jackets. The rebbe sat at an end of the table, rehearsing two or three
+of the boys who were studying the same part, pointing out the words
+with his wooden pointer, so as not to lose the place. Everybody read
+aloud, the smallest boys repeating the alphabet in a sing-song, while
+the advanced boys read their portions in a different sing-song; and
+everybody raised his voice to its loudest so as to drown the other
+voices. The good boys never took their eyes off their page, except to
+ask the rebbe a question; but the naughty boys stared around the room,
+and kicked each other under the table, till the rebbe caught them at
+it. He had a ruler for striking the bad boys on the knuckles, and in a
+corner of the room leaned a long birch wand for pupils who would not
+learn their lessons.</p>
+
+<p>The boys came to heder before nine in the morning, and remained until
+eight or nine in the evening. Stupid pupils, who could not remember
+the lesson, sometimes had to stay till ten. There was an hour for
+dinner and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>play at noon. Good little boys played quietly in their
+places, but most of the boys ran out of the house and jumped and
+yelled and quarrelled.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing in what the boys did in heder that I could not have
+done&mdash;if I had not been a girl. For a girl it was enough if she could
+read her prayers in Hebrew, and follow the meaning by the Yiddish
+translation at the bottom of the page. It did not take long to learn
+this much,&mdash;a couple of terms with a rebbetzin (female teacher),&mdash;and
+after that she was done with books.</p>
+
+<p>A girl's real schoolroom was her mother's kitchen. There she learned
+to bake and cook and manage, to knit, sew, and embroider; also to spin
+and weave, in country places. And while her hands were busy, her
+mother instructed her in the laws regulating a pious Jewish household
+and in the conduct proper for a Jewish wife; for, of course, every
+girl hoped to be a wife. A girl was born for no other purpose.</p>
+
+<p>How soon it came, the pious burden of wifehood! One day the girl is
+playing forfeits with her laughing friends, the next day she is missed
+from the circle. She has been summoned to a conference with the
+shadchan (marriage broker), who has been for months past advertising
+her housewifely talents, her piety, her good looks, and her marriage
+portion, among families with marriageable sons. Her parents are
+pleased with the son-in-law proposed by the shadchan, and now, at the
+last, the girl is brought in, to be examined and appraised by the
+prospective parents-in-law. If the negotiations go off smoothly, the
+marriage contract is written, presents are exchanged between the
+engaged couple, through their respective parents, and all that is left
+the girl of her maidenhood is a period of busy preparation for the
+wedding.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep034" id="imagep034"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep034.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep034.jpg" width="95%" alt="Heder (Hebrew School) for Boys in Polotzk" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">HEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL) FOR BOYS IN POLOTZK<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>If the girl is well-to-do, it is a happy interval, spent in visits to
+the drapers and tailors, in collecting linens and featherbeds and
+vessels of copper and brass. The former playmates come to inspect the
+trousseau, enviously fingering the silks and velvets of the
+bride-elect. The happy heroine tries on frocks and mantles before her
+glass, blushing at references to the wedding day; and to the question,
+"How do you like the bridegroom?" she replies, "How should I know?
+There was such a crowd at the betrothal that I didn't see him."</p>
+
+<p>Marriage was a sacrament with us Jews in the Pale. To rear a family of
+children was to serve God. Every Jewish man and woman had a part in
+the fulfilment of the ancient promise given to Jacob that his seed
+should be abundantly scattered over the earth. Parenthood, therefore,
+was the great career. But while men, in addition to begetting, might
+busy themselves with the study of the Law, woman's only work was
+motherhood. To be left an old maid became, accordingly, the greatest
+misfortune that could threaten a girl; and to ward off that calamity
+the girl and her family, to the most distant relatives, would strain
+every nerve, whether by contributing to her dowry, or hiding her
+defects from the marriage broker, or praying and fasting that God
+might send her a husband.</p>
+
+<p>Not only must all the children of a family be mated, but they must
+marry in the order of their ages. A younger daughter must on no
+account marry before an elder. A houseful of daughters might be held
+up because the eldest failed to find favor in the eyes of prospective
+mothers-in-law; not one of the others could marry till the eldest was
+disposed of.</p>
+
+<p>A cousin of mine was guilty of the disloyalty of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>wishing to marry
+before her elder sister, who was unfortunate enough to be rejected by
+one mother-in-law after another. My uncle feared that the younger
+daughter, who was of a firm and masterful nature, might carry out her
+plans, thereby disgracing her unhappy sister. Accordingly he hastened
+to conclude an alliance with a family far beneath him, and the girl
+was hastily married to a boy of whom little was known beyond the fact
+that he was inclined to consumption.</p>
+
+<p>The consumptive tendency was no such horror, in an age when
+superstition was more in vogue than science. For one patient that went
+to a physician in Polotzk, there were ten who called in unlicensed
+practitioners and miracle workers. If my mother had an obstinate
+toothache that honored household remedies failed to relieve, she went
+to Dvoshe, the pious woman, who cured by means of a flint and steel,
+and a secret prayer pronounced as the sparks flew up. During an
+epidemic of scarlet fever, we protected ourselves by wearing a piece
+of red woolen tape around the neck. Pepper and salt tied in a corner
+of the pocket was effective in warding off the evil eye. There were
+lucky signs, lucky dreams, spirits, and hobgoblins, a grisly
+collection, gathered by our wandering ancestors from the demonologies
+of Asia and Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Antiquated as our popular follies was the organization of our small
+society. It was a caste system with social levels sharply marked off,
+and families united by clannish ties. The rich looked down on the
+poor, the merchants looked down on the artisans, and within the ranks
+of the artisans higher and lower grades were distinguished. A
+shoemaker's daughter could not hope to marry the son of a shopkeeper,
+unless she brought an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>extra large dowry; and she had to make up her
+mind to be snubbed by the sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law all her
+life.</p>
+
+<p>One qualification only could raise a man above his social level, and
+that was scholarship. A boy born in the gutter need not despair of
+entering the houses of the rich, if he had a good mind and a great
+appetite for sacred learning. A poor scholar would be preferred in the
+marriage market to a rich ignoramus. In the phrase of our
+grandmothers, a boy stuffed with learning was worth more than a girl
+stuffed with bank notes.</p>
+
+<p>Simple piety unsupported by learning had a parallel value in the eyes
+of good families. This was especially true among the Hasidim, the sect
+of enthusiasts who set religious exaltation above rabbinical lore.
+Ecstasy in prayer and fantastic merriment on days of religious
+rejoicing, raised a Hasid to a hero among his kind. My father's
+grandfather, who knew of Hebrew only enough to teach beginners, was
+famous through a good part of the Pale for his holy life. Israel
+Kimanyer he was called, from the village of Kimanye where he lived;
+and people were proud to establish even the most distant relationship
+with him. Israel was poor to the verge of beggary, but he prayed more
+than other people, never failed in the slightest observance enjoined
+on Jews, shared his last crust with every chance beggar, and sat up
+nights to commune with God. His family connections included country
+peddlers, starving artisans, and ne'er-do-wells; but Israel was a
+zaddik&mdash;a man of piety&mdash;and the fame of his good life redeemed the
+whole wretched clan. When his grandson, my father, came to marry, he
+boasted his direct descent from Israel Kimanyer, and picked his bride
+from the best families.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>The little house may still be standing which the pious Jews of Kimanye
+and the neighboring villages built for my great-grandfather, close on
+a century ago. He was too poor to build his own house, so the good
+people who loved him, and who were almost as poor as he, collected a
+few rubles among themselves, and bought a site, and built the house.
+Built, let it be known, with their own hands; for they were too poor
+to hire workmen. They carried the beams and boards on their shoulders,
+singing and dancing on the way, as they sang and danced at the
+presentation of a scroll to the synagogue. They hauled and sawed and
+hammered, till the last nail was driven home; and when they conducted
+the holy man to his new abode, the rejoicing was greater than at the
+crowning of a czar.</p>
+
+<p>That little cabin was fit to be preserved as the monument to a
+species of idealism that has rarely been known outside the Pale. What
+was the ultimate source of the pious enthusiasm that built my
+great-grandfather's house? What was the substance behind the show of
+the Judaism of the Pale? Stripped of its grotesque mask of forms,
+rites, and medi&aelig;val superstitions, the religion of these fanatics was
+simply the belief that God was, had been, and ever would be, and that
+they, the children of Jacob, were His chosen messengers to carry His
+Law to all the nations. Beneath the mountainous volumes of the
+Talmudists and commentators, the Mosaic tablets remained intact. Out
+of the mazes of the Cabala the pure doctrine of ancient Judaism found
+its way to the hearts of the faithful. Sects and schools might rise
+and fall, deafening the ears of the simple with the clamor of their
+disputes, still the Jew, retiring within his own soul, heard the
+voice of the God of Abraham. Prophets, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>messiahs, miracle workers
+might have their day, still the Jew was conscious that between
+himself and God no go-between was needed; that he, as well as every
+one of his million brothers, had his portion of God's work to do. And
+this close relation to God was the source of the strength that
+sustained the Jew through all the trials of his life in the Pale.
+Consciously or unconsciously, the Jew identified himself with the
+cause of righteousness on earth; and hence the heroism with which he
+met the battalions of tyrants.</p>
+
+<p>No empty forms could have impressed the unborn children of the Pale so
+deeply that they were prepared for willing martyrdom almost as soon as
+they were weaned from their mother's breast. The flame of the burning
+bush that had dazzled Moses still lighted the gloomy prison of the
+Pale. Behind the mummeries, ceremonials, and symbolic accessories, the
+object of the Jew's adoration was the face of God.</p>
+
+<p>This has been many times proved by those who escaped from the Pale,
+and, excited by sudden freedom, thought to rid themselves, by one
+impatient effort, of every strand of their ancient bonds. Eager to be
+merged in the better world in which they found themselves, the escaped
+prisoners determined on a change of mind, a change of heart, a change
+of manner. They rejoiced in their transformation, thinking that every
+mark of their former slavery was obliterated. And then, one day,
+caught in the vise of some crucial test, the Jew fixed his alarmed
+gaze on his inmost soul, and found there the image of his father's
+God.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Merrily played the fiddlers at the wedding of my father, who was the
+grandson of Israel Kimanyer of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>sainted memory. The most pious men in
+Polotzk danced the night through, their earlocks dangling, the tails
+of their long coats flying in a pious ecstasy. Beggars swarmed among
+the bidden guests, sure of an easy harvest where so many hearts were
+melted by piety. The wedding jester excelled himself in apt allusions
+to the friends and relatives who brought up their wedding presents at
+his merry invitation. The sixteen-year-old bride, suffocated beneath
+her heavy veil, blushed unseen at the numerous healths drunk to her
+future sons and daughters. The whole town was a-flutter with joy,
+because the pious scion of a godly race had found a pious wife, and a
+young branch of the tree of Judah was about to bear fruit.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to lie on my mother's breast, she sang me lullabies on
+lofty themes. I heard the names of Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah as early
+as the names of father, mother, and nurse. My baby soul was enthralled
+by sad and noble cadences, as my mother sang of my ancient home in
+Palestine, or mourned over the desolation of Zion. With the first
+rattle that was placed in my hand a prayer was pronounced over me, a
+petition that a pious man might take me to wife, and a messiah be
+among my sons.</p>
+
+<p>I was fed on dreams, instructed by means of prophecies, trained to
+hear and see mystical things that callous senses could not perceive. I
+was taught to call myself a princess, in memory of my forefathers who
+had ruled a nation. Though I went in the disguise of an outcast, I
+felt a halo resting on my brow. Sat upon by brutal enemies, unjustly
+hated, annihilated a hundred times, I yet arose and held my head high,
+sure that I should find my kingdom in the end, although I had lost my
+way <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>in exile; for He who had brought my ancestors safe through a
+thousand perils was guiding my feet as well. God needed me and I
+needed Him, for we two together had a work to do, according to an
+ancient covenant between Him and my forefathers.</p>
+
+<p>This is the dream to which I was heir, in common with every sad-eyed
+child of the Pale. This is the living seed which I found among my
+heirlooms, when I learned how to strip from them the prickly husk in
+which they were passed down to me. And what is the fruit of such seed
+as that, and whither lead such dreams? If it is mine to give the
+answer, let my words be true and brave.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>BOTH THEIR HOUSES</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Among the medi&aelig;val customs which were preserved in the Pale when the
+rest of the world had long forgotten them was the use of popular
+sobriquets in place of surnames proper. Family names existed only in
+official documents, such as passports. For the most part people were
+known by nicknames, prosaic or picturesque, derived from their
+occupations, their physical peculiarities, or distinctive
+achievements. Among my neighbors in Polotzk were Yankel the Wig-maker,
+Mulye the Blind, Moshe the Six-fingered; and members of their
+respective families were referred to by these nicknames: as, for
+example, "Mirele, niece of Moshe the Six-fingered."</p>
+
+<p>Let me spread out my family tree, raise aloft my coat-of-arms, and see
+what heroes have left a mark by which I may be distinguished. Let me
+hunt for my name in the chronicles of the Pale.</p>
+
+<p>In the village of Yuchovitch, about sixty versts above Polotzk, the
+oldest inhabitant still remembered my father's great-grandfather when
+my father was a boy. Lebe the Innkeeper he was called, and no reproach
+was coupled with the name. His son Hayyim succeeded to the business,
+but later he took up the glazier's trade, and developed a knack for
+all sorts of tinkering, whereby he was able to increase his too scanty
+earnings.</p>
+
+<p>Hayyim the Glazier is reputed to have been a man of fine countenance,
+wise in homely counsel, honest in all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>his dealings. Rachel Leah, his
+wife, had a reputation for practical wisdom even greater than his. She
+was the advice giver of the village in every perplexity of life. My
+father remembers his grandmother as a tall, trim, handsome old woman,
+active and independent. Satin headbands and lace-trimmed bonnets not
+having been invented in her day, Rachel Leah wore the stately knupf or
+turban on her shaven head. On Sabbaths and holidays she went to the
+synagogue with a long, straight mantle hanging from neck to ankle; and
+she wore it with an air, on one sleeve only, the other dangling empty
+from her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Hayyim begat Joseph, and Joseph begat Pinchus, my father. It behooves
+me to consider the stuff I sprang from.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph inherited the trade, good name, and meagre portion of his
+father, and maintained the family tradition of honesty and poverty
+unbroken to the day of his death. For that matter, Yuchovitch never
+heard of any connection of the family, not even a doubtful cousin, who
+was not steeped to the earlocks in poverty. But that was no
+distinction in Yuchovitch; the whole village was poor almost to
+beggary.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph was an indifferent workman, an indifferent scholar, and an
+indifferent hasid. At one thing only he was strikingly good, and that
+was at grumbling. Although not unkind, he had a temper that boiled
+over at small provocation, and even in his most placid mood he took
+very little satisfaction in the world. He reversed the proverb,
+looking for the sable lining of every silver cloud. In the conditions
+of his life he found plenty of food for his pessimism, and merry
+hearts were very rare among his neighbors. Still a certain amount of
+gloom <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>appears to have been inherent in the man. And as he distrusted
+the whole world, so Joseph distrusted himself, which made him shy and
+awkward in company. My mother tells how, at the wedding of his only
+son, my father, Joseph sat the whole night through in a corner, never
+as much as cracking a smile, while the wedding guests danced, laughed,
+and rejoiced.</p>
+
+<p>It may have been through distrust of the marital state that Joseph
+remained single till the advanced age of twenty-five. Then he took
+unto himself an orphan girl as poor as he, namely, Rachel, the
+daughter of Israel Kimanyer of pious memory.</p>
+
+<p>My grandmother was such a gentle, cheerful soul, when I knew her, that
+I imagine she must have been a merry bride. I should think my
+grandfather would have taken great satisfaction in her society, as her
+attempts to show him the world through rose-hued spectacles would have
+given him frequent opportunity to parade his grievances and recite his
+wrongs. But from all reports it appears that he was never satisfied,
+and if he did not make his wife unhappy it was because he was away
+from home so much. He was absent the greater part of the time; for a
+glazier, even if he were a better workman than my grandfather, could
+not make a living in Yuchovitch. He became a country peddler, trading
+between Polotzk and Yuchovitch, and taking in all the desolate little
+hamlets scattered along that route. Fifteen rubles' worth of goods was
+a big bill to carry out of Polotzk. The stock consisted of cheap
+pottery, tobacco, matches, boot grease, and axle grease. These he
+bartered for country produce, including grains in small quantity,
+bristles, rags, and bones. Money was seldom handled in these
+transactions.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>A rough enough life my grandfather led, on the road at all seasons, in
+all weathers, knocking about at smoky little inns, glad sometimes of
+the hospitality of some peasant's hut, where the pigs slept with the
+family. He was doing well if he got home for the holidays with a
+little white flour for a cake, and money enough to take his best coat
+out of pawn. The best coat, and the candlesticks, too, would be
+repawned promptly on the first workday; for it was not for the like of
+Joseph of Yuchovitch to live with idle riches around him.</p>
+
+<p>For the credit of Yuchovitch it must be recorded that my grandfather
+never had to stay away from the synagogue for want of his one decent
+coat to wear. His neighbor Isaac, the village money lender, never
+refused to give up the pledged articles on a Sabbath eve, even if the
+money due was not forthcoming. Many Sabbath coats besides my
+grandfather's, and many candlesticks besides my grandmother's, passed
+most of their existence under Isaac's roof, waiting to be redeemed.
+But on the eve of Sabbath or holiday Isaac delivered them to their
+respective owners, came they empty-handed or otherwise; and at the
+expiration of the festival the grateful owners brought them promptly
+back, for another season of retirement.</p>
+
+<p>While my grandfather was on the road, my grandmother conducted her
+humble household in a capable, housewifely way. Of her six children,
+three died young, leaving two daughters and an only son, my father. My
+grandmother fed and dressed her children the best she could, and
+taught them to thank God for what they had not as well as for what
+they had. Piety was about the only positive doctrine she attempted to
+drill them in, leaving the rest of their education to life and the
+rebbe.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>Promptly when custom prescribed, Pinchus, the petted only son, was
+sent to heder. My grandfather being on the road at the time, my
+grandmother herself carried the boy in her arms, as was usual on the
+first day. My father distinctly remembers that she wept on the way to
+the heder; partly, I suppose, from joy at starting her son on a holy
+life, and partly from sadness at being too poor to set forth the wine
+and honey-cake proper to the occasion. For Grandma Rachel, schooled
+though she was to pious contentment, probably had her moments of human
+pettiness like the rest of us.</p>
+
+<p>My father distinguished himself for scholarship from the first. Five
+years old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a <i>yeshibah
+bahur</i>&mdash;a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use
+the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the
+dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and carried his fame
+to Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p>My grandmother's cup of pious joy was overfilled. Everything her boy
+did was pleasant in her sight, for Pinchus was going to be a scholar,
+a godly man, a credit to the memory of his renowned grandfather,
+Israel Kimanyer. She let nothing interfere with his schooling. When
+times were bad, and her husband came home with his goods unsold, she
+borrowed and begged, till the rebbe's fee was produced. If bad luck
+continued, she pleaded with the rebbe for time. She pawned not only
+the candlesticks, but her shawl and Sabbath cap as well, to secure the
+scant rations that gave the young scholar strength to study. More than
+once in the bitter winter, as my father remembers, she carried him to
+heder on her back, because he had no shoes; she herself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>walking
+almost barefoot in the cruel snow. No sacrifice was too great for her
+in the pious cause of her boy's education. And when there was no rebbe
+in Yuchovitch learned enough to guide him in the advanced studies, my
+father was sent to Polotzk, where he lived with his poor relations,
+who were not too poor to help support a future rebbe or rav. In
+Polotzk he continued to distinguish himself for scholarship, till
+people began to prophesy that he would live to be famous; and
+everybody who remembered Israel Kimanyer regarded the promising
+grandson with double respect.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of fifteen my father was qualified to teach beginners in
+Hebrew, and he was engaged as instructor in two families living six
+versts apart in the country. The boy tutor had to make himself useful,
+after lesson hours, by caring for the horse, hauling water from the
+frozen pond, and lending a hand at everything. When the little sister
+of one of his pupils died, in the middle of the winter, it fell to my
+father's lot to take the body to the nearest Jewish cemetery, through
+miles of desolate country, no living soul accompanying him.</p>
+
+<p>After one term of this, he tried to go on with his own studies,
+sometimes in Yuchovitch, sometimes in Polotzk, as opportunity
+dictated. He made the journey to Polotzk beside his father, jogging
+along in the springless wagon on the rutty roads. He took a boy's
+pleasure in the gypsy life, the green wood, and the summer storm;
+while his father sat moody beside him, seeing nothing but the spavins
+on the horse's hocks, and the mud in the road ahead.</p>
+
+<p>There is little else to tell of my father's boyhood, as most of his
+time was spent in the schoolroom. Outside the schoolroom he was
+conspicuous for high spirits in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>play, daring in mischief, and
+independence in everything. But a boy's playtime was so short in
+Yuchovitch, and his resources so limited, that even a lad of spirit
+came to the edge of his premature manhood without a regret for his
+nipped youth. So my father, at the age of sixteen and a half, lent a
+willing ear to the cooing voice of the marriage broker.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it was high time for him to marry. His parents had kept him so
+far, but they had two daughters to marry off, and not a groschen laid
+by for their dowries. The cost of my father's schooling, as he
+advanced, had mounted to seventeen rubles a term, and the poor rebbe
+was seldom paid in full. Of course my father's scholarship was his
+fortune&mdash;in time it would be his support; but in the meanwhile the
+burden of feeding and clothing him lay heavy on his parents'
+shoulders. The time had come to find him a well-to-do father-in-law,
+who should support him and his wife and children, while he continued
+to study in the seminary.</p>
+
+<p>After the usual conferences between parents and marriage brokers, my
+father was betrothed to an undertaker's daughter in Polotzk. The girl
+was too old,&mdash;every day of twenty years,&mdash;but three hundred rubles in
+dowry, with board after marriage, not to mention handsome presents to
+the bridegroom, easily offset the bride's age. My father's family, to
+the humblest cousin, felt themselves set up by the match he had made;
+and the boy was happy enough, displaying a watch and chain for the
+first time in his life, and a good coat on week days. As for his
+fianc&eacute;e, he could have no objection to her, as he had seen her only at
+a distance, and had never spoken to her.</p>
+
+<p>When it was time for the wedding preparations to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>begin, news came to
+Yuchovitch of the death of the bride-elect, and my father's prospects
+seemed fallen to the ground. But the undertaker had another daughter,
+girl of thirteen, and he pressed my father to take her in her sister's
+place. At the same time the marriage broker proposed another match;
+and my father's poor cousins bristled with importance once more.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow or other my father succeeded in getting in a word at the
+family councils that ensued; he even had the temerity to express a
+strong preference. He did not want any more of the undertaker's
+daughters; he wanted to consider the rival match. There were no
+serious objections from the cousins, and my father became engaged to
+my mother.</p>
+
+<p>This second choice was Hannah Hayye, only daughter of Raphael, called
+the Russian. She had had a very different bringing-up from Pinchus,
+the grandson of Israel Kimanyer. She had never known a day of want;
+had never gone barefoot from necessity. The family had a solid
+position in Polotzk, her father being the owner of a comfortable home
+and a good business.</p>
+
+<p>Prosperity is prosaic, so I shall skip briefly over the history of my
+mother's house.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather Raphael, early left an orphan, was brought up by an
+elder brother, in a village at no great distance from Polotzk. The
+brother dutifully sent him to heder, and at an early age betrothed him
+to Deborah, daughter of one Solomon, a dealer in grain and cattle.
+Deborah was not yet in her teens at the time of the betrothal, and so
+foolish was she that she was afraid of her affianced husband. One day,
+when she was coming from the store with a bottle of liquid yeast, she
+suddenly came face to face with her betrothed, which gave her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>such a
+fright that she dropped the bottle, spilling the yeast on her pretty
+dress; and she ran home crying all the way. At thirteen she was
+married, which had a good effect on her deportment. I hear no more of
+her running away from her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Among the interesting things belonging to my grandmother, besides her
+dowry, at the time of the marriage, was her family. Her father was so
+original that he kept a tutor for his daughters&mdash;sons he had none&mdash;and
+allowed them to be instructed in the rudiments of three or four
+languages and the elements of arithmetic. Even more unconventional was
+her sister Hode. She had married a fiddler, who travelled constantly,
+playing at hotels and inns, all through "far Russia." Having no
+children, she ought to have spent her days in fasting and praying and
+lamenting. Instead of this, she accompanied her husband on his
+travels, and even had a heart to enjoy the excitement and variety of
+their restless life. I should be the last to blame my great-aunt, for
+the irregularity of her conduct afforded my grandfather the opening
+for his career, the fruits of which made my childhood so pleasant. For
+several years my grandfather travelled in Hode's train, in the
+capacity of shohat providing kosher meat for the little troup in the
+unholy wilds of "far Russia"; and the grateful couple rewarded him so
+generously that he soon had a fortune of eighty rubles laid by.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather thought the time had now come to settle down, but he
+did not know how to invest his wealth. To resolve his perplexity, he
+made a pilgrimage to the Rebbe of Kopistch, who advised him to open a
+store in Polotzk, and gave him a blessed groschen to keep in the money
+drawer for good luck.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>The blessing of the "good Jew" proved fruitful. My grandfather's
+business prospered, and my grandmother bore him children, several sons
+and one daughter. The sons were sent to heder, like all respectable
+boys; and they were taught, in addition, writing and arithmetic,
+enough for conducting a business. With this my grandfather was
+content; more than this he considered incompatible with piety. He was
+one of those who strenuously opposed the influence of the public
+school, and bribed the government officials to keep their children's
+names off the register of schoolboys, as we have already seen. When he
+sent his sons to a private tutor, where they could study Russian with
+their hats on, he felt, no doubt, that he was giving them all the
+education necessary to a successful business career, without violating
+piety too grossly.</p>
+
+<p>If reading and writing were enough for the sons, even less would
+suffice the daughter. A female teacher was engaged for my mother, at
+three kopecks a week, to teach her the Hebrew prayers; and my
+grandmother, herself a better scholar than the teacher, taught her
+writing in addition. My mother was quick to learn, and expressed an
+ambition to study Russian. She teased and coaxed, and her mother
+pleaded for her, till my grandfather was persuaded to send her to a
+tutor. But the fates were opposed to my mother's education. On the
+first day at school, a sudden inflammation of the eyes blinded my
+mother temporarily, and although the distemper vanished as suddenly as
+it had appeared, it was taken as an omen, and my mother was not
+allowed to return to her lessons.</p>
+
+<p>Still she did not give up. She saved up every groschen that was given
+her to buy sweets, and bribed her brother <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>Solomon, who was proud of
+his scholarship, to give her lessons in secret. The two strove
+earnestly with book and quill, in their hiding-place under the
+rafters, till my mother could read and write Russian, and translate a
+simple passage of Hebrew.</p>
+
+<p>My grandmother, although herself a good housewife, took no pains to
+teach her only daughter the domestic arts. She only petted and coddled
+her and sent her out to play. But my mother was as ambitious about
+housework as about books. She coaxed the housemaid to let her mix the
+bread. She learned knitting from watching her playmates. She was
+healthy and active, quick at everything, and restless with unspent
+energy. Therefore she was quite willing, at the age of ten, to go into
+her father's business as his chief assistant.</p>
+
+<p>As the years went by she developed a decided talent for business, so
+that her father could safely leave all his affairs in her hands if he
+had to go out of town. Her devotion, ability, and tireless energy made
+her, in time, indispensable. My grandfather was obliged to admit that
+the little learning she had stolen was turned to good account, when he
+saw how well she could keep his books, and how smoothly she got along
+with Russian and Polish customers. Perhaps that was the argument that
+induced him, after obstinate years, to remove his veto from my
+mother's petitions and let her take up lessons again. For while piety
+was my grandfather's chief concern on the godly side, on the worldly
+side he set success in business above everything.</p>
+
+<p>My mother was fifteen years old when she entered on a career of higher
+education. For two hours daily she was released from the store, and in
+that interval she strove with might and main to conquer the world
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>of knowledge. Katrina Petrovna, her teacher, praised and encouraged
+her; and there was no reason why the promising pupil should not have
+developed into a young lady of culture, with Madame teaching Russian,
+German, crocheting, and singing&mdash;yes, out of a book, to the
+accompaniment of a clavier&mdash;all for a fee of seventy-five kopecks a
+week.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep052" id="imagep052"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep052.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep052.jpg" width="95%" alt="The Wood Market, Polotzk" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">THE WOOD MARKET, POLOTZK<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Did I say there was no reason? And what about the marriage broker?
+Hannah Hayye, the only daughter of Raphael the Russian, going on
+sixteen, buxom, bright, capable, and well educated, could not escape
+the eye of the shadchan. A fine thing it would be to let such a likely
+girl grow old over a book! To the canopy with her, while she could
+fetch the highest price in the marriage market!</p>
+
+<p>My mother was very unwilling to think of marriage at this time. She
+had nothing to gain by marriage, for already she had everything that
+she desired, especially since she was permitted to study. While her
+father was rather stern, her mother spoiled and petted her; and she
+was the idol of her aunt Hode, the fiddler's wife.</p>
+
+<p>Hode had bought a fine estate in Polotzk, after my grandfather settled
+there, and made it her home whenever she became tired of travelling.
+She lived in state, with many servants and dependents, wearing silk
+dresses on week days, and setting silver plate before the meanest
+guest. The women of Polotzk were breathless over her wardrobe,
+counting up how many pairs of embroidered boots she had, at fifteen
+rubles a pair. And Hode's manners were as much a subject of gossip as
+her clothes, for she had picked up strange ways in her travels
+Although she was so pious that she was never tempted to eat trefah, no
+matter if she had to go hungry, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>her conduct in other respects was not
+strictly orthodox. For one thing, she was in the habit of shaking
+hands with men, looking them straight in the face. She spoke Russian
+like a Gentile, she kept a poodle, and she had no children.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody meant to blame the rich woman for being childless, because it
+was well known in Polotzk that Hode the Russian, as she was called,
+would have given all her wealth for one scrawny baby. But she was to
+blame for voluntarily exiling herself from Jewish society for years at
+a time, to live among pork-eaters, and copy the bold ways of Gentile
+women. And so while they pitied her childlessness, the women of
+Polotzk regarded her misfortune as perhaps no more than a due
+punishment.</p>
+
+<p>Hode, poor woman, felt a hungry heart beneath her satin robes. She
+wanted to adopt one of my grandmother's children, but my grandmother
+would not hear of it. Hode was particularly taken with my mother, and
+my grandmother, in compassion, loaned her the child for days at a
+time; and those were happy days for both aunt and niece. Hode would
+treat my mother to every delicacy in her sumptuous pantry, tell her
+wonderful tales of life in distant parts, show her all her beautiful
+dresses and jewels, and load her with presents.</p>
+
+<p>As my mother developed into girlhood, her aunt grew more and more
+covetous of her. Following a secret plan, she adopted a boy from the
+poorhouse, and brought him up with every advantage that money could
+buy. My mother, on her visits, was thrown a great deal into this boy's
+society, but she liked him less than the poodle. This grieved her
+aunt, who cherished in her heart the hope that my mother would marry
+her adopted son, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>so become her daughter after all. And in order
+to accustom her to think well of the match, Hode dinned the boy's name
+in my mother's ears day and night, praising him and showing him off.
+She would open her jewel boxes and take out the flashing diamonds,
+heavy chains, and tinkling bracelets, dress my mother in them in front
+of the mirror, telling her that they would all be hers&mdash;all her
+own&mdash;when she became the bride of Mulke.</p>
+
+<p>My mother still describes the necklace of pearls and diamonds which
+her aunt used to clasp around her plump throat, with a light in her
+eyes that is reminiscent of girlish pleasure. But to all her aunt's
+teasing references to the future, my mother answered with a giggle and
+a shake of her black curls, and went on enjoying herself, thinking
+that the day of judgment was very, very far away. But it swooped down
+on her sooner than she expected&mdash;the momentous hour when she must
+choose between the pearl necklace with Mulke and a penniless stranger
+from Yuchovitch who was reputed to be a fine scholar.</p>
+
+<p>Mulke she would not have even if all the pearls in the ocean came with
+him. The boy was stupid and unteachable, and of unspeakable origin.
+Picked up from the dirty floor of the poorhouse, his father was
+identified as the lazy porter who sometimes chopped a cord of wood for
+my grandmother; and his sisters were slovenly housemaids scattered
+through Polotzk. No, Mulke was not to be considered. But why consider
+anybody? Why think of a <i>hossen</i> at all, when she was so content? My
+mother ran away every time the shadchan came, and she begged to be
+left as she was, and cried, and invoked her mother's support. But her
+mother, for the first time in her history, refused to take the
+daughter's part. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>She joined the enemy&mdash;the family and the
+shadchan&mdash;and my mother saw that she was doomed.</p>
+
+<p>Of course she submitted. What else could a dutiful daughter do, in
+Polotzk? She submitted to being weighed, measured, and appraised
+before her face, and resigned herself to what was to come.</p>
+
+<p>When that which was to come did come, she did not recognize it. She
+was all alone in the store one day, when a beardless young man, in top
+boots that wanted grease, and a coat too thin for the weather, came in
+for a package of cigarettes. My mother climbed up on the counter, with
+one foot on a shelf, to reach down the cigarettes. The customer gave
+her the right change, and went out. And my mother never suspected that
+that was the proposed hossen, who came to look her over and see if she
+was likely to last. For my father considered himself a man of
+experience now, this being his second match, and he was determined to
+have a hand in this affair himself.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was the hossen out of the store than his mother, also
+unknown to the innocent storekeeper, came in for a pound of tallow
+candles. She offered a torn bill in payment, and my mother accepted it
+and gave change; showing that she was wise enough in money matters to
+know that a torn bill was good currency.</p>
+
+<p>After the woman there shuffled in a poor man evidently from the
+country, who, in a shy and yet challenging manner, asked for a package
+of cheap tobacco. My mother produced the goods with her usual
+dispatch, gave the correct change, and stood at attention for more
+trade.</p>
+
+<p>Parents and son held a council around the corner, the object of their
+espionage never dreaming that she had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>been put to a triple test and
+not found wanting. But in the evening of the same day she was
+enlightened. She was summoned to her elder brother's house, for a
+conference on the subject of the proposed match, and there she found
+the young man who had bought the cigarettes. For my mother's family,
+if they forced her to marry, were willing to make her path easier by
+letting her meet the hossen, convinced that she must be won over by
+his good looks and learned conversation.</p>
+
+<p>It does not really matter how my mother felt, as she sat, with a
+protecting niece in her lap, at one end of a long table, with the
+hossen fidgeting at the other end. The marriage contract would be
+written anyway, no matter what she thought of the hossen. And the
+contract was duly written, in the presence of the assembled families
+of both parties, after plenty of open discussion, in which everybody
+except the prospective bride and groom had a voice.</p>
+
+<p>One voice in particular broke repeatedly into the consultations of the
+parents and the shadchan, and that was the voice of Henne R&ouml;sel, one
+of my father's numerous poor cousins. Henne R&ouml;sel was not unknown to
+my mother. She often came to the store, to beg, under pretence of
+borrowing, a little flour or sugar or a stick of cinnamon. On the
+occasion of the betrothal she had arrived late, dressed in
+indescribable odds and ends, with an artificial red flower stuck into
+her frowzy wig. She pushed and elbowed her way to the middle of the
+table, where the shadchan sat ready with paper and ink to take down
+the articles of the contract. On every point she had some comment to
+make, till a dispute arose over a note which my grandfather offered as
+part of the dowry, the hossen's people insisting on cash. No one
+insisted so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>loudly as the cousin with the red flower in her wig; and
+when the other cousins seemed about to weaken and accept the note,
+Red-Flower stood up and exhorted them to be firm, lest their flesh and
+blood be cheated under their noses. The meddlesome cousin was silenced
+at last, the contract was signed, the happiness of the engaged couple
+was pledged in wine, the guests dispersed. And all this while my
+mother had not opened her mouth, and my father had scarcely been
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>That is the way my fate was sealed. It gives me a shudder of wonder to
+think what a narrow escape I had; I came so near not being born at
+all. If the beggarly cousin with the frowzy wig had prevailed upon her
+family and broken off the match, then my mother would not have married
+my father, and I should at this moment be an unborn possibility in a
+philosopher's brain. It is right that I should pick my words most
+carefully, and meditate over every comma, because I am describing
+miracles too great for careless utterance. If I had died after my
+first breath, my history would still be worth recording. For before I
+could lie on my mother's breast, the earth had to be prepared, and the
+stars had to take their places; a million races had to die, testing
+the laws of life; and a boy and girl had to be bound for life to watch
+together for my coming. I was millions of years on the way, and I came
+through the seas of chance, over the fiery mountain of law, by the
+zigzag path of human possibility. Multitudes were pushed back into the
+abyss of non-existence, that I should have way to creep into being.
+And at the last, when I stood at the gate of life, a weazen-faced
+fishwife, who had not wit enough to support herself, came near
+shutting me out.</p>
+
+<p>Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>deaths before
+we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own world, if we
+choose. Since I have stood on my own feet, I have never met my master.
+For every time I choose a friend I determine my fate anew. I can think
+of no cataclysm that could have the force to move me from my path.
+Fire or flood or the envy of men may tear the roof off my house, but
+my soul would still be at home under the lofty mountain pines that dip
+their heads in star dust. Even life, that was so difficult to attain,
+may serve me merely as a wayside inn, if I choose to go on eternally.
+However I came here, it is mine to be.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>DAILY BREAD</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>My mother ought to have been happy in her engagement. Everybody
+congratulated her on securing such a scholar, her parents loaded her
+with presents, and her friends envied her. It is true that the
+hossen's family consisted entirely of poor relations; there was not
+one solid householder among them. From the worldly point of view my
+mother made a m&eacute;salliance. But as one of my aunts put it, when my
+mother objected to the association with the undesirable cousins, she
+could take out the cow and set fire to the barn; meaning that she
+could rejoice in the hossen and disregard his family.</p>
+
+<p>The hossen, on his part, had reason to rejoice, without any
+reservations. He was going into a highly respectable family, with a
+name supported by property and business standing. The promised dowry
+was considerable, the presents were generous, the trousseau would be
+liberal, and the bride was fair and capable. The bridegroom would have
+years before him in which he need do nothing but eat free board, wear
+his new clothes, and study Torah; and his poor relations could hold up
+their heads at the market stalls, and in the rear pews in the
+synagogue.</p>
+
+<p>My mother's trousseau was all that a mother-in-law could wish. The
+best tailor in Polotzk was engaged to make the cloaks and gowns, and
+his shop was filled to bursting with ample lengths of velvet and satin
+and silk. The wedding gown alone cost every kopeck of fifty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>rubles,
+as the tailor's wife reported all over Polotzk. The lingerie was of
+the best, and the seamstress was engaged on it for many weeks.
+Featherbeds, linen, household goods of every sort&mdash;everything was
+provided in abundance. My mother crocheted many yards of lace to trim
+the best sheets, and fine silk coverlets adorned the plump beds. Many
+a marriageable maiden who came to view the trousseau went home to
+prink and blush and watch for the shadchan.</p>
+
+<p>The wedding was memorable for gayety and splendor. The guests included
+some of the finest people in Polotzk; for while my grandfather was not
+quite at the top of the social scale, he had business connections with
+those that were, and they all turned out for the wedding of his only
+daughter, the men in silk frock coats, the women in all their jewelry.</p>
+
+<p>The bridegroom's aunts and cousins came in full force. Wedding
+messengers had been sent to every person who could possibly claim
+relationship with the hossen. My mother's parents were too generous to
+slight the lowliest. Instead of burning the barn, they did all they
+could to garnish it. One or two of the more important of the poor
+relations came to the wedding in gowns paid for by my rich
+grandfather. The rest came decked out in borrowed finery, or in
+undisguised shabbiness. But nobody thought of staying away&mdash;except the
+obstructive cousin who had nearly prevented the match.</p>
+
+<p>When it was time to conduct the bride to the wedding canopy, the
+bridegroom's mother missed Henne R&ouml;sel. The house was searched for
+her, but in vain. Nobody had seen her. But my grandmother could not
+bear to have the marriage solemnized in the absence of a first
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>cousin. Such a wedding as this was not likely to be repeated in her
+family; it would be a great pity if any of the relatives missed it. So
+she petitioned the principals to delay the ceremony, while she herself
+went in search of the missing cousin.</p>
+
+<p>Clear over to the farthest end of the town she walked, lifting her
+gala dress well above her ankles. She found Henne R&ouml;sel in her untidy
+kitchen, sound in every limb but sulky in spirit. My grandmother
+exclaimed at her conduct, and bade her hurry with her toilet, and
+accompany her; the wedding guests were waiting; the bride was faint
+from prolonging her fast. But Henne R&ouml;sel flatly refused to go; the
+bride might remain an old maid, for all she, Henne R&ouml;sel, cared about
+the wedding. My troubled grandmother expostulated, questioned her,
+till she drew out the root of the cousin's sulkiness. Henne R&ouml;sel
+complained that she had not been properly invited. The wedding
+messenger had come,&mdash;oh, yes!&mdash;but she had not addressed her as
+flatteringly, as respectfully as she had been heard to address the
+wife of Yohem, the money-lender. And Henne R&ouml;sel wasn't going to any
+weddings where she was not wanted. My grandmother had a struggle of
+it, but she succeeded in soothing the sensitive cousin, who consented
+at length to don her best dress and go to the wedding.</p>
+
+<p>While my grandmother labored with Henne R&ouml;sel, the bride sat in state
+in her father's house under the hill, the maidens danced, and the
+matrons fanned themselves, while the fiddlers and <i>zimblers</i> scraped
+and tinkled. But as the hours went by, the matrons became restless and
+the dancers wearied. The poor relations grew impatient for the feast,
+and the babies in their laps began to fidget and cry; while the bride
+grew faint, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>and the bridegroom's party began to send frequent
+messengers from the house next door, demanding to know the cause of
+the delay. Some of the guests at last lost all patience, and begged
+leave to go home. But before they went they deposited the wedding
+presents in the bride's satin lap, till she resembled a heathen image
+hung about with offerings.</p>
+
+<p>My mother, after thirty years of bustling life, retains a lively
+memory of the embarrassment she suffered while waiting for the arrival
+of the troublesome cousin. When that important dame at last appeared,
+with her chin in the air, the artificial flower still stuck
+belligerently into her dusty wig, and my grandmother beaming behind
+her, the bride's heart fairly jumped with anger, and the red blood of
+indignation set her cheeks afire. No wonder that she speaks the name
+of the Red-Flower with an unloving accent to this day, although she
+has forgiven the enemies who did her greater wrong. The bride is a
+princess on her wedding day. To put upon her an indignity is an
+unpardonable offense.</p>
+
+<p>After the feasting and dancing, which lasted a whole week, the wedding
+presents were locked up, the bride, with her hair discreetly covered,
+returned to her father's store, and the groom, with his new
+praying-shawl, repaired to the synagogue. This was all according to
+the marriage bargain, which implied that my father was to study and
+pray and fill the house with the spirit of piety, in return for board
+and lodging and the devotion of his wife and her entire family.</p>
+
+<p>All the parties concerned had entered into this bargain in good faith,
+so far as they knew their own minds. But the eighteen-year-old
+bridegroom, before many months had passed, began to realize that he
+felt no such <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>hunger for the word of the Law as he was supposed to
+feel. He felt, rather, a hunger for life that all his studying did not
+satisfy. He was not trained enough to analyze his own thoughts to any
+purpose; he was not experienced enough to understand where his
+thoughts were leading him. He only knew that he felt no call to pray
+and fast that the Torah did not inspire him, and his days were blank.
+The life he was expected to lead grew distasteful to him, and yet he
+knew no other way to live. He became lax in his attendance at the
+synagogue, incurring the reproach of the family. It began to be
+rumored among the studious that the son-in-law of Raphael the Russian
+was not devoting himself to the sacred books with any degree of
+enthusiasm. It was well known that he had a good mind, but evidently
+the spirit was lacking. My grandparents went from surprise to
+indignation, from exhortation they passed to recrimination. Before my
+parents had been married half a year, my grandfather's house was
+divided against itself and my mother was torn between the two
+factions. For while she sympathized with her parents, and felt
+personally cheated by my father's lack of piety, she thought it was
+her duty to take her husband's part, even against her parents, in
+their own house. My mother was one of those women who always obey the
+highest law they know, even though it leads them to their doom.</p>
+
+<p>How did it happen that my father, who from his early boyhood had been
+pointed out as a scholar in embryo, failed to live up to the
+expectations of his world? It happened as it happened that his hair
+curled over his high forehead: he was made that way. If people were
+disappointed, it was because they had based their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>expectations on a
+misconception of his character, for my father had never had any
+aspirations for extreme piety. Piety was imputed to him by his mother,
+by his rebbe, by his neighbors, when they saw that he rendered the
+sacred word more intelligently than his fellow students. It was not
+his fault that his people confused scholarship with religious ardor.
+Having a good mind, he was glad to exercise it; and being given only
+one subject to study he was bound to make rapid progress in that. If
+he had ever been offered a choice between a religious and a secular
+education, his friends would have found out early that he was not born
+to be a rav. But as he had no mental opening except through the
+hedder, he went on from year to year winning new distinction in Hebrew
+scholarship; with the result that witnesses with preconceived ideas
+began to see the halo of piety playing around his head, and a
+well-to-do family was misled into making a match with him for the sake
+of the glory that he was to attain.</p>
+
+<p>When it became evident that the son-in-law was not going to develop
+into a rav, my grandfather notified him that he would have to assume
+the support of his own family without delay. My father therefore
+entered on a series of experiments with paying occupations, for none
+of which he was qualified, and in none of which he succeeded
+permanently.</p>
+
+<p>My mother was with my father, as equal partner and laborer, in
+everything he attempted in Polotzk. They tried keeping a wayside inn,
+but had to give it up because the life was too rough for my mother,
+who was expecting her first baby. Returning to Polotzk they went to
+storekeeping on their own account, but failed in this also, because my
+father was inexperienced, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>my mother, now with the baby to nurse,
+was not able to give her best attention to business. Over two years
+passed in this experiment, and in the interval the second child was
+born, increasing my parents' need of a home and a reliable income.</p>
+
+<p>It was then decided that my father should seek his fortune elsewhere.
+He travelled as far east as Tchistopol, on the Volga, and south as far
+as Odessa, on the Black Sea, trying his luck at various occupations
+within the usual Jewish restrictions. Finally he reached the position
+of assistant superintendent in a distillery, with a salary of thirty
+rubles a month. That was a fair income for those days, and he was
+planning to have his family join him when my Grandfather Raphael died,
+leaving my mother heir to a good business. My father thereupon
+returned to Polotzk, after nearly three years' absence from home.</p>
+
+<p>As my mother had been trained to her business from childhood, while my
+father had had only a little irregular experience, she naturally
+remained the leader. She was as successful as her father before her.
+The people continued to call her Raphael's Hannah Hayye, and under
+that name she was greatly respected in the business world. Her eldest
+brother was now a merchant of importance, and my mother's
+establishment was gradually enlarged; so that, altogether, our family
+had a solid position in Polotzk, and there were plenty to envy us.</p>
+
+<p>We were almost rich, as Polotzk counted riches in those days;
+certainly we were considered well-to-do. We moved into a larger house,
+where there was room for out-of-town customers to stay overnight, with
+stabling for their horses. We lived as well as any people of our
+class, and perhaps better, because my father had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>brought home with
+him from his travels a taste for a more genial life than Polotzk
+usually asked for. My mother kept a cook and a nursemaid, and a
+dvornik, or outdoor man, to take care of the horses, the cow, and the
+woodpile. All the year round we kept open house, as I remember.
+Cousins and aunts were always about, and on holidays friends of all
+degrees gathered in numbers. And coming and going in the wing set
+apart for business guests were merchants, traders, country peddlers,
+peasants, soldiers, and minor government officials. It was a full
+house at all times, and especially so during fairs, and at the season
+of the military draft.</p>
+
+<p>In the family wing there was also enough going on. There were four of
+us children, besides father and mother and grandmother, and the
+parasitic cousins. Fetchke was the eldest; I was the second; the third
+was my only brother, named Joseph, for my father's father; and the
+fourth was Deborah, named for my mother's mother.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I ought to explain my own name also, especially because I am
+going to emerge as the heroine by and by. Be it therefore known that I
+was named Maryashe, for a bygone aunt. I was never called by my full
+name, however. "Maryashe" was too dignified for me. I was always
+"Mashinke," or else "Mashke," by way of diminutive. A variety of
+nicknames, mostly suggested by my physical peculiarities, were
+bestowed on me from time to time by my fond or foolish relatives. My
+uncle Berl, for example, gave me the name of "Zukrochene Flum," which
+I am not going to translate, because it is uncomplimentary.</p>
+
+<p>My sister Fetchke was always the good little girl, and when our
+troubles began she was an important member of the family. What sort of
+little girl I was will be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>written by and by. Joseph was the best
+Jewish boy that ever was born, but he hated to go to heder, so he had
+to be whipped, of course. Deborah was just a baby, and her principal
+characteristic was single-mindedness. If she had teething to attend
+to, she thought of nothing else day or night, and communicated with
+the family on no other subject. If it was whooping-cough, she whooped
+most heartily; if it was measles, she had them thick.</p>
+
+<p>It was the normal thing in Polotzk, where the mothers worked as well
+as the fathers, for the children to be left in the hands of
+grandmothers and nursemaids. I suffer reminiscent terrors when I
+recall Deborah's nurse, who never opened her lips except to frighten
+us children&mdash;or else to lie. That girl never told the truth if she
+could help it. I know it is so because I heard her tell eleven or
+twelve unnecessary lies every day. In the beginning of her residence
+with us, I exposed her indignantly every time I caught her lying; but
+the tenor of her private conversations with me was conducive to a
+cessation of my activity along the line of volunteer testimony. In
+shorter words, the nurse terrified me with horrid threats until I did
+not dare to contradict her even if she lied her head off. The things
+she promised me in this life and in the life to come could not be
+executed by a person without imagination. The nurse gave almost her
+entire attention to us older children, disposing easily of the baby's
+claims. Deborah, unless she was teething or whoop-coughing, was a
+quiet baby, and would lie for hours on the nurse's lap, sucking at a
+"pacifier" made of bread and sugar tied up in a muslin rag, and
+previously chewed to a pulp by the nurse. And while the baby sucked
+the nurse told us things&mdash;things that we must remember when we went to
+bed at night.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>A favorite subject of her discourse was the Evil One, who lived, so
+she told us, in our attic, with his wife and brood. A pet amusement of
+our invisible tenant was the translating of human babies into his
+lair, leaving one of his own brats in the cradle; the moral of which
+was that if nurse wanted to loaf in the yard and watch who went out
+and who came in, we children must mind the baby. The girl was so sly
+that she carried on all this tyranny without being detected, and we
+lived in terror till she was discharged for stealing.</p>
+
+<p>In our grandmothers we were very fortunate: They spoiled us to our
+hearts' content. Grandma Deborah's methods I know only from hearsay,
+for I was very little when she died. Grandma Rachel I remember
+distinctly, spare and trim and always busy. I recall her coming in
+midwinter from the frozen village where she lived. I remember, as if
+it were but last winter, the immense shawls and wraps which we unwound
+from about her person, her voluminous brown sack coat in which there
+was room for three of us at a time, and at last the tight clasp of her
+long arms, and her fresh, cold cheeks on ours. And when the hugging
+and kissing were over, Grandma had a treat for us. It was <i>talakno</i>,
+or oat flour, which we mixed with cold water and ate raw, using wooden
+spoons, just like the peasants, and smacking our lips over it in
+imaginary enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>But Grandma Rachel did not come to play. She applied herself
+energetically to the housekeeping. She kept her bright eye on
+everything, as if she were in her own trifling establishment in
+Yuchovitch. Watchful was she as any cat&mdash;and harmless as a tame
+rabbit. If she caught the maids at fault, she found an excuse for
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>them at the same time. If she was quite exasperated with the stupidity
+of Yakub, the dvornik, she pretended to curse him in a phrase of her
+own invention, a mixture of Hebrew and Russian, which, translated,
+said, "Mayst thou have gold and silver in thy bosom"; but to the
+choreman, who was not a linguist, the mongrel phrase conveyed a sense
+of his delinquency.</p>
+
+<p>Grandma Rachel meant to be very strict with us children, and
+accordingly was prompt to discipline us; but we discovered early in
+our acquaintance with her that the child who got a spanking was sure
+to get a hot cookie or the jam pot to lick, so we did not stand in
+great awe of her punishments. Even if it came to a spanking it was
+only a farce. Grandma generally interposed a pillow between the palm
+of her hand and the area of moral stimulation.</p>
+
+<p>The real disciplinarian in our family was my father. Present or
+absent, it was fear of his displeasure that kept us in the straight
+and narrow path. In the minds of us children he was as much
+represented, when away from home, by the strap hanging on the wall as
+by his portrait which stood on a parlor table, in a gorgeous frame
+adorned with little shells. Almost everybody's father had a strap, but
+our father's strap was more formidable than the ordinary. For one
+thing, it was more painful to encounter personally, because it was not
+a simple strap, but a bunch of fine long strips, clinging as rubber.
+My father called it noodles; and while his facetiousness was lost on
+us children, the superior sting of his instrument was entirely
+effective.</p>
+
+<p>In his leisure, my father found means of instructing us other than by
+the strap. He took us walking and driving, answered our questions, and
+taught us many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>little things that our playmates were not taught.
+From distant parts of the country he had imported little tricks of
+speech and conduct, which we learned readily enough; for we were
+always a teachable lot. Our pretty manners were very much admired, so
+that we became used to being held up as models to children less
+polite. Guests at our table praised our deportment, when, at the end
+of a meal, we kissed the hands of father and mother and thanked them
+for food. Envious mothers of rowdy children used to sneer, "Those
+grandchildren of Raphael the Russian are quite the aristocrats."</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep070" id="imagep070"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep070.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep070.jpg" width="48%" alt="My Father's Portrait" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>And yet, off the stage, we had our little quarrels and tempests,
+especially I. I really and truly cannot remember a time when Fetchke
+was naughty, but I was oftener in trouble than out of it. I need not
+go into details. I only need to recall how often, on going to bed, I
+used to lie silently rehearsing the day's misdeeds, my sister
+refraining from talk out of sympathy. As I always came to the
+conclusion that I wanted to reform, I emerged from my reflections with
+this solemn formula: "Fetchke, let us be good." And my generosity in
+including my sister in my plans for salvation was equalled by her
+magnanimity in assuming part of my degradation. She always replied, in
+aspiration as eager as mine, "Yes, Mashke, let us be good."</p>
+
+<p>My mother had less to do than any one with our early training, because
+she was confined to the store. When she came home at night, with her
+pockets full of goodies for us, she was too hungry for our love to
+listen to tales against us, too tired from work to discipline us. It
+was only on Sabbaths and holidays that she had a chance to get
+acquainted with us, and we all looked forward to these days of
+enjoined rest.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>On Friday afternoons my parents came home early, to wash and dress and
+remove from their persons every sign of labor. The great keys of the
+store were put away out of sight; the money bag was hidden in the
+featherbeds. My father put on his best coat and silk skull-cap; my
+mother replaced the cotton kerchief by the well-brushed wig. We
+children bustled around our parents, asking favors in the name of the
+Sabbath&mdash;"Mama, let Fetchke and me wear our new shoes, in honor of
+Sabbath"; or "Papa, will you take us to-morrow across the bridge? You
+said you would, on Sabbath." And while we adorned ourselves in our
+best, my grandmother superintended the sealing of the oven, the maids
+washed the sweat from their faces, and the dvornik scraped his feet at
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>My father and brother went to the synagogue, while we women and girls
+assembled in the living-room for candle prayer. The table gleamed with
+spotless linen and china. At my father's place lay the Sabbath loaf,
+covered over with a crocheted doily; and beside it stood the wine
+flask and <i>kiddush</i> cup of gold or silver. At the opposite end of the
+table was a long row of brass candlesticks, polished to perfection,
+with the heavy silver candlesticks in a shorter row in front; for my
+mother and grandmother were very pious, and each used a number of
+candles; while Fetchke and I and the maids had one apiece.</p>
+
+<p>After the candle prayer the women generally read in some book of
+devotion, while we children amused ourselves in the quietest manner,
+till the men returned from synagogue. "Good Sabbath!" my father
+called, as he entered; and "Good Sabbath! Good Sabbath!" we wished him
+in return. If he brought with him a Sabbath <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>guest from the synagogue,
+some poor man without a home, the stranger was welcomed and invited
+in, and placed in the seat of honor, next to my father.</p>
+
+<p>We all stood around the table while <i>kiddush</i>, or the blessing over
+the wine, was said, and if a child whispered or nudged another my
+father reproved him with a stern look, and began again from the
+beginning. But as soon as he had cut the consecrated loaf, and
+distributed the slices, we were at liberty to talk and ask questions,
+unless a guest was present, when we maintained a polite silence.</p>
+
+<p>Of one Sabbath guest we were always sure, even if no destitute Jew
+accompanied my father from the synagogue. Yakub the choreman partook
+of the festival with us. He slept on a bunk built over the entrance
+door, and reached by means of a rude flight of steps. There he liked
+to roll on his straw and rags, whenever he was not busy, or felt
+especially lazy. On Friday evenings he climbed to his roost very
+early, before the family assembled for supper, and waited for his cue,
+which was the breaking-out of table talk after the blessing of the
+bread. Then Yakub began to clear his throat and kept on working at it
+until my father called to him to come down and have a glass of vodka.
+Sometimes my father pretended not to hear him, and we smiled at one
+another around the table, while Yakub's throat grew worse and worse,
+and he began to cough and mutter and rustle in his straw. Then my
+father let him come down, and he shuffled in, and stood clutching his
+cap with both hands, while my father poured him a brimming glass of
+whiskey. This Yakub dedicated to all our healths, and tossed off to
+his own comfort. If he got a slice of boiled fish after his glassful,
+he gulped it down as a chicken gulps worms, smacked his lips
+explosively, and wiped his fingers on his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>unkempt locks. Then,
+thanking his master and mistress, and scraping and bowing, he backed
+out of the room and ascended to his roost once more; and in less time
+than it takes to write his name, the simple fellow was asleep, and
+snoring the snore of the just.</p>
+
+<p>On Sabbath morning almost everybody went to synagogue, and those who
+did not, read their prayers and devotions at home. Dinner, at midday,
+was a pleasant and leisurely meal in our house. Between courses my
+father led us in singing our favorite songs, sometimes Hebrew,
+sometimes Yiddish, sometimes Russian, or some of the songs without
+words for which the Hasidim were famous. In the afternoon we went
+visiting, or else we took long walks out of town, where the fields
+sprouted and the orchards waited to bloom. If we stayed at home, we
+were not without company. Neighbors dropped in for a glass of tea.
+Uncles and cousins came, and perhaps my brother's rebbe, to examine
+his pupil in the hearing of the family. And wherever we spent the day,
+the talk was pleasant, the faces were cheerful, and the joy of Sabbath
+pervaded everything.</p>
+
+<p>The festivals were observed with all due pomp and circumstance in our
+house. Passover was beautiful with shining new things all through the
+house; <i>Purim</i> was gay with feasting and presents and the jolly
+mummers; <i>Succoth</i> was a poem lived in a green arbor; New-Year
+thrilled our hearts with its symbols and promises; and the Day of
+Atonement moved even the laughing children to a longing for
+consecration. The year, in our pious house, was an endless song in
+many cantos of joy, lamentation, aspiration, and rhapsody.</p>
+
+<p>We children, while we regretted the passing of a festival, found
+plenty to content us in the common days <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>of the week. We had
+everything we needed, and almost everything we wanted. We were
+welcomed everywhere, petted and praised, abroad as well as at home. I
+suppose no little girls with whom we played had a more comfortable
+sense of being well-off than Fetchke and I. "Raphael the Russian's
+grandchildren" people called us, as if referring to the quarterings in
+our shield. It was very pleasant to wear fine clothes, to have kopecks
+to spend at the fruit stalls, and to be pointed at admiringly. Some of
+the little girls we went with were richer than we, but after all one's
+mother can wear only one pair of earrings at a time, and our mother
+had beautiful gold ones that hung down on her neck.</p>
+
+<p>As we grew older, my parents gave us more than physical comfort and
+social standing to rejoice in. They gave us, or set out to give us,
+education, which was less common than gold earrings in Polotzk. For
+the ideal of a modern education was the priceless ware that my father
+brought back with him from his travels in distant parts. His travels,
+indeed, had been the making of my father. He had gone away from
+Polotzk, in the first place, as a man unfit for the life he led, out
+of harmony with his surroundings, at odds with his neighbors. Never
+heartily devoted to the religious ideals of the Hebrew scholar, he was
+more and more a dissenter as he matured, but he hardly knew what he
+wanted to embrace in place of the ideals he rejected. The rigid scheme
+of orthodox Jewish life in the Pale offered no opening to any other
+mode of life. But in the large cities in the east and south he
+discovered a new world, and found himself at home in it. The Jews
+among whom he lived in those parts were faithful to the essence of the
+religion, but they allowed themselves more latitude in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>practice and
+observance than the people in Polotzk. Instead of bribing government
+officials to relax the law of compulsory education for boys, these
+people pushed in numbers at every open door of culture and
+enlightenment. Even the girls were given books in Odessa and Kherson,
+as the rock to build their lives on, and not as an ornament for
+idleness. My father's mind was ready for the reception of such ideas,
+and he was inspired by the new view of the world which they afforded
+him.</p>
+
+<p>When he returned to Polotzk he knew what had been wrong with his life
+before, and he proceeded to remedy it. He resolved to live, as far as
+the conditions of existence in Polotzk permitted, the life of a modern
+man. And he saw no better place to begin than with the education of
+the children. Outwardly he must conform to the ways of his neighbors,
+just as he must pay tribute to the policeman on the beat; for standing
+room is necessary to all operations, and social ostracism could ruin
+him as easily as police persecution. His children, if he started them
+right, would not have to bow to the yoke as low as he; his children's
+children might even be free men. And education was the one means to
+redemption.</p>
+
+<p>Fetchke and I were started with a rebbe, in the orthodox way, but we
+were taught to translate as well as read Hebrew, and we had a secular
+teacher besides. My sister and I were very diligent pupils, and my
+father took great satisfaction in our progress and built great plans
+for our higher education.</p>
+
+<p>My brother, who was five years old when he entered heder, hated to be
+shut up all day over a printed page that meant nothing to him. He
+cried and protested, but my father was determined that he should not
+grow up <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>ignorant, so he used the strap freely to hasten the truant's
+steps to school. The heder was the only beginning allowable for a boy
+in Polotzk, and to heder Joseph must go. So the poor boy's life was
+made a nightmare, and the horror was not lifted until he was ten years
+old, when he went to a modern school where intelligible things were
+taught, and it proved that it was not the book he hated, but the
+blindness of the heder.</p>
+
+<p>For a number of peaceful years after my father's return from "far
+Russia," we led a wholesome life of comfort, contentment, and faith in
+to-morrow. Everything prospered, and we children grew in the sun. My
+mother was one with my father in all his plans for us. Although she
+had spent her young years in the pursuit of the ruble, it was more to
+her that our teacher praised us than that she had made a good bargain
+with a tea merchant. Fetchke and Joseph and I, and Deborah, when she
+grew up, had some prospects even in Polotzk, with our parents' hearts
+set on the highest things; but we were destined to seek our fortunes
+in a world which even my father did not dream of when he settled down
+to business in Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p>Just when he felt himself safe and strong, a long series of troubles
+set in to harass us, and in a few years' time we were reduced to a
+state of helpless poverty, in which there was no room to think of
+anything but bread. My father became seriously ill, and spent large
+sums on cures that did not cure him. While he was still an invalid, my
+mother also became ill and kept her bed for the better part of two
+years. When she got up, it was only to lapse again. Some of us
+children also fell ill, so that at one period the house was a
+hospital. And while my parents were incapacitated, the business was
+ruined <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>through bad management, until a day came when there was not
+enough money in the cash drawer to pay the doctor's bills.</p>
+
+<p>For some years after they got upon their feet again, my parents
+struggled to regain their place in the business world, but failed to
+do so. My father had another period of experimenting with this or that
+business, like his earlier experience. But everything went wrong, till
+at last he made a great resolve to begin life all over again. And the
+way to do that was to start on a new soil. My father determined to
+emigrate to America.</p>
+
+<p>I have now told who I am, what my people were, how I began life, and
+why I was brought to a new home. Up to this point I have borrowed the
+recollections of my parents, to piece out my own fragmentary
+reminiscences. But from now on I propose to be my own pilot across the
+seas of memory; and if I lose myself in the mists of uncertainty, or
+run aground on the reefs of speculation, I still hope to make port at
+last, and I shall look for welcoming faces on the shore. For the ship
+I sail in is history, and facts will kindle my beacon fires.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>I REMEMBER</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>My father and mother could tell me much more that I have forgotten, or
+that I never was aware of; but I want to reconstruct my childhood from
+those broken recollections only which, recurring to me in after years,
+filled me with the pain and wonder of remembrance. I want to string
+together those glimpses of my earliest days that dangle in my mind,
+like little lanterns in the crooked alleys of the past, and show me an
+elusive little figure that is myself, and yet so much a stranger to
+me, that I often ask, Can this be I?</p>
+
+<p>I have not much faith in the reality of my first recollection, but as
+I can never go back over the past without bringing up at last at this
+sombre little scene, as at a door beyond which I cannot pass, I must
+put it down for what it is worth in the scheme of my memories. I see,
+then, an empty, darkened room. In the middle, on the floor, lies a
+long Shape, covered with some black stuff. There are candles at the
+head of the Shape. Dim figures are seated low, against the walls,
+swaying to and fro. No sound is in the room, except a moan or a sigh
+from the shadowy figures; but a child is walking softly around and
+around the Shape on the floor, in quiet curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>The Shape is the body of my grandfather laid out for burial. The child
+is myself&mdash;myself asking questions of Death.</p>
+
+<p>I was four years old when my mother's father died. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>Do I really
+remember the little scene? Perhaps I heard it described by some fond
+relative, as I heard other anecdotes of my infancy, and unconsciously
+incorporated it with my genuine recollections. It is so suitable a
+scene for a beginning: the darkness, the mystery, the impenetrability.
+My share in it, too, is characteristic enough, if I really studied
+that Shape by the lighted candles, as I have always pretended to
+myself. So often afterwards I find myself forgetting the conventional
+meanings of things, in some search for a meaning of my own. It is more
+likely, however, that I took no intellectual interest in my
+grandfather's remains at the time, but later on, when I sought for a
+First Recollection, perhaps, elaborated the scene, and my part in it,
+to something that satisfied my sense of dramatic fitness. If I really
+committed such a fraud, I am now well punished, by being obliged, at
+the very start, to discredit the authenticity of my memoirs.</p>
+
+<p>The abode of our childhood, if not revisited in later years, is apt to
+loom in our imagination as a vast edifice with immense chambers in
+which our little self seems lost. Somehow I have failed of this
+illusion. My grandfather's house, where I was born, stands, in my
+memory, a small, one-story wooden building, whose chimneys touch the
+sky at the same level as its neighbors' chimneys. Such as it was, the
+house stood even with the sidewalk, but the yard was screened from the
+street by a board fence, outside which I am sure there was a bench.
+The gate into the yard swung so high from the ground that four-footed
+visitors did not have to wait till it was opened. Pigs found their way
+in, and were shown the way out, under the gate; grunting on their
+arrival, but squealing on their departure.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep080" id="imagep080"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep080.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep080.jpg" width="95%" alt="My Grandfather's House, Where I Was Born" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, WHERE I WAS BORN<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>Of the interior of the house I remember only one room, and not so much
+the room as the window, which had a blue sash curtain, and beyond the
+curtain a view of a narrow, walled garden, where deep-red dahlias
+grew. The garden belonged to the house adjoining my grandfather's,
+where lived the Gentile girl who was kind to me.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning my dahlias I have been told that they were not dahlias at
+all, but poppies. As a conscientious historian I am bound to record
+every rumor, but I retain the right to cling to my own impression.
+Indeed, I must insist on my dahlias, if I am to preserve the garden at
+all. I have so long believed in them, that if I try to see <i>poppies</i>
+in those red masses over the wall, the whole garden crumbles away, and
+leaves me a gray blank. I have nothing against poppies. It is only
+that my illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often
+build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling
+to pieces, if any one but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.</p>
+
+<p>Ours was a quiet neighborhood. Across the narrow street was the
+orderly front of the Korpus, or military academy, with straight rows
+of unshuttered windows. It was an imposing edifice in the eyes of us
+all, because it was built of brick, and was several stories high. At
+one of the windows I pretend I remember seeing a tailor mending the
+uniforms of the cadets. I knew the uniforms, and I knew, in later
+years, the man who had been the tailor; but I am not sure that he did
+not emigrate to America, there to seek his fortune in a candy shop,
+and his happiness in a family of triplets, twins, and even odds, long
+before I was old enough to toddle as far as the gate.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>Behind my grandfather's house was a low hill, which I do <i>not</i>
+remember as a mountain. Perhaps it was only a hump in the ground. This
+eminence, of whatever stature, was a part of the Vall, a longer and
+higher ridge on the top of which was a promenade, and which was said
+to be the burying-ground of Napoleonic soldiers. This historic rumor
+meant very little to me, for I never knew what Napoleon was.</p>
+
+<p>It was not my way to accept unchallenged every superstition that came
+to my ears. Among the wild flowers that grew on the grassy slopes of
+the Vall, there was a small daisy, popularly called "blind flower,"
+because it was supposed to cause blindness in rash children who picked
+it. I was rash, if I was awake; and I picked "blind flowers" behind
+the house, handfuls of them, and enjoyed my eyesight unimpaired. If my
+faith in nursery lore was shaken by this experience, I kept my
+discovery to myself, and did not undertake to enlighten my playmates.
+I find other instances, later on, of the curious fact that I was
+content with <i>finding out</i> for myself. It is curious to me because I
+am not so reticent now. When I discover anything, if only a new tint
+in the red sunset, I must publish the fact to all my friends. Is it
+possible that in my childish reflections I recognized the fact that
+ours was a secretive atmosphere, where knowledge was for the few, and
+wisdom was sometimes a capital offence?</p>
+
+<p>In the summer-time I lived outdoors considerably. I found many
+occasions to visit my mother in the store, which gave me a long walk.
+If my errand was not pressing&mdash;or perhaps even if it was&mdash;I made a
+long stop on the Platz, especially if I had a companion with me. The
+Platz was a rectangular space in the centre of a roomy square, with a
+shady promenade around its level <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>lawn. The Korpus faced on the Platz,
+which was its drill ground. Around the square were grouped the fine
+residences of the officers of the Korpus, with a great white church
+occupying one side. These buildings had a fearful interest for me,
+especially the church, as the dwellings and sanctuary of the enemy;
+but on the Platz I was not afraid to play and seek adventures. I loved
+to watch the cadets drill and play ball, or pass them close as they
+promenaded, two and two, looking so perfect in white trousers and
+jackets and visored caps. I loved to run with my playmates and lay out
+all sorts of geometric figures on the four straight sides of the
+promenade; patterns of infinite variety, traceable only by a pair of
+tireless feet. If one got so wild with play as to forget all fear, one
+could swing, until chased away by the guard, on the heavy chain
+festoons that encircled the monument at one side of the square. This
+was the only monument in Polotzk, dedicated I never knew to whom or
+what. It was the monument, as the sky was the sky, and the earth,
+earth: the only phenomenon of its kind, mysterious, unquestionable.</p>
+
+<p>It was not far from the limits of Polotzk to the fields and woods. My
+father was fond of taking us children for a long walk on a Sabbath
+afternoon. I have little pictures in my mind of places where we went,
+though I doubt if they could be found from my descriptions. I try in
+vain to conjure up a panoramic view of the neighborhood. Even when I
+stood on the apex of the Vall, and saw the level country spread in all
+directions, my inexperienced eyes failed to give me the picture of the
+whole. I saw the houses in the streets below, all going to market. The
+highroads wandered out into the country, and disappeared in the sunny
+distance, where the edge of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>earth and the edge of the sky fitted
+together, like a jewel box with the lid ajar. In these things I saw
+what a child always sees: the unrelated fragments of a vast,
+mysterious world. But although my geography may be vague, and the
+scenes I remember as the pieces of a paper puzzle, still my breath
+catches as I replace this bit or that, and coax the edges to fit
+together. I am obstinately positive of some points, and for the rest,
+you may amend the puzzle if you can. You may make a survey of Polotzk
+ever so accurate, and show me where I was wrong; still I am the better
+guide. You may show that my adventureful road led nowhere, but I can
+prove, by the quickening of my pulse and the throbbing of my rapid
+recollections, that <i>things happened to me</i> there or here; and I shall
+be believed, not you. And so over the vague canvas of scenes half
+remembered, half imagined, I draw the brush of recollection, and pick
+out here a landmark, there a figure, and set my own feet back in the
+old ways, and live over the old events. It is real enough, as by my
+beating heart you might know.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes my father took us out by the Long Road. There is no road in
+the neighborhood of Polotzk by that name, but I know very well that
+the way was long to my little feet; and long are the backward thoughts
+that creep along it, like a sunbeam travelling with the day.</p>
+
+<p>The first landmark on the sunny, dusty road is the house of a peasant
+acquaintance where we stopped for rest and a drink. I remember a cool
+gray interior, a woman with her bosom uncovered pattering barefoot to
+hand us the hospitable dipper, and a baby smothered in a deep cradle
+which hung by ropes from the ceiling. Farther on, the empty road gave
+us shadows of trees and rustlings of long grass. This, at least, is
+what I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>imagine over the spaces where no certain object is. Then, I
+know, we ran and played, and it was father himself who hid in the
+corn, and we made havoc following after. Laughing, we ramble on, till
+we hear the long, far whistle of a locomotive. The railroad track is
+just visible over the field on the <i>left</i> of the road; the cornfield,
+I say, is on the <i>right</i>. We stand on tiptoe and wave our hands and
+shout as the long train rushes by at a terrific speed, leaving its
+pennon of smoke behind.</p>
+
+<p>The passing of the train thrilled me wonderfully. Where did it come
+from, and whither did it fly, and how did it feel to be one of the
+faces at the windows? If ever I dreamed of a world beyond Polotzk, it
+must have been at those times, though I do not honestly remember.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere out on that same Long Road is the place where we once
+attended a wedding. I do not know who were married, or whether they
+lived happily ever after; but I remember that when the dancers were
+wearied, and we were all sated with goodies, day was dawning, and
+several of the young people went out for a stroll in a grove near by.
+They took me with them&mdash;who were they?&mdash;and they lost me. At any rate,
+when they saw me again, I was a stranger. For I had sojourned, for an
+immeasurable moment, in a world apart from theirs. I had witnessed my
+first sunrise; I had watched the rosy morning tiptoe in among the
+silver birches. And that grove stands on the <i>left</i> side of the road.</p>
+
+<p>We had another stopping-place out in that direction. It was the place
+where my mother sent her hundred and more house plants to be cared for
+one season, because for some reason they could not fare well at home.
+We children went to visit them once; and the memory of that is red and
+white and purple.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>The Long Road went ever on and on; I remember no turns. But we turned
+at last, when the sun was set and the breeze of evening blew; and
+sometimes the first star came in and the Sabbath went out before we
+reached home and supper.</p>
+
+<p>Another way out of town was by the bridge across the Polota. I recall
+more than one excursion in that direction. Sometimes we made a large
+party, annexing a few cousins and aunts for the day. At this moment I
+feel a movement of affection for these relations who shared our
+country adventures. I had forgotten what virtue there was in our
+family; I do like people who can walk. In those days, it is likely
+enough, I did not always walk on my own legs, for I was very little,
+and not strong. I do not remember being carried, but if any of my big
+uncles gave me a lift, I am sure I like them all the more for it.</p>
+
+<p>The Dvina River swallowed the Polota many times a day, yet the lesser
+stream flooded the universe on one occasion. On the hither bank of
+that stream, as you go from Polotzk, I should plant a flowering bush,
+a lilac or a rose, in memory of the life that bloomed in me one day
+that I was there.</p>
+
+<p>Leisurely we had strolled out of the peaceful town. It was early
+spring, and the sky and the earth were two warm palms in which all
+live things nestled. Little green leaves trembled on the trees, and
+the green, green grass sparkled. We sat us down to rest a little above
+the bridge; and life flowed in and out of us fully, freely, as the
+river flowed and parted about the bridge piles.</p>
+
+<p>A market garden lay on the opposite slope, yellow-green with first
+growth. In the long black furrows yet unsown a peasant pushed his
+plow. I watched him go up <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>and down, leaving a new black line on the
+bank for every turn. Suddenly he began to sing, a rude plowman's song.
+Only the melody reached me, but the meaning sprang up in my heart to
+fit it&mdash;a song of the earth and the hopes of the earth. I sat a long
+time listening, looking, tense with attention. I felt myself
+discovering things. Something in me gasped for life, and lay still. I
+was but a little body, and Life Universal had suddenly burst upon me.
+For a moment I had my little hand on the Great Pulse, but my fingers
+slipped, empty. For the space of a wild heartbeat I <i>knew</i>, and then I
+was again a simple child, looking to my earthly senses for life. But
+the sky had stretched for me, the earth had expanded; a greater life
+had dawned in me.</p>
+
+<p>We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first and the
+spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are
+attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful.
+Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we
+ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth. Our souls
+are scarred with the struggles of successive births, and the process
+is recorded also by the wrinkles in our brains, by the lines in our
+faces. Look at me and you will see that I have been born many times.
+And my first self-birth happened, as I have told, that spring day of
+my early springs. Therefore would I plant a rose on the green bank of
+the Polota, there to bloom in token of eternal life.</p>
+
+<p>Eternal, divine life. This is a tale of immortal life. Should I be
+sitting here, chattering of my infantile adventures, if I did not know
+that I was speaking for thousands? Should you be sitting there,
+attending to my chatter, while the world's work waits, if you did not
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>know that I spoke also for you? I might say "you" or "he" instead of
+"I." Or I might be silent, while you spoke for me and the rest, but
+for the accident that I was born with a pen in my hand, and you
+without. We love to read the lives of the great, yet what a broken
+history of mankind they give, unless supplemented by the lives of the
+humble. But while the great can speak for themselves, or by the
+tongues of their admirers, the humble are apt to live inarticulate and
+die unheard. It is well that now and then one is born among the simple
+with a taste for self-revelation. The man or woman thus endowed must
+speak, will speak, though there are only the grasses in the field to
+hear, and none but the wind to carry the tale.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>It is fun to run over the bridge, with a clatter of stout little shoes
+on resounding timbers. We pass a walled orchard on the right, and
+remind each other of the fruit we enjoyed here last summer. Our next
+stopping-place is farther on, beyond the wayside inn where lives the
+idiot boy who gave me such a scare last time. It is a poor enough
+place, where we stop, but there is an ice house, the only one I know.
+We are allowed to go in and see the greenish masses of ice gleaming in
+the half-light, and bring out jars of sweet, black "lager beer," which
+we drink in the sunny doorway. I shall always remember the flavor of
+the stuff, and the smell, and the wonder and chill of the ice house.</p>
+
+<p>I vaguely remember something about a convent out in that direction,
+but I was tired and sleepy after my long walk, and glad to be
+returning home. I hope they carried me a bit of the way, for I was
+very tired. There were stars out before we reached home, and the men
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>stopped in the middle of the street to bless the new moon.</p>
+
+<p>It is pleasant to recall how we went bathing in the Polota. On Friday
+afternoons in summer, when the week's work was done, and the houses of
+the good housewives stood shining with cleanliness, ready for the
+Sabbath, parties of women and girls went chattering and laughing down
+to the river bank. There was a particular spot which belonged to the
+women. I do not know where the men bathed, but our part of the river
+was just above Bonderoff's gristmill. I can see the green bank sloping
+to the water, and the still water sliding down to the sudden swirl and
+spray of the mill race.</p>
+
+<p>The woods on the bank screened the bathers. Bathing costumes were
+simply absent, which caused the mermaids no embarrassment, for they
+were accustomed to see each other naked in the public hot baths. They
+had little fear of intrusion, for the spot was sacred to them. They
+splashed about and laughed and played tricks, with streaming hair and
+free gestures. I do not know when I saw the girls play as they did in
+the water. It was a pretty picture, but the bathers would have been
+shocked beyond your understanding if you had suggested that naked
+women might be put into a picture. If it ever happened, as it happened
+at least once for me to remember, that their privacy was outraged, the
+bathers were thrown into a panic as if their very lives were
+threatened. Screaming, they huddled together, low in the water, some
+hiding their eyes in their hands, with the instinct of the ostrich.
+Some ran for their clothes on the bank, and stood shrinking behind
+some inadequate rag. The more spirited of the naiads threw pebbles at
+the cowardly intruders, who, safe behind the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>leafy cover that was
+meant to shield modesty, threw jeers and mockery in return. But the
+Gentile boys ran away soon, or ran away punished. A chemise and a
+petticoat turn a frightened woman into an Amazon in such
+circumstances; and woe to the impudent wretch who lingered after the
+avengers plunged into the thicket. Slaps and cuffs at close range were
+his portion, and curses pursued him in retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Among the liveliest of my memories are those of eating and drinking;
+and I would sooner give up some of my delightful remembered walks,
+green trees, cool skies, and all, than to lose my images of suppers
+eaten on Sabbath evenings at the end of those walks. I make no apology
+to the spiritually minded, to whom this statement must be a revelation
+of grossness. I am content to tell the truth as well as I am able. I
+do not even need to console myself with the reflection that what is
+dross to the dreamy ascetic may be gold to the psychologist. The fact
+is that I ate, even as a delicate child, with considerable relish; and
+I remember eating with a relish still keener. Why, I can dream away a
+half-hour on the immortal flavor of those thick cheese cakes we used
+to have on Saturday night. I am no cook, so I cannot tell you how to
+make such cake. I might borrow the recipe from my mother, but I would
+rather you should take my word for the excellence of Polotzk cheese
+cakes. If you should attempt that pastry, I am certain, be you ever so
+clever a cook, you would be disappointed by the result; and hence you
+might be led to mistrust my reflections and conclusions. You have
+nothing in your kitchen cupboard to give the pastry its notable
+flavor. It takes history to make such a cake. First, you must eat it
+as a ravenous child, in memorable twilights, before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>the lighting of
+the week-day lamp. Then you must have yourself removed from the house
+of your simple feast, across the oceans, to a land where your
+cherished pastry is unknown even by name; and where daylight and
+twilight, work day and f&ecirc;te day, for years rush by you in the unbroken
+tide of a strange, new, overfull life. You must abstain from the
+inimitable morsel for a period of years,&mdash;I think fifteen is the magic
+number,&mdash;and then suddenly, one day, rub the Aladdin's lamp of memory,
+and have the renowned tidbit whisked upon your platter, garnished with
+a hundred sweet herbs of past association.</p>
+
+<p>Do you think all your imported spices, all your scientific blending
+and manipulating, could produce so fragrant a morsel as that which I
+have on my tongue as I write? Glad am I that my mother, in her
+assiduous imitation of everything American, has forgotten the secrets
+of Polotzk cookery. At any rate, she does not practise it, and I am
+the richer in memories for her omissions. Polotzk cheese cake, as I
+now know it, has in it the flavor of daisies and clover picked on the
+Vall; the sweetness of Dvina water; the richness of newly turned earth
+which I moulded with bare feet and hands; the ripeness of red cherries
+bought by the dipperful in the market place; the fragrance of all my
+childhood's summers.</p>
+
+<p>Abstinence, as I have mentioned, is one of the essential ingredients
+in the phantom dish. I discovered this through a recent experience. It
+was cherry time in the country, and the sight of the scarlet fruit
+suddenly reminded me of a cherry season in Polotzk, I could not say
+how many years ago. On that earlier occasion my Cousin Shimke, who,
+like everybody else, was a storekeeper, had set a boy to watch her
+store, and me to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>watch the boy, while she went home to make cherry
+preserves. She gave us a basket of cherries for our trouble, and the
+boy offered to eat them with the stones if I would give him my share.
+But I was equal to that feat myself, so we sat down to a cherry-stone
+contest. Who ate the most stones I could not remember as I stood under
+the laden trees not long ago, but the transcendent flavor of the
+historical cherries came back to me, and I needs must enjoy it once
+more.</p>
+
+<p>I climbed into the lowest boughs and hung there, eating cherries with
+the stones, my whole mind concentrated on the sense of taste. Alas!
+the fruit had no such flavor to yield as I sought. Excellent American
+cherries were these, but not so fragrantly sweet as my cousin's
+cherries. And if I should return to Polotzk, and buy me a measure of
+cherries at a market stall, and pay for it with a Russian groschen,
+would the market woman be generous enough to throw in that haunting
+flavor? I fear I should find that the old species of cherry is extinct
+in Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, when I am not trying to remember at all, I am more
+fortunate in extracting the flavors of past feasts from my plain
+American viands. I was eating strawberries the other day, ripe, red
+American strawberries. Suddenly I experienced the very flavor and
+aroma of some strawberries I ate perhaps twenty years ago. I started
+as from a shock, and then sat still for I do not know how long,
+breathless with amazement. In the brief interval of a gustatory
+perception I became a child again, and I positively ached with the
+pain of being so suddenly compressed to that small being. I wandered
+about Polotzk once more, with large, questioning eyes; I rode the
+Atlantic in an emigrant ship; I took <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>possession of the New World, my
+ears growing accustomed to a new language; I sat at the feet of
+renowned professors, till my eyes contracted in dreaming over what
+they taught; and there I was again, an American among Americans,
+suddenly made aware of all that I had been, all that I had
+become&mdash;suddenly illuminated, inspired by a complete vision of myself,
+a daughter of Israel and a child of the universe, that taught me more
+of the history of my race than ever my learned teachers could
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>All this came to me in that instant of tasting, all from the flavor of
+ripe strawberries on my tongue. Why, then, should I not treasure my
+memories of childhood feasts? This experience gives me a great respect
+for my bread and meat. I want to taste of as many viands as possible;
+for when I sit down to a dish of porridge I am certain of rising again
+a better animal, and I may rise a wiser man. I want to eat and drink
+and be instructed. Some day I expect to extract from my pudding the
+flavor of manna which I ate in the desert, and then I shall write you
+a contemporaneous commentary on the Exodus. Nor do I despair of
+remembering yet, over a dish of corn, the time when I fed on worms;
+and then I may be able to recall how it felt to be made at last into a
+man. Give me to eat and drink, for I crave wisdom.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>My winters, while I was a very little girl, were passed in comparative
+confinement. On account of my delicate health, my grandmother and
+aunts deemed it wise to keep me indoors; or if I went out, I was so
+heavily coated and mittened and shawled that the frost scarcely got a
+chance at the tip of my nose. I never skated or coasted or built snow
+houses. If I had any experience <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>of snowballs, it was with those
+thrown at me by the Gentile boys. The way I dodge a snowball to this
+day makes me certain that I learned the act in my fearful childhood
+days, when I learned so many cowardly tricks of bending to a blow. I
+know that I was proud of myself when, not many years ago, I found I
+was not afraid to stand up and catch a flying baseball; but the fear
+of the snowball I have not conquered. When I turn a corner in snowball
+days, the boys with bulging pockets see a head held high and a step
+unquickened, but I know that I cringe inwardly; and this private
+mortification I set down against old Polotzk, in my long score of
+grievances and shames. Fear is a devil hard to cast out.</p>
+
+<p>Let me make the most of the winter adventures that I recall. First,
+there was sleighing. We never kept horses of our own, but the horses
+of our customer-guests were always at our disposal, and many a jolly
+ride they gave us, with the dvornik at the reins, while their owners
+haggled with my mother in the store about the price of soap. We had no
+luxurious sleigh, with cushions and fur robes, no silver bells on our
+harness. Ours was a bare sledge used for hauling wood, with a padding
+of straw and burlap, and the reins, as likely as not, were a knotted
+rope. But the horses did fly, over the river and up the opposite bank
+if we chose; and whether we had bells or not, the merry, foolish heart
+of Yakub would sing, and the whip would crack, and we children would
+laugh; and the sport was as good as when, occasionally, we did ride in
+a more splendid sleigh, loaned us by one of our prouder guests. We
+were wholesome as apples to look at when we returned for bread and tea
+in the dusk; at least I remember my sister, with cheeks as red as a
+painted doll's under her close-clipped curls; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>and my little brother,
+rosy, too, and aristocratic-looking enough, in his little greatcoat
+tied with a red sash, and little fur cap with earlaps. For myself, I
+suppose my nose was purple and my cheeks pinched, just as they are now
+in the cold weather; but I had a good time.</p>
+
+<p>At certain&mdash;I mean uncertain&mdash;intervals we were bundled up and marched
+to the public baths. This was so great an undertaking, consuming half
+a day or so, and involving, in winter, such risk of catching cold,
+that it is no wonder the ceremony was not practised oftener.</p>
+
+<p>The public baths were situated on the river bank. I always stopped
+awhile outside, to visit the poor patient horse in the treadmill, by
+means of which the water was pumped into the baths. I was not
+sentimental about animals then. I had not read of "Black Beauty" or
+any other personified monsters; I had not heard of any societies for
+the prevention of cruelty to anything. But my pity stirred of its own
+accord at the sight of that miserable brute in the treadmill. I was
+used to seeing horses hard-worked and abused. This horse had no load
+to make him sweat, and I never saw him whipped. Yet I pitied this
+creature. Round and round his little circle he trod, with head hanging
+and eyes void of expectation; round and round all day, unthrilled by
+any touch of rein or bridle, interpreters of a living will; round and
+round, all solitary, never driven, never checked, never addressed;
+round and round and round, a walking machine, with eyes that did not
+flash, with teeth that did not threaten, with hoofs that did not
+strike; round and round the dull day long. I knew what a horse's life
+should be, entangled with the life of a master: adventurous, troubled,
+thrilled; petted and opposed, loved and abused; to-day the ringing
+city pavement <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>underfoot, and the buzz of beasts and men in the market
+place; to-morrow the yielding turf under tickled flanks, and the lone
+whinny of scattered mates. How empty the existence of the treadmill
+horse beside this! As empty and endless and dull as the life of almost
+any woman in Polotzk, had I had eyes to see the likeness.</p>
+
+<p>But to my ablutions!</p>
+
+<p>We undress in a room leading directly from the entry, and furnished
+only with benches around the walls. There is no screen or other
+protection against the drafts rushing in every time the door is
+opened. When we enter the bathing-room we are confused by a babel of
+sounds&mdash;shrill voices of women, hoarse voices of attendants, wailing
+and yelping of children, and rushing of water. At the same time we are
+smitten by the heat of the room and nearly suffocated by clouds of
+steam. We find at last an empty bench, and surround ourselves with a
+semicircle of wooden pails, collected from all around the room.
+Sometimes two women in search of pails lay hold of the same pail at
+the same moment, and a wrangle ensues, in the course of which each
+disputant reminds the other of all her failings, nicknames, and
+undesirable connections, living, dead, and unborn; until an attendant
+interferes, with more muscle than argument, punctuating the sentence
+of justice with newly coined expletives suggested by the occasion. The
+centre of the room, where the bathers fill their pails at the faucets,
+is a field of endless battle, especially on a crowded day. The
+peaceful women seated within earshot stop their violent scrubbing, to
+the relief of unwilling children, while they attend to the liveliest
+of the quarrels.</p>
+
+<p>I like to watch the <i>poll</i>, that place of torture and heroic
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>endurance. It is a series of steps rising to the ceiling, affording a
+gradually mounting temperature. The bather who wants to enjoy a
+violent sweating rests full length for a few minutes on each step,
+while an attendant administers several hearty strokes of a stinging
+besom. Sometimes a woman climbs too far, and is brought down in a
+faint. On the poll, also, the cupping is done. The back of the
+patient, with the cups in even rows, looks to me like a muffin pan. Of
+course I never go on the poll: I am not robust enough. My spankings I
+take at home.</p>
+
+<p>Another centre of interest is the <i>mikweh</i>, the name of which it is
+indelicate to mention in the hearing of men. It is a large pool of
+standing water, its depth graded by means of a flight of steps. Every
+married woman must perform here certain ceremonious ablutions at
+regular intervals. Cleanliness is as strictly enjoined as godliness,
+and the manner of attaining it is carefully prescribed. The women are
+prepared by the attendants for entering the pool, the curious children
+looking on. In the pool they are ducked over their heads the correct
+number of times. The water in the pool has been standing for days; it
+does not look nor smell fresh. But we had no germs in Polotzk, so no
+harm came of it, any more than of the pails used promiscuously by
+feminine Polotzk. If any were so dainty as to have second thoughts
+about the use of the common bath, they could enjoy, for a fee of
+twenty-five kopecks, a private bathtub in another part of the
+building. For the rich there were luxuries even in Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p>Cleansed, red-skinned, and steaming, we return at last to the
+dressing-room, to shiver, as we dress, in the cold drafts from the
+entry door; and then, muffled up to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>the eyes, we plunge into the
+refreshing outer air, and hurry home, looking like so many big bundles
+running away with smaller bundles. If we meet acquaintances on the way
+we are greeted with "<i>zu refueh</i>" ("to your good health"). If the
+first man we meet is a Gentile, the women who have been to the mikweh
+have to return and repeat the ceremony of purification. To prevent
+such a calamity, the kerchief is worn hooded over the eyes, so as to
+exclude unholy sights. At home we are indulged with extra pieces of
+cake for tea, and otherwise treated like heroes returned from victory.
+We narrate anecdotes of our expedition, and my mother complains that
+my little brother is getting too old to be taken to the women's bath.
+He will go hereafter with the men.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep098" id="imagep098"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep098.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep098.jpg" width="95%" alt="The Meat Market, Polotzk" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">THE MEAT MARKET, POLOTZK<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>My winter confinement was not shared by my older sister, who otherwise
+was my constant companion. She went out more than I, not being so
+afraid of the cold. She used to fret so when my mother was away in the
+store that it became a custom for her to accompany my mother from the
+time she was a mere baby. Muffled and rosy and frost-bitten, the tears
+of cold rolling unnoticed down her plump cheeks, she ran after my busy
+mother all day long, or tumbled about behind the counter, or nestled
+for a nap among the bulging sacks of oats and barley. She warmed her
+little hands over my mother's pot of glowing charcoal&mdash;there was no
+stove in the store&mdash;and even learned to stand astride of it, for
+further comfort, without setting her clothes on fire.</p>
+
+<p>Fetchke was like a young colt inseparable from the mare. I make this
+comparison not in disrespectful jest, but in deepest pity. Fetchke
+kept close to my mother at first for love and protection, but the
+petting she got became a blind for discipline. She learned early, from
+my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>mother's example, that hands and feet and brains were made for
+labor. She learned to bow to the yoke, to lift burdens, to do more for
+others than she could ever hope to have done for her in turn. She
+learned to see sugar plums lie around without asking for her share.
+When she was only fit to nurse her dolls, she learned how to comfort a
+weary heart.</p>
+
+<p>And all this while I sat warm and watched over at home, untouched by
+any discipline save such as I directly incurred by my own sins. I
+differed from Fetchke a little in age, considerably in health, and
+enormously in luck. It was my good luck, in the first place, to be
+born after her, instead of before; in the second place, to inherit,
+from the family stock, that particular assortment of gifts which was
+sure to mark me for special attentions, exemptions, and privileges;
+and as fortune always smiles on good fortune, it has ever been my
+luck, in the third place, to find something good in my idle
+hand&mdash;whether a sunbeam, or a loving heart, or a congenial
+task&mdash;whenever, on turning a corner, I put out my hand to see what my
+new world was like; while my sister, dear, devoted creature, had her
+hands so full of work that the sunbeam slipped, and the loving comrade
+passed out of hearing before she could straighten from her task, and
+all she had of the better world was a scented zephyr fanned in her
+face by the irresistible closing of a door.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Esau has been too severely blamed for selling his birthright
+for a mess of pottage. The lot of the firstborn is not necessarily to
+be envied. The firstborn of a well-to-do patriarch, like Isaac, or of
+a Rothschild of to-day, inherits, with his father's flocks and slaves
+and coffers, a troop of cares and responsibilities; unless he be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>a
+man without a sense of duty, in which case we are not supposed to envy
+him. The firstborn of an indigent father inherits a double measure of
+the disadvantages of poverty,&mdash;a joyless childhood, a guideless youth,
+and perhaps a mateless manhood, his own life being drained to feed the
+young of his father's begetting. If we cannot do away with poverty
+entirely, we ought at least to abolish the institution of
+primogeniture. Nature invented the individual, and promised him, as a
+reward for lusty being, comfort and immortality. Comes man with his
+patented brains and copyrighted notions, and levies a tax on the
+individual, in the form of enforced co&ouml;peration, for the maintenance
+of his pet institution, the family. Our comfort, in the grip of this
+tyranny, must lie in the hope that man, who is no bastard child of
+Mother Nature, may be approaching a more perfect resemblance to her
+majestic features; that his fitful development will culminate in a
+spiritual constitution capable of absolute justice.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>I think I was telling how I stayed at home in the winter, while my
+sister helped or hindered my mother in her store-keeping. The days
+drew themselves out too long sometimes, so that I sat at the window
+thinking what should happen next. No dolls, no books, no games, and at
+times no companions. My grandmother taught me knitting, but I never
+got to the heel of my stocking, because if I discovered a dropped
+stitch I insisted on unravelling all my work till I picked it up; and
+grandmother, instead of encouraging me in my love for perfection, lost
+patience and took away my knitting needles. I still maintain that she
+was in the wrong, but I have forgiven her, since I have worn many
+pairs of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>stockings with dropped stitches, and been grateful for them.
+And speaking of such everyday things reminds me of my friends, among
+whom also I find an impressive number with a stitch dropped somewhere
+in the pattern of their souls. I love these friends so dearly that I
+begin to think I am at last shedding my intolerance; for I remember
+the day when I could not love less than perfection. I and my imperfect
+friends together aspire to cast our blemishes, and I am happier so.</p>
+
+<p>There was not much to see from my window, yet adventures beckoned to
+me from the empty street. Sometimes the adventure was real, and I went
+out to act in it, instead of dreaming on my stool. Once, I remember,
+it was early spring, and the winter's ice, just chopped up by the
+street cleaners, lay muddy and ragged and high in the streets from
+curb to curb. So it must lie till there was time to cart it to the
+Dvina, which had all it could do at this season to carry tons, and
+heavy tons, of ice and snow and every sort of city rubbish,
+accumulated during the long closed months. Polotzk had no underground
+communication with the sea, save such as water naturally makes for
+itself. The poor old Dvina was hard-worked, serving both as
+drinking-fountain and sewer, as a bridge in winter, a highway in
+summer, and a playground at all times. So it served us right if we had
+to wait weeks and weeks in thawing time for our streets to be cleared;
+and we deserved all the sprains and bruises we suffered from
+clambering over the broken ice in the streets while going about our
+business.</p>
+
+<p>Leah the Short, little and straight and neat, with a basket on one arm
+and a bundle under the other, stood hesitating on the edge of the curb
+opposite my window. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>Her poor old face, framed in its calico kerchief,
+had a wrinkle of anxiety in it. The tumbled ice heap in the street
+looked to her like an impassable barrier. Tiny as she was, and loaded,
+she had reason to hesitate. Perhaps she had eggs in her basket,&mdash;I
+thought of that as I looked at her across the street; and I thought of
+my old ambition to measure myself, shoulder to shoulder, with Leah,
+reputedly short. I was small myself, and was constantly reminded of it
+by a variety of nicknames, lovingly or vengefully invented by my
+friends and enemies. I was called Mouse and Crumb and Poppy Seed.
+Should I live to be called, in my old age, Mashke the Short? I longed
+to measure my stature by Leah's, and here was my chance.</p>
+
+<p>I ran out into the street, my grandmother scolding me for going
+without a shawl, and I calling back to her to be sure and watch me. I
+skipped over the ice blocks like a goat, and offered my assistance to
+Leah the Short. With admirable skill and solicitude I guided her timid
+steps across the street, at the same time winking to my grandmother at
+the window, and pointing to my shoulder close to Leah's. Once on the
+safe sidewalk, the tiny woman thanked me and blessed me and praised me
+for a thoughtful child; and I watched her toddle away without the
+least stir of shame at my hypocrisy. She had convinced me that I was a
+good little girl, and I had convinced myself that I was not so very
+short. My chin was almost on a level with Leah's shoulder, and I had
+years ahead in which to elevate it. Grandma at the window was witness,
+and I was entirely happy. If I caught cold from going bareheaded, so
+much the better; mother would give me rock candy for my cough.</p>
+
+<p>For the long winter evenings there was plenty of quiet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>occupation. I
+liked to sit with the women at the long bare table picking feathers
+for new featherbeds. It was pleasant to poke my hand into the
+soft-heaped mass and set it all in motion. I pretended that I could
+pick out the feathers of particular hens, formerly my pets. I
+reflected that they had fed me with eggs and broth, and now were going
+to make my bed so soft; while I had done nothing for them but throw
+them a handful of oats now and then, or chase them about, or spoil
+their nests. I was not ashamed of my part; I knew that if I were a hen
+I should do as a hen does. I just liked to think about things in my
+idle way.</p>
+
+<p>Itke, the housemaid, was always the one to break in upon my
+reflections. She was sure to have a fit of sneezing just when the heap
+on the table was highest, sending clouds of feathers into the air,
+like a homemade snowstorm. After that the evening was finished by our
+picking the feathers from each other's hair.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we played cards or checkers, munching frost-bitten apples
+between moves. Sometimes the women sewed, and we children wound yarn
+or worsted for grandmother's knitting. If somebody had a story to tell
+while the rest worked, the evening passed with a pleasant sense of
+semi-idleness for all.</p>
+
+<p>On a Saturday night, the Sabbath being just departed, ghost stories
+were particularly in favor. After two or three of the creepy legends
+we began to move closer together under the lamp. At the end of an hour
+or so we started and screamed if a spool fell, or a window rattled. At
+bedtime nobody was willing to make the round of doors and windows, and
+we were afraid to bring a candle into a dark room.</p>
+
+<p>I was just as much afraid as anybody. I am afraid <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>now to be alone in
+the house at night. I certainly was afraid that Saturday night when
+somebody, in bravado, suggested fresh-baked buns, as a charm to dispel
+the ghosts. The baker who lived next door always baked on Saturday
+night. Who would go and fetch the buns? Nobody dared to venture
+outdoors. It had snowed all evening; the frosted windows prevented a
+preliminary survey of the silent night. <i>Brr-rr!</i> Nobody would take
+the dare.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody but me. Oh, how the creeps ran up and down my back! and oh! how
+I loved to distinguish myself! I let them bundle me up till I was
+nearly smothered. I paused with my mittened hand on the latch. I
+shivered, though I could have sat the night out with a Polar bear
+without another shawl. I opened the door, and then turned back, to
+make a speech.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid," I said, in the noble accents of courage. "I am not
+afraid to go. God goes with me."</p>
+
+<p>Pride goeth before a fall. On the step outside I slid down into a
+drift, just on the eve of triumph. They picked me up; they brought me
+in. They found all of me inside my wrappings. They gave me a piece of
+sugar and sent me to bed. And I was very glad. I did hate to go all
+the way next door and all the way back, through the white snow, under
+the white stars, invisible company keeping step with me.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>And I remember my playmates.</p>
+
+<p>There was always a crowd of us girls. We were a mixed set,&mdash;rich
+little girls, well-to-do little girls, and poor little girls,&mdash;but not
+because we were so democratic. Rather it came about, if my sister and
+I are considered the centre of the ring, because we had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>suffered the
+several grades of fortune. In our best days no little girls had to
+stoop to us; in our humbler days we were not so proud that we had to
+condescend to our chance neighbors. The granddaughters of Raphael the
+Russian, in retaining their breeding and manners, retained a few of
+their more exalted friends, and became a link between them and those
+whom they later adopted through force of propinquity.</p>
+
+<p>We were human little girls, so our amusements mimicked the life about
+us. We played house, we played soldiers, we played Gentiles, we
+celebrated weddings and funerals. We copied the life about us
+literally. We had not been to a Froebel kindergarten, and learned to
+impersonate butterflies and stones. Our elders would have laughed at
+us for such nonsense. I remember once standing on the river bank with
+a little boy, when a quantity of lumber was floating down on its way
+to the distant sawmill. A log and a board crowded each other near
+where we stood. The board slipped by first, but presently it swerved
+and swung partly around. Then it righted itself with the stream and
+kept straight on, the lazy log following behind. Said Zalmen to me,
+interpreting: "The board looks back and says, 'Log, log, you will not
+go with me? Then I will go on by myself.'" That boy was called simple,
+on account of such speeches as this. I wonder in what language he is
+writing poetry now.</p>
+
+<p>We had very few toys. Neither Fetchke nor I cared much for dolls. A
+rag baby apiece contented us, and if we had a set of jackstones we
+were perfectly happy. Our jackstones, by the way, were not stones but
+bones. We used the knuckle bones of sheep, dried and scraped; every
+little girl cherished a set in her pocket.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>I did not care much for playing house. I liked soldiers better, but it
+was not much fun without boys. Boys and girls always played apart.</p>
+
+<p>I was very fond of playing Gentiles. I am afraid I liked everything
+that was a little risky. I particularly enjoyed being the corpse in a
+Gentile funeral. I was laid across two chairs, and my playmates, in
+borrowed shawls and long calicoes, with their hair loose and with
+candlesticks in their hands, marched around me, singing unearthly
+songs, and groaning till they scared themselves. As I lay there,
+covered over with a black cloth, I felt as dead as dead could be; and
+my playmates were the unholy priests in gorgeous robes of velvet and
+silk and gold. Their candlesticks were the crosiers that were carried
+in Christian funeral processions, and their chantings were hideous
+incantations to the arch enemy, the Christian God of horrible images.
+As I imagined the bareheaded crowds making way for my funeral to pass,
+my flesh crept, not because I was about to be buried, but because the
+people <i>crossed themselves</i>. But our procession stopped outside the
+church, because we did not dare to carry even our make-believe across
+that accursed threshold. Besides, none of us had ever been
+inside,&mdash;God forbid!&mdash;so we did not know what did happen next.</p>
+
+<p>When I arose from my funeral I was indeed a ghost. I felt unreal and
+lost and hateful. I don't think we girls liked each other much after
+playing funeral. Anyway, we never played any more on the same day; or
+if we did, we soon quarrelled. Such was the hold which our hereditary
+terrors and hatreds had upon our childish minds that if we only mocked
+a Christian procession in our play, we suffered a mutual revulsion of
+feeling, as if we had led each other into sin.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>We gathered oftener at our house than anywhere else. On Sabbath days
+we refrained, of course, from soldiering and the like, but we had just
+as good a time, going off to promenade, two and two, in our very best
+dresses; whispering secrets and telling stories. We had a few stories
+in the circle&mdash;I do not know how they came to us&mdash;and these were told
+over and over. Gutke knew the best story of all. She told the story of
+Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and she told it well. It was her
+story, and nobody else ever attempted it, though I, for one, soon had
+it by heart. Gutke's version of the famous tale was unlike any I have
+since read, but it was essentially the story of Aladdin, so that I was
+able to identify it later when I found it in a book. Names, incidents,
+and "local color" were slightly Hebraized, but the supernatural
+wonders of treasure caves, jewelled gardens, genii, princesses, and
+all, were not in the least marred or diminished. Gutke would spin the
+story out for a long afternoon, and we all listened entranced, even at
+the hundredth rehearsal. We had a few other fairy stories,&mdash;I later
+identified them with stories of Grimm's or of Andersen's,&mdash;but for the
+most part the tales we told were sombre and unimaginative; tales our
+nurses used to tell to frighten us into good behavior.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we spent a whole afternoon in dancing. We made our own
+music, singing as we danced, or somebody blew on a comb with a bit of
+paper over its teeth; and comb music is not to be despised when there
+is no other sort. We knew the polka and the waltz, the mazurka, the
+quadrille, and the lancers, and several fancy dances. We did not
+hesitate to invent new steps or figures, and we never stopped till we
+were out of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>breath. I was one of the most enthusiastic dancers. I
+danced till I felt as if I could fly.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we sat in a ring and sang all the songs we knew. None of us
+were trained,&mdash;we had never seen a sheet of music&mdash;but some of us
+could sing any tune that was ever heard in Polotzk, and the others
+followed half a bar behind. I enjoyed these singing-bees. We had
+Hebrew songs and Jewish and Russian; solemn songs, and jolly songs,
+and songs unfit for children, but harmless enough on our innocent
+lips. I enjoyed the play of moods in these songs&mdash;I liked to be
+harrowed one minute and tickled the next. I threw all my heart into
+the singing, which was only fair, as I had very little voice to throw
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Although I always joined the crowd when any fun was on foot, I think I
+had the best times by myself. My sister was fond of housework, but
+I&mdash;I was fond of idleness. While Fetchke pottered in the kitchen
+beside the maid or trotted all about the house after my grandmother, I
+wasted time in some window corner, or studied the habits of the cow
+and the chickens in the yard. I always found something to do that was
+of no use to anybody. I had no particular fondness for animals; I
+liked to see what they did, merely because they were curious. The red
+cow would go to meet my grandmother as she came out of the kitchen
+with a bucket of bran for her. She drank it up in no time, the greedy
+creature, in great loud gulps; and then she stood with dripping
+nostrils over the empty bucket, staring at me on the other side. I
+teased grandmother to give the cow more, because I enjoyed her
+enjoyment of it. I wondered, if I ate from a bucket instead of a
+plate, should I take so much more pleasure in my dinner? That red cow
+liked everything. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>She liked going to pasture, and she liked coming
+back, and she stood still to be milked, as if she liked that too.</p>
+
+<p>The chickens were not all alike. Some of them would not let me catch
+them, while others stood still till I took them up. There were two
+that were particularly tame, a white hen and a speckled one. In
+winter, when they were kept in the house, my sister and I had these
+two for our pets. They let us handle them by the hour, and stayed just
+where we put them. The white hen laid her eggs in a linen chest made
+of bark. We would take the warm egg to grandmother, who rolled it on
+our eyes, repeating this charm: "As this egg is fresh, so may your
+eyes be fresh. As this egg is sound, so may your eyes be sound." I
+still like to touch my eyelids with a fresh-laid egg, whenever I am so
+happy as to possess one.</p>
+
+<p>On the horses in the barn I bestowed the same calm attention as on the
+cow, speculative rather than affectionate. I was not a very
+tender-hearted infant. If I have been a true witness of my own growth,
+I was slower to love than I was to think. I do not know when the
+change was wrought, but to-day, if you ask my friends, they will tell
+you that I know how to love them better than to solve their problems.
+And if you will call one more witness, and ask me, I shall say that if
+you set me down before a noble landscape, I feel it long before I
+begin to see it.</p>
+
+<p>Idle child though I was, the day was not long enough sometimes for my
+idleness. More than once in the pleasant summer I stole out of bed
+when even the cow was still drowsing, and went barefoot through the
+dripping grass and stood at the gate, awaiting the morning. I found a
+sense of adventure in being conscious when all other people were
+asleep. There was not much of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>a prospect from the gateway, but in
+that early hour everything looked new and large to me, even the little
+houses that yesterday had been so familiar. The houses, when creatures
+went in and out of them, were merely conventional objects; in the soft
+gray morning they were themselves creatures. Some stood up straight,
+and some leaned, and some looked as if they saw me. And then over the
+dewy gardens rose the sun, and the light spread and grew over
+everything, till it shone on my bare feet. And in my heart grew a
+great wonder, and I was ready to cry, my world was so strange and
+sweet about me. In those moments, I think, I could have loved somebody
+as well as I loved later&mdash;somebody who cared to get up secretly, and
+stand and see the sun come up.</p>
+
+<p>Was there not somebody who got up before the sun? Was there not Mishka
+the shepherd? Aye, that was an early riser; but I knew he was no
+sun-worshipper. Before the chickens stirred, before the lazy maid let
+the cow out of the barn, I heard his rousing horn, its distant notes
+harmonious with the morning. Barn doors creaked in response to
+Mishka's call, and soft-eyed cattle went willingly out to meet him,
+and stood in groups in the empty square, licking and nosing each
+other; till Mishka's little drove was all assembled, and he tramped
+out of town behind them, in a cloud of dust.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>History shows that in all countries where Jews have equal rights with
+the rest of the people, they lose their fear of secular science, and
+learn how to take their ancient religion with them from century to
+awakening century, dropping nothing by the way but what their growing
+spirit has outgrown. In countries where progress is to be bought only
+at the price of apostasy, they shut themselves up in their synagogues,
+and raise the wall of extreme separateness between themselves and
+their Gentile neighbors. There is never a Jewish community without its
+scholars, but where Jews may not be both intellectuals and Jews, they
+prefer to remain Jews.</p>
+
+<p>The survival in Russia of medi&aelig;val injustice to Jews was responsible
+for the narrowness of educational standards in the Polotzk of my time.
+Jewish scholarship, as we have seen, was confined to a knowledge of
+the Hebrew language and literature, and even these limited stores of
+learning were not equally divided between men and women. In the
+medi&aelig;val position of the women of Polotzk education really had no
+place. A girl was "finished" when she could read her prayers in
+Hebrew, following the meaning by the aid of the Yiddish translation
+especially prepared for women. If she could sign her name in Russian,
+do a little figuring, and write a letter in Yiddish to the parents of
+her betrothed, she was called <i>wohl gelehrent</i>&mdash;well educated.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for me, my parents' ideals soared beyond <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>all this. My
+mother, although she had not stirred out of Polotzk, readily adopted
+the notion of a liberal education imported by my father from cities
+beyond the Pale. She heartily supported him in all his plans for us
+girls. Fetchke and I were to learn to translate as well as pronounce
+Hebrew, the same as our brother. We were to study Russian and German
+and arithmetic. We were to go to the best <i>pension</i> and receive a
+thorough secular education. My father's ambition, after several years'
+sojourn in enlightened circles, reached even beyond the <i>pension</i>; but
+that was flying farther than Polotzk could follow him with the naked
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>I do not remember our first teacher. When our second teacher came we
+were already able to read continuous passages. Reb' Lebe was no great
+scholar. Great scholars would not waste their learning on mere girls.
+Reb' Lebe knew enough to teach girls Hebrew. Tall and lean was the
+rebbe, with a lean, pointed face and a thin, pointed beard. The beard
+became pointed from much stroking and pulling downwards. The hands of
+Reb' Lebe were large, and his beard was not half a handful. The
+fingers of the rebbe were long, and the nails, I am afraid, were not
+very clean. The coat of Reb' Lebe was rusty, and so was his skull-cap.
+Remember, Reb' Lebe was only a girls' teacher, and nobody would pay
+much for teaching girls. But lean and rusty as he was, the rebbe's
+pupils regarded him with entire respect, and followed his pointer with
+earnest eyes across the limp page of the alphabet, or the thumbed page
+of the prayer-book.</p>
+
+<p>For a short time my sister and I went for our lessons to Reb' Lebe's
+heder, in the bare room off the women's gallery, up one flight of
+stairs, in a synagogue. The place <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>was as noisy as a reckless
+expenditure of lung power could make it. The pupils on the bench
+shouted their way from <i>aleph</i> to <i>tav</i>, cheered and prompted by the
+growl of the rebbe; while the children in the corridor waiting their
+turn played "puss in the corner" and other noisy games.</p>
+
+<p>Fetchke and I, however, soon began to have our lessons in private, at
+our own home. We sat one on each side of the rebbe, reading the Hebrew
+sentences turn and turn about.</p>
+
+<p>When we left off reading by rote and Reb' Lebe began to reveal the
+mysteries to us, I was so eager to know all that was in my book that
+the lesson was always too short. I continued reading by the hour,
+after the rebbe was gone, though I understood about one word in ten.
+My favorite Hebrew reading was the Psalms. Verse after verse I chanted
+to the monotonous tune taught by Reb' Lebe, rocking to the rhythm of
+the chant, just like the rebbe. And so ran the song of David, and so
+ran the hours by, while I sat by the low window, the world erased from
+my consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>What I thought I do not remember; I only know that I loved the sound
+of the words, the full, dense, solid sound of them, to the meditative
+chant of Reb' Lebe. I pronounced Hebrew very well, and I caught some
+mechanical trick of accent and emphasis, which was sufficiently like
+Reb' Lebe's to make my reading sound intelligent. I had a clue to the
+general mood of the subject from the few Psalms I had actually
+translated, and drawing on my imagination for details, I was able to
+read with so much spirit that ignorant listeners were carried away by
+my performance. My mother tells me, indeed, that people used to stop
+outside my window to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>hear me read. Of this I have not the slightest
+recollection, so I suppose I was an unconscious impostor. Certain I am
+that I thought no ignoble thoughts as I chanted the sacred words; and
+who can say that my visions were not as inspiring as David's? He was a
+shepherd before he became a king. I was an ignorant child in the
+Ghetto, but I was admitted at last to the society of the best; I was
+given the freedom of all America. Perhaps the "stuff that dreams are
+made of" is the same for all dreamers.</p>
+
+<p>When we came to read Genesis I had the great advantage of a complete
+translation in Yiddish. I faithfully studied the portion assigned in
+Hebrew, but I need no longer wait for the next lesson to know how the
+story ends. I could read while daylight lasted, if I chose, in the
+Yiddish. Well I remember that Pentateuch, a middling thick octavo
+volume, in a crumbly sort of leather cover; and how the book opened of
+itself at certain places, where there were pictures. My father tells
+me that when I was just learning to translate single words, he found
+me one evening poring over the <i>humesh</i> and made fun of me for
+pretending to read; whereupon I gave him an eager account, he says, of
+the stories of Jacob, Benjamin, Moses, and others, which I had puzzled
+out from the pictures, by the help of a word here and there that I was
+able to translate.</p>
+
+<p>It was inevitable, as we came to Genesis, that I should ask questions.</p>
+
+<p>Rebbe, translating: "In the beginning God created the earth."</p>
+
+<p>Pupil, repeating: "In the beginning&mdash;Rebbe, when was the beginning?"</p>
+
+<p>Rebbe, losing the place in amazement: "'S <i>gehert a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>kasse</i>? (Ever
+hear such a question?) The beginning was&mdash;the beginning&mdash;the beginning
+was in the beginning, of course! <i>Nu! nu!</i> Go on."</p>
+
+<p>Pupil, resuming: "In the beginning God made the earth.&mdash;Rebbe, what
+did He make it out of?"</p>
+
+<p>Rebbe, dropping his pointer in astonishment: "What did&mdash;? What sort of
+a girl is this, that asks questions? Go on, go on!"</p>
+
+<p>The lesson continues to the end. The book is closed, the pointer put
+away. The rebbe exchanges his skull-cap for his street cap, is about
+to go.</p>
+
+<p>Pupil, timidly, but determinedly, detaining him: "Reb' Lebe, <i>who made
+God</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>The rebbe regards the pupil in amazement mixed with anxiety. His
+emotion is beyond speech. He turns and leaves the room. In his
+perturbation he even forgets to kiss the <i>mezuzah</i><a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> on the doorpost.
+The pupil feels reproved and yet somehow in the right. Who <i>did</i> make
+God? But if the rebbe will not tell&mdash;will not tell? Or, perhaps, he
+does not know? The rebbe&mdash;?</p>
+
+<p>It was some time after this conflict between my curiosity and his
+obtuseness that I saw my teacher act a ridiculous part in a trifling
+comedy, and then I remember no more of him.</p>
+
+<p>Reb' Lebe lingered one day after the lesson. A guest who was about to
+depart, wishing to fortify himself for his journey, took a roll of
+hard sausage from his satchel and laid it, with his clasp knife, on
+the table. He cut himself a slice and ate it standing; and then,
+noticing the thin, lean rebbe, he invited him, by a gesture, to help
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>himself to the sausage. The rebbe put his hands behind his coat tails,
+declining the traveller's hospitality. The traveller forgot the other,
+and walked up and down, ready in his fur coat and cap, till his
+carriage should arrive. The sausage remained on the table, thick and
+spicy and brown. No such sausage was known in Polotzk. Reb' Lebe
+looked at it. Reb' Lebe continued to look. The stranger stopped to cut
+another slice, and repeated his gesture of invitation. Reb' Lebe moved
+a step towards the table, but his hands stuck behind his coat tails.
+The traveller resumed his walk. Reb' Lebe moved another step. The
+stranger was not looking. The rebbe's courage rose, he advanced
+towards the table; he stretched out his hand for the knife. At that
+instant the door opened, the carriage was announced. The eager
+traveller, without noticing Reb' Lebe, swept up sausage and knife,
+just at the moment when the timid rebbe was about to cut himself a
+delicious slice. I saw his discomfiture from my corner, and I am
+obliged to confess that I enjoyed it. His face always looked foolish
+to me after that; but, fortunately for us both, we did not study
+together much longer.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Two little girls dressed in their best, shining from their curls to
+their shoes. One little girl has rosy cheeks, the other has staring
+eyes. Rosy-Cheeks carries a carpet bag; Big-Eyes carries a new slate.
+Hand in hand they go into the summer morning, so happy and pretty a
+pair that it is no wonder people look after them, from window and
+door; and that other little girls, not dressed in their best and
+carrying no carpet bags, stand in the street gaping after them.</p>
+
+<p>Let the folks stare; no harm can come to the little <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>sisters. Did not
+grandmother tie pepper and salt into the corners of their pockets, to
+ward off the evil eye? The little maids see nothing but the road
+ahead, so eager are they upon their errand. Carpet bag and slate
+proclaim that errand: Rosy-Cheeks and Big-Eyes are going to school.</p>
+
+<p>I have no words to describe the pride with which my sister and I
+crossed the threshold of Isaiah the Scribe. Hitherto we had been to
+heder, to a rebbe; now we were to study with a <i>lehrer</i>, a secular
+teacher. There was all the difference in the world between the two.
+The one taught you Hebrew only, which every girl learned; the other
+could teach Yiddish and Russian and, some said, even German; and how
+to write a letter, and how to do sums without a counting-frame, just
+on a piece of paper; accomplishments which were extremely rare among
+girls in Polotzk. But nothing was too high for the grandchildren of
+Raphael the Russian; they had "good heads," everybody knew. So we were
+sent to Reb' Isaiah.</p>
+
+<p>My first school, where I was so proud to be received, was a hovel on
+the edge of a swamp. The schoolroom was gray within and without. The
+door was so low that Reb' Isaiah had to stoop in passing. The little
+windows were murky. The walls were bare, but the low ceiling was
+decorated with bundles of goose quills stuck in under the rafters. A
+rough table stood in the middle of the room, with a long bench on
+either side. That was the schoolroom complete. In my eyes, on that
+first morning, it shone with a wonderful light, a strange glory that
+penetrated every corner, and made the stained logs fair as tinted
+marble; and the windows were not too small to afford me a view of a
+large new world.</p>
+
+<p>Room was made for the new pupils on the bench, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>beside the teacher. We
+found our inkwells, which were simply hollows scooped out in the thick
+table top. Reb' Isaiah made us very serviceable pens by tying the pen
+points securely to little twigs; though some of the pupils used
+quills. The teacher also ruled our paper for us, into little squares,
+like a surveyor's notebook. Then he set us a copy, and we copied, one
+letter in each square, all the way down the page. All the little girls
+and the middle-sized girls and the pretty big girls copied letters in
+little squares, just so. There were so few of us that Reb' Isaiah
+could see everybody's page by just leaning over. And if some of our
+cramped fingers were clumsy, and did not form the loops and curves
+accurately, all he had to do was to stretch out his hand and rap with
+his ruler on our respective knuckles. It was all very cosey, with the
+inkwells that could not be upset, and the pens that grew in the woods
+or strutted in the dooryard, and the teacher in the closest touch with
+his pupils, as I have just told. And as he labored with us, and the
+hours drew themselves out, he was comforted by the smell of his dinner
+cooking in some little hole adjoining the schoolroom, and by the sound
+of his good Leah or Rachel or Deborah (I don't remember her name)
+keeping order among his little ones. She kept very good order, too, so
+that most of the time you could hear the scratching of the laborious
+pens accompanied by the croaking of the frogs in the swamp.</p>
+
+<p>Although my sister and I began our studies at the same time, and
+progressed together, my parents did not want me to take up new
+subjects as fast as Fetchke did. They thought my health too delicate
+for much study. So when Fetchke had her Russian lesson I was told to
+go and play. I am sorry to say that I was disobedient on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>these
+occasions, as on many others. I did not go and play; I looked on, I
+listened, when Fetchke rehearsed her lesson at home. And one evening I
+stole the Russian primer and repaired to a secret place I knew of. It
+was a storeroom for broken chairs and rusty utensils and dried apples.
+Nobody would look for me in that dusty hole. Nobody did look there,
+but they looked everywhere else, in the house, and in the yard, and in
+the barn, and down the street, and at our neighbors'; and while
+everybody was searching and calling for me, and telling each other
+when I was last seen, and what I was then doing, I, Mashke, was
+bending over the stolen book, rehearsing A, B, C, by the names my
+sister had given them; and before anybody hit upon my retreat, I could
+spell B-O-G, <i>Bog</i> (God) and K-A-Z-A, <i>Kaza</i> (goat). I did not mind in
+the least being caught, for I had my new accomplishment to show off.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the littered place, and the high chest that served as my
+table, and the blue glass lamp that lighted my secret efforts. I
+remember being brought from there into the firelit room where the
+family was assembled, and confusing them all by my recital of the
+simple words, B-O-G, <i>Bog</i>, and K-A-Z-A, <i>Kaza</i>. I was not reproached
+for going into hiding at bedtime, and the next day I was allowed to
+take part in the Russian lesson.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! there were not many lessons more. Long before we had exhausted
+Reb' Isaiah's learning, my sister and I had to give up our teacher,
+because the family fortunes began to decline, and luxuries, such as
+schooling, had to be cut off. Isaiah the Scribe taught us, in all,
+perhaps two terms, in which time we learned Yiddish and Russian, and a
+little arithmetic. But little good we had from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>our ability to read,
+for there were no books in our house except prayer-books and other
+religious writings, mostly in Hebrew. For our skill in writing we had
+as little use, as letter-writing was not an everyday exercise, and
+idle writing was not thought of. Our good teacher, however, who had
+taken pride in our progress, would not let us lose all that we had
+learned from him. Books he could not lend us, because he had none
+himself; but he could, and he did, write us out a beautiful "copy"
+apiece, which we could repeat over and over, from time to time, and so
+keep our hands in.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder that I have forgotten the graceful sentences of my "copy";
+for I wrote them out just about countless times. It was in the form of
+a letter, written on lovely pink paper (my sister's was blue), the
+lines taking the shape of semicircles across the page; and that
+without any guide lines showing. The script, of course, was
+perfect&mdash;in the best manner of Isaiah the Scribe&mdash;and the sentiments
+therein expressed were entirely noble. I was supposed to be a
+high-school pupil away on my vacation; and I was writing to my
+"Respected Parents," to assure them of my welfare, and to tell them
+how, in the midst of my pleasures, I still longed for my friends, and
+looked forward with eagerness to the renewal of my studies. All this,
+in phrases half Yiddish, half German, and altogether foreign to the
+ears of Polotzk. At least, I never heard such talk in the market, when
+I went to buy a kopeck's worth of sunflower seeds.</p>
+
+<p>This was all the schooling I had in Russia. My father's plans fell to
+the ground, on account of the protracted illness of both my parents.
+All his hopes of leading his children beyond the intellectual limits
+of Polotzk were trampled down by the monster poverty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>who showed his
+evil visage just as my sister and I were fairly started on a broader
+path.</p>
+
+<p>One chance we had, and that was quickly snatched away, of continuing
+our education in spite of family difficulties. Lozhe the Rav, hearing
+from various sources that Pinchus, son-in-law of Raphael the Russian,
+had two bright little girls, whose talents were going to waste for
+want of training, became much interested, and sent for the children,
+to see for himself what the gossip was worth. By a strange trick of
+memory I recall nothing of this important interview, nor indeed of the
+whole matter, although a thousand trifles of that period recur to me
+on the instant; so I report this anecdote on the authority of my
+parents.</p>
+
+<p>They tell me how the rav lifted me up on a table in front of him, and
+asked me many questions, and encouraged me to ask questions in my
+turn. Reb' Lozhe came to the conclusion, as a result of this
+interview, that I ought by all means to be put to school. There was no
+public school for girls, as we know, but a few pupils were maintained
+in a certain private school by irregular contributions from city
+funds. Reb' Lozhe enlisted in my cause the influence of his son, who,
+by virtue of some municipal office which he held, had a vote in fixing
+this appropriation. But although he pleaded eloquently for my
+admission as a city pupil, the rav's son failed to win the consent of
+his colleagues, and my one little crack of opportunity was tightly
+stopped.</p>
+
+<p>My father does not remember on what technicality my application was
+dismissed. My mother is under the impression that it was plainly
+refused on account of my religion, the authorities being unwilling to
+appropriate money for the tuition of a Jewish child. But little it
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>matters now what the reason was; the result is what affected me. I was
+left without teacher or book just when my mind was most active. I was
+left without food just when the hunger of growth was creeping up. I
+was left to think and think, without direction; without the means of
+grappling with the contents of my own thought.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>In a community which was isolated from the mass of the people on
+account of its religion; which was governed by special civil laws in
+recognition of that fact; in whose calendar there were twoscore days
+of religious observance; whose going and coming, giving and taking,
+living and dying, to the minutest details of social conduct, to the
+most intimate particulars of private life, were regulated by sacred
+laws, there could be no question of personal convictions in religion.
+One was a Jew, leading a righteous life; or one was a Gentile,
+existing to harass the Jews, while making a living off Jewish
+enterprise. In the vocabulary of the more intelligent part of Polotzk,
+it is true, there were such words as freethinker and apostate; but
+these were the names of men who had forsaken the Law in distant times
+or in distant parts, and whose evil fame had reached Polotzk by the
+circuitous route of tradition. Nobody looked for such monsters in his
+neighborhood. Polotzk was safely divided into Jews and Gentiles.</p>
+
+<p>If any one in Polotzk had been idle and curious enough to inquire into
+the state of mind of a little child, I wonder if his findings would
+not have disturbed this simple classification.</p>
+
+<p>There used to be a little girl in Polotzk who recited the long Hebrew
+prayers, morning and evening, before and after meals, and never
+skipped a word; who kissed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>the <i>mezuzah</i> when going or coming; who
+abstained from food and drink on fast days when she was no bigger than
+a sacrificial hen; who spent Sabbath mornings over the lengthy ritual
+for the day, and read the Psalms till daylight failed.</p>
+
+<p>This pious child could give as good an account of the Creation as any
+boy of her age. She knew how God made the world. Undeterred by the
+fate of Eve, she wanted to know more. She asked her wise rebbe how God
+came to be in His place, and where He found the stuff to make the
+world of, and what was doing in the universe before God undertook His
+task. Finding from his unsatisfying replies that the rebbe was but a
+barren branch on the tree of knowledge, the good little girl never
+betrayed to the world, by look or word, her discovery of his
+limitations, but continued to accord him, outwardly, all the courtesy
+due to his calling.</p>
+
+<p>Her teacher having failed her, the young student, with admirable
+persistence, carried her questions from one to another of her
+acquaintances, putting their answers to the test whenever it was
+possible. She established by this means two facts: first, that she
+knew as much as any of those who undertook to instruct her; second,
+that her oracles sometimes gave false answers. Did the little
+inquisitor charge her betrayers with the lie? Magnanimous creature,
+she kept their falseness a secret, and ceased to probe their shallow
+depths.</p>
+
+<p>What you would know, find out for yourself: this became our student's
+motto; and she passed from the question to the experiment. Her
+grandmother told her that if she handled "blind flowers" she would be
+stricken blind. She found by test that the pretty flowers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>were
+harmless. She tested everything that could be tested, till she hit at
+last on an impious plan to put God Himself to the proof.</p>
+
+<p>The pious little girl arose one Sabbath afternoon from her religious
+meditations, when all the house was taking its after-dinner nap, and
+went out in the yard, and stopped at the gate. She took out her pocket
+handkerchief. She looked at it. Yes, that would do for the experiment.
+She put it back into her pocket. She did not have to rehearse mentally
+the sacred admonition not to carry anything beyond the house-limits on
+the Sabbath day. She knew it as she knew that she was alive. And with
+her handkerchief in her pocket the audacious child stepped into the
+street!</p>
+
+<p>She stood a moment, her heart beating so that it pained. Nothing
+happened! She walked quite across the street. The Sabbath peace still
+lay on everything. She felt again of the burden in her pocket. Yes,
+she certainly was committing a sin. With an access of impious
+boldness, the sinner walked&mdash;she ran as far as the corner, and stood
+still, fearfully expectant. What form would the punishment take? She
+stood breathing painfully for an eternity. How still everything
+was&mdash;how close and still the air! Would it be a storm? Would a sudden
+bolt strike her? She stood and waited. She could not bring her hand to
+her pocket again, but she felt that it bulged monstrously. She stood
+with no thought of moving again. Where were the thunders of Jehovah?
+No sacred word of all her long prayers came to her tongue&mdash;not even
+"Hear, O Israel." She felt that she was in direct communication with
+God&mdash;awful thought!&mdash;and He would read her mind and would send His
+answer.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep124" id="imagep124"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep124.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep124.jpg" width="95%" alt="Sabbath Loaves for Sale (Bread Market, Polotzk)" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">SABBATH LOAVES FOR SALE (BREAD MARKET, POLOTZK)<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>An age passed in blank expectancy. Nothing happened! Where was the
+wrath of God? <i>Where was God?</i></p>
+
+<p>When she turned to go home, the little philosopher had her
+handkerchief tied around her wrist in the proper way. The experiment
+was over, though the result was not clear. God had not punished her,
+but nothing was proved by His indifference. Either the act was no sin,
+and her preceptors were all deceivers; or it was indeed a sin in the
+eyes of God, but He refrained from stern justice for high reasons of
+His own. It was not a searching experiment she had made. She was
+bitterly disappointed, and perhaps that was meant as her punishment:
+God refused to give her a reply. She intended no sin for the sake of
+sin; so, being still in doubt, she tied her handkerchief around her
+wrist. Her eyes stared more than ever,&mdash;this was the child with the
+staring eyes,&mdash;but that was the only sign she gave of a consciousness
+suddenly expanded, of a self-consciousness intensified.</p>
+
+<p>When she went back into the house, she gazed with a new curiosity at
+her mother, at her grandmother, dozing in their chairs. They looked
+<i>different</i>. When they awoke and stretched themselves and adjusted wig
+and cap, they looked <i>very</i> strange. As she went to get her
+grandmother her Bible, and dropped it accidentally, she kissed it by
+way of atonement just as a proper child should.</p>
+
+<p>How, I wonder, would this Psalm-singing child have be enlabelled by
+the investigator of her mind? Would he have called her a Jew? She was
+too young to be called an apostate. Perhaps she would have been
+dismissed as a little fraud; and I should be content with that
+classification, if slightly modified. I should say the child was a
+piteously puzzled little fraud.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>To return to the honest first person, I <i>was</i> something of a fraud.
+The days when I believed everything I was told did not run much beyond
+my teething time. I soon began to question if fire was really hot, if
+the cat would really scratch. Presently, as we have seen, I questioned
+God. And in those days my religion depended on my mood. I could
+believe anything I wanted to believe. I did believe, in all my moods,
+that there was a God who had made the world, in some fashion
+unexplained, and who knew about me and my doings; for there was the
+world all about me, and somebody must have made it. And it was
+conceivable that a being powerful enough to do such work could be
+aware of my actions at all times, and yet continue to me invisible.
+The question remained, what did He think of my conduct? Was He really
+angry when I broke the Sabbath, or pleased when I fasted on the Day of
+Atonement? My belief as to these matters wavered. When I swung the
+sacrifice around my head on Atonement Eve, repeating, "Be thou my
+sacrifice," etc., I certainly believed that I was bargaining with the
+Almighty for pardon, and that He was interested in the matter. But
+next day, when the fast was over, and I enjoyed all of my chicken that
+I could eat, I believed as certainly that God could not be party to
+such a foolish transaction, in which He got nothing but words, while I
+got both the feast and the pardon. The sacrifice of money, to be spent
+for the poor, seemed to me a more reliable insurance against
+damnation. The well-to-do pious offered up both living sacrifice and
+money for the poor-box, but it was a sign of poverty to offer only
+money. Even a lean rooster, to be killed, roasted, and garnished for
+the devotee's own table at the breaking of the fast, seemed to be
+considered a more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>respectable sacrifice than a groschen to increase
+the charity fund. All this was so illogical that it unsettled my faith
+in minor points of doctrine, and on these points I was quite happy to
+believe to-day one thing, to-morrow another.</p>
+
+<p>As unwaveringly as I believed that we Jews had a God who was powerful
+and wise, I believed that the God of my Christian neighbors was
+impotent, cruel, and foolish. I understood that the god of the
+Gentiles was no better than a toy, to be dressed up in gaudy stuffs
+and carried in processions. I saw it often enough, and turned away in
+contempt. While the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob&mdash;my God&mdash;enjoined
+on me honesty and kindness, the god of Vanka bade him beat me and spit
+on me whenever he caught me alone. And what a foolish god was that who
+taught the stupid Gentiles that we drank the blood of a murdered child
+at our Passover feast! Why, I, who was only a child, knew better. And
+so I hated and feared and avoided the great white church in the Platz,
+and hated every sign and symbol of that monstrous god who was kept
+there and hated my own person, when, in our play of a Christian
+funeral, I imagined my body to be the corpse, over which was carried
+the hideous cross.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I have established that I was more Jew than Gentile, though I
+can still prove that I was none the less a fraud. For instance, I
+remember how once, on the eve of the Ninth of Ab&mdash;the anniversary of
+the fall of the Temple&mdash;I was looking on at the lamentations of the
+women. A large circle had gathered around my mother, who was the only
+good reader among them, to listen to the story of the cruel
+destruction. Sitting on humble stools, in stocking feet, shabby
+clothes, and dishevelled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>hair, weeping in chorus, and wringing their
+hands, as if it was but yesterday that the sacred edifice fell and
+they were in the very dust and ashes of the ruin, the women looked to
+me enviously wretched and pious. I joined the circle in the
+candlelight. I wrung my hands, I moaned; but I was always slow of
+tears&mdash;I could not weep. But I wanted to look like the others. So I
+streaked my cheeks with the only moisture at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Alas for my pious ambition! alas for the noble lament of the women!
+Somebody looked up and caught me in the act of manufacturing tears. I
+grinned, and she giggled. Another woman looked up. I grinned, and they
+giggled. Demoralization swept around the circle. Honest laughter
+snuffed out artificial grief. My mother at last looked up, with red
+and astonished eyes, and I was banished from the feast of tears.</p>
+
+<p>I returned promptly to my playmates in the street, who were amusing
+themselves, according to the custom on that sad anniversary, by
+pelting each other with burrs. Here I was distinguished, more than I
+had been among my elders. My hair being curly, it caught a generous
+number of burrs, so that I fairly bristled with these emblems of
+mortification and woe.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after that sinful experiment with the handkerchief I
+discovered by accident that I was not the only doubter in Polotzk. One
+Friday night I lay wakeful in my little bed, staring from the dark
+into the lighted room adjoining mine. I saw the Sabbath candles
+sputter and go out, one by one,&mdash;it was late,&mdash;but the lamp hanging
+from the ceiling still burned high. Everybody had gone to bed. The
+lamp would go out before morning if there was little oil; or else it
+would burn till Natasha, the Gentile chorewoman, came in the morning
+to put it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>out, and remove the candlesticks from the table, and unseal
+the oven, and do the dozen little tasks which no Jew could perform on
+the Sabbath. The simple prohibition to labor on the Sabbath day had
+been construed by zealous commentators to mean much more. One must not
+even touch any instrument of labor or commerce, as an axe or a coin.
+It was forbidden to light a fire, or to touch anything that contained
+a fire, or had contained fire, were it only a cold candlestick or a
+burned match. Therefore the lamp at which I was staring must burn till
+the Gentile woman came to put it out.</p>
+
+<p>The light did not annoy me in the least; I was not thinking about it.
+But apparently it troubled somebody else. I saw my father come from
+his room, which also adjoined the living-room. What was he going to
+do? What was this he was doing? Could I believe my eyes? My father
+touched the lighted lamp!&mdash;yes, he shook it, as if to see how much oil
+there was left.</p>
+
+<p>I was petrified in my place. I could neither move nor make a sound. It
+seemed to me he must feel my eyes bulging at him out of the dark. But
+he did not know that I was looking; he thought everybody was asleep.
+He turned down the light a very little, and waited. I did not take my
+eyes from him. He lowered the flame a little more, and waited again. I
+watched. By the slightest degrees he turned the light down. I
+understood. In case any one were awake, it would appear as if the lamp
+was going out of itself. I was the only one who lay so as to be able
+to see him, and I had gone to bed so early that he could not suppose I
+was awake. The light annoyed him, he wanted to put it out, but he
+would not risk having it known.</p>
+
+<p>I heard my father find his bed in the dark before I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>dared to draw a
+full breath. The thing he had done was a monstrous sin. If his mother
+had seen him do it, it would have broken her heart&mdash;his mother who
+fasted half the days of the year, when he was a boy, to save his
+teacher's fee; his mother who walked almost barefoot in the cruel snow
+to carry him on her shoulders to school when she had no shoes for him;
+his mother who made it her pious pride to raise up a learned son, that
+most precious offering in the eyes of the great God, from the hand of
+a poor struggling woman. If my mother had seen it, it would have
+grieved her no less&mdash;my mother who was given to him, with her youth
+and good name and her dowry, in exchange for his learning and piety;
+my mother who was taken from her play to bear him children and feed
+them and keep them, while he sat on the benches of the scholars and
+repaid her labors with the fame of his learning. I did not put it to
+myself just so, but I understood that learning and piety were the
+things most valued in our family, that my father was a scholar, and
+that piety, of course, was the fruit of sacred learning. And yet my
+father had deliberately violated the Sabbath.</p>
+
+<p>His act was not to be compared with my carrying the handkerchief. The
+two sins were of the same kind, but the sinners and their motives were
+different. I was a child, a girl at that, not yet of the age of moral
+responsibility. He was a man full grown, passing for one of God's
+elect, and accepting the reverence of the world as due tribute to his
+scholarly merits. I had by no means satisfied myself, by my secret
+experiment, that it was not sinful to carry a burden on the Sabbath
+day. If God did not punish me on the spot, perhaps it was because of
+my youth or perhaps it was because of my motive.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>According to my elders, my father, by turning out the lamp, committed
+the sin of Sabbath-breaking. What did my father intend? I could not
+suppose that his purpose was similar to mine. Surely he, who had lived
+so long and studied so deeply, had by this time resolved all his
+doubts. Surely God had instructed <i>him</i>. I could not believe that he
+did wrong knowingly, so I came to the conclusion that he did not hold
+it a sin to touch a lighted lamp on Sabbath. Then why was he so secret
+in his action? That, too, became clear to me. I myself had
+instinctively adopted secret methods in all my little investigations,
+and had kept the results to myself. The way in which my questions were
+received had taught me much. I had a dim, inarticulate understanding
+of the horror and indignation which my father would excite if he,
+supposedly a man of piety, should publish the heretical opinion that
+it was not wrong to handle fire on the Sabbath. To see what remorse my
+mother suffered, or my father's mother, if by some accident she failed
+in any point of religious observance, was to know that she could never
+be brought to doubt the sacred importance of the thousand minuti&aelig; of
+ancient Jewish practice. That which had been taught them as the truth
+by their fathers and mothers was the whole truth to my good friends
+and neighbors&mdash;that and nothing else. If there were any people in
+Polotzk who had strange private opinions, such as I concluded my
+father must hold, it was possible that he had a secret acquaintance
+with them. But it would never do, it was plain to me, to make public
+confession of his convictions. Such an act would not only break the
+hearts of his family, but it would also take the bread from the mouths
+of his children, and ruin them forever. My sister and my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>brother and
+I would come to be called the children of Israel the Apostate, just as
+Gutke, my playmate, was called the granddaughter of Yankel the
+Informer. The most innocent of us would be cursed and shunned for the
+sin of our father.</p>
+
+<p>All this I came to understand, not all at once, but by degrees, as I
+put this and that together, and brought my childish thoughts to order.
+I was by no means absorbed in this problem. I played and danced with
+the other children as heartily as ever, but I brooded in my window
+corner when there was nothing else to do. I had not the slightest
+impulse to go to my father, charge him with his unorthodox conduct,
+and demand an explanation of him. I was quite satisfied that I
+understood him, and I had not the habit of confidences. I was still in
+the days when I was content to <i>find out</i> things, and did not long to
+communicate my discoveries. Moreover, I was used to living in two
+worlds, a real world and a make-believe one, without ever knowing
+which was which. In one world I had much company&mdash;father and mother
+and sister and friends&mdash;and did as others did, and took everything for
+granted. In the other world I was all alone, and I had to discover
+ways for myself; and I was so uncertain that I did not attempt to
+bring a companion along. And did I find my own father treading in the
+unknown ways? Then perhaps some day he would come across me, and take
+me farther than I had yet been; but I would not be the first to
+whisper that I was there. It seems strange enough to me now that I
+should have been so uncommunicative; but I remind myself that I have
+been thoroughly made over, at least once, since those early days.</p>
+
+<p>I recall with sorrow that I was sometimes as weak in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>morals as I was
+in religion. I remember stealing a piece of sugar. It was long
+ago&mdash;almost as long ago as anything that I remember. We were still
+living in my grandfather's house when this dreadful thing happened and
+I was only four or five years old when we moved from there. Before my
+mother figured this out for me I scarcely had the courage to confess
+my sin.</p>
+
+<p>And it was thus: In a corner of a front room, by a window, stood a
+high chest of drawers. On top of the chest stood a tin box, decorated
+with figures of queer people with queer flat parasols; a Chinese
+tea-box, in a word. The box had a lid. The lid was shut tight. But I
+knew what was in that gorgeous box and I coveted it. I was very
+little&mdash;I never could reach anything. There stood a chair suggestively
+near the chest. I pushed the chair a little and mounted it. By
+standing on tiptoe I could now reach the box. I opened it and took out
+an irregular lump of sparkling sugar. I stood on the chair admiring
+it. I stood too long. My grandmother came in&mdash;or was it Itke, the
+housemaid?&mdash;and found me with the stolen morsel.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that I was fairly caught. How could I hope to escape my captor,
+when I was obliged to turn on my stomach in order to descend safely,
+thus presenting my jailer with the most tempting opportunity for
+immediate chastisement? I took in the situation before my grandmother
+had found her voice for horror. Did I rub my eyes with my knuckles and
+whimper? I wish I could report that I was thus instantly struck with a
+sense of my guilt. I was impressed only with the absolute certainty of
+my impending doom, and I promptly seized on a measure of compensation.
+While my captor&mdash;I really think it was a grandmother&mdash;rehearsed her
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>entire vocabulary of reproach, from a distance sufficient to enable
+her to hurl her voice at me with the best effect, I stuffed the lump
+of sugar into my mouth and munched it as fast as I could. And I had
+eaten it all, and had licked my sticky lips, before the avenging rod
+came down.</p>
+
+<p>I remember no similar lapses from righteousness, but I sinned in
+lesser ways more times than there are years in my life. I sinned, and
+more than once I escaped punishment by some trick or sly speech. I do
+not mean that I lied outright, though that also I did, sometimes; but
+I would twist my naughty speech, if forced to repeat it, in such an
+artful manner, or give such ludicrous explanation of my naughty act,
+that justice was overcome by laughter and threw me, as often as not, a
+handful of raisins instead of a knotted strap. If by such successes I
+was encouraged to cultivate my natural slyness and duplicity, I throw
+the blame on my unwise preceptors, and am glad to be rid of the burden
+for once.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that I used to lie. I recall no particular occasion when a
+lie was the cause of my disgrace; but I know that it was always my
+habit, when I had some trifling adventure to report, to garnish it up
+with so much detail and circumstance that nobody who had witnessed my
+small affair could have recognized it as the same, had I not insisted
+on my version with such fervid conviction. The truth is that
+everything that happened to me really loomed great and shone splendid
+in my eyes, and I could not, except by conscious effort, reduce my
+visions to their actual shapes and colors. If I saw a pair of geese
+leading about a lazy goose girl, they went through all sorts of antics
+before my eyes that fat geese are not known to indulge in. If I met
+poor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>Blind Munye with a frown on his face, I thought that a cloud of
+wrath overspread his countenance; and I ran home to relate, panting,
+how narrowly I had escaped his fury. I will not pretend that I was
+absolutely unconscious of my exaggerations; but if you insist, I will
+say that things as I reported them might have been so, and would have
+been much more interesting had they been so.</p>
+
+<p>The noble reader who never told a lie, or never confessed one, will be
+shocked at these revelations of my childish depravity. What proof has
+he, he will cry, that I am not lying on every page of this chronicle,
+if, by my own confession, my childhood was spent in a maze of lies and
+dreams? I shall say to the saint, when I am challenged, that the proof
+of my conversion to veracity is engraven in his own soul. Do you not
+remember, you spotless one, how you used to steal and lie and cheat
+and rob? Oh, not with your own hand, of course! It was your remote
+ancestor who lived by plunder, and was honored for the blood upon his
+hairy hands. By and by he discovered that cunning was more effective
+than violence, and less troublesome. Still later he became convinced
+that the greatest cunning was virtue, and made him a moral code, and
+subdued the world. Then, when you came along, stumbling through the
+wilderness of cast-off errors, your wise ancestor gave you a thrust
+that landed you in the clearing of modernity, at the same time
+bellowing in your ear, "Now be good! It pays!"</p>
+
+<p>This is the whole history of your saintliness. But all people do not
+take up life at the same point of human development. Some are backward
+at birth, and have to make up, in the brief space of their individual
+history, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>the stages they missed on their way out of the black past.
+With me, for example, it actually comes to this: that I have to
+recapitulate in my own experience all the slow steps of the progress
+of the race. I seem to learn nothing except by the prick of life on my
+own skin. I am saved from living in ignorance and dying in darkness
+only by the sensitiveness of my skin. Some men learn through borrowed
+experience. Shut them up in a glass tower, with an unobstructed view
+of the world, and they will go through every adventure of life by
+proxy, and be able to furnish you with a complete philosophy of life;
+and you may safely bring up your children by it. But I am not of that
+godlike organization. I am a thinking animal. Things are as important
+to me as ideas. I imbibe wisdom through every pore of my body. There
+are times, indeed, when the doctor in his study is less intelligible
+to me than a cricket far off in the field. The earth was my mother,
+the earth is my teacher. I am a dutiful pupil: I listen ever with my
+ear close to her lips. It seems to me I do not know a single thing
+that I did not learn, more or less directly, through the corporal
+senses. As long as I have my body, I need not despair of salvation.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+<br />
+
+<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> A piece of parchment inscribed with a passage of
+Scripture, rolled in a case and tacked to the doorpost. The pious
+touch or kiss this when leaving or entering a house.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The long chapter of troubles which led to my father's emigration to
+America began with his own illness. The doctors sent him to Courland
+to consult expensive specialists, who prescribed tedious courses of
+treatment. He was far from cured when my mother also fell ill, and my
+father had to return to Polotzk to look after the business.</p>
+
+<p>Trouble begets trouble. After my mother took to her bed everything
+continued to go wrong. The business gradually declined, as too much
+money was withdrawn to pay the doctors' and apothecaries' bills; and
+my father, himself in poor health, and worried about my mother, was
+not successful in coping with the growing difficulties. At home, the
+servants were dismissed, for the sake of economy, and all the
+housework and the nursing fell on my grandmother and my sister.
+Fetchke, as a result, was overworked, and fell ill of a fever. The
+baby, suffering from unavoidable neglect, developed the fractious
+temper of semi-illness. And by way of a climax, the old cow took it
+into her head to kick my grandmother, who was laid up for a week with
+a bruised leg.</p>
+
+<p>Neighbors and cousins pulled us through till grandma got up, and after
+her, Fetchke. But my mother remained on her bed. Weeks, months, a year
+she lay there, and half of another year. All the doctors in Polotzk
+attended her in turn, and one doctor came all the way from Vitebsk.
+Every country practitioner for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>miles around was consulted, every
+quack, every old wife who knew a charm. The apothecaries ransacked
+their shops for drugs the names of which they had forgotten, and kind
+neighbors brought in their favorite remedies. There were midnight
+prayers in the synagogue for my mother, and petitions at the graves of
+her parents; and one awful night when she was near death, three pious
+mothers who had never lost a child came to my mother's bedside and
+bought her, for a few kopecks, for their own, so that she might gain
+the protection of their luck, and so be saved.</p>
+
+<p>Still my poor mother lay on her bed, suffering and wasting. The house
+assumed a look of desolation. Everybody went on tiptoe; we talked in
+whispers; for weeks at a time there was no laughter in our home. The
+ominous night lamp was never extinguished. We slept in our clothes
+night after night, so as to wake the more easily in case of sudden
+need. We watched, we waited, but we scarcely hoped.</p>
+
+<p>Once in a while I was allowed to take a short turn in the sick-room.
+It was awful to sit beside my mother's bed in the still night and see
+her helplessness. She had been so strong, so active. She used to lift
+sacks and barrels that were heavy for a man, and now she could not
+raise a spoon to her mouth. Sometimes she did not know me when I gave
+her the medicine, and when she knew me, she did not care. Would she
+ever care any more? She looked strange and small in the shadows of the
+bed. Her hair had been cut off after the first few months; her short
+curls were almost covered by the ice bag. Her cheeks were red, red,
+but her hands were so white as they had never been before. In the
+still night I wondered if she cared to live.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>The night lamp burned on. My father grew old. He was always figuring
+on a piece of paper. We children knew the till was empty when the
+silver candlesticks were taken away to be pawned. Next, superfluous
+featherbeds were sold for what they would bring, and then there came a
+day when grandma, with eyes blinded by tears, groped in the big
+wardrobe for my mother's satin dress and velvet mantle; and after that
+it did not matter any more what was taken out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Then everything took a sudden turn. My mother began to improve, and at
+the same time my father was offered a good position as superintendent
+of a gristmill.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as my mother could be moved, he took us all out to the mill,
+about three versts out of town, on the Polota. We had a pleasant
+cottage there, with the miller's red-headed, freckled family for our
+only neighbors. If our rooms were barer than they used to be, the sun
+shone in at all the windows; and as the leaves on the trees grew
+denser and darker, my mother grew stronger on her feet, and laughter
+returned to our house as the song bird to the grove.</p>
+
+<p>We children had a very happy summer. We had never lived in the country
+before, and we liked the change. It was endless fun to explore the
+mill; to squeeze into forbidden places, and be pulled out by the angry
+miller; to tyrannize over the mill hands, and be worshipped by them in
+return; to go boating on the river, and discover unvisited nooks, and
+search the woods and fields for kitchen herbs, and get lost, and be
+found, a hundred times a week. And what an adventure it was to walk
+the three versts into town, leaving a trail of perfume from the
+wild-flower posies we carried to our city friends!</p>
+
+<p>But these things did not last. The mill changed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>hands, and the new
+owner put a prot&eacute;g&eacute; of his own in my father's place. So, after a short
+breathing spell, we were driven back into the swamp of growing poverty
+and trouble.</p>
+
+<p>The next year or so my father spent in a restless and fruitless search
+for a permanent position. My mother had another serious illness, and
+his own health remained precarious. What he earned did not more than
+half pay the bills in the end, though we were living very humbly now.
+Polotzk seemed to reject him, and no other place invited him.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this time occurred one of the periodic anti-Semitic movements
+whereby government officials were wont to clear the forbidden cities
+of Jews, whom, in the intervals of slack administration of the law,
+they allowed to maintain an illegal residence in places outside the
+Pale, on payment of enormous bribes and at the cost of nameless risks
+and indignities.</p>
+
+<p>It was a little before Passover that the cry of the hunted thrilled
+the Jewish world with the familiar fear. The wholesale expulsion of
+Jews from Moscow and its surrounding district at cruelly short notice
+was the name of this latest disaster. Where would the doom strike
+next? The Jews who lived illegally without the Pale turned their
+possessions into cash and slept in their clothes, ready for immediate
+flight. Those who lived in the comparative security of the Pale
+trembled for their brothers and sisters without, and opened wide their
+doors to afford the fugitives refuge. And hundreds of fugitives,
+preceded by a wail of distress, flocked into the open district,
+bringing their trouble where trouble was never absent, mingling their
+tears with the tears that never dried.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>The open cities becoming thus suddenly crowded, every man's chance of
+making a living was diminished in proportion to the number of
+additional competitors. Hardship, acute distress, ruin for many: thus
+spread the disaster, ring beyond ring, from the stone thrown by a
+despotic official into the ever-full river of Jewish persecution.</p>
+
+<p>Passover was celebrated in tears that year. In the story of the Exodus
+we would have read a chapter of current history, only for us there was
+no deliverer and no promised land.</p>
+
+<p>But what said some of us at the end of the long service? Not "May we
+be next year in Jerusalem," but "Next year&mdash;in America!" So there was
+our promised land, and many faces were turned towards the West. And if
+the waters of the Atlantic did not part for them, the wanderers rode
+its bitter flood by a miracle as great as any the rod of Moses ever
+wrought.</p>
+
+<p>My father was carried away by the westward movement, glad of his own
+deliverance, but sore at heart for us whom he left behind. It was the
+last chance for all of us. We were so far reduced in circumstances
+that he had to travel with borrowed money to a German port, whence he
+was forwarded to Boston, with a host of others, at the expense of an
+emigrant aid society.</p>
+
+<p>I was about ten years old when my father emigrated. I was used to his
+going away from home, and "America" did not mean much more to me than
+"Kherson," or "Odessa," or any other names of distant places. I
+understood vaguely, from the gravity with which his plans were
+discussed, and from references to ships, societies, and other
+unfamiliar things, that this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>enterprise was different from previous
+ones; but my excitement and emotion on the morning of my father's
+departure were mainly vicarious.</p>
+
+<p>I know the day when "America" as a world entirely unlike Polotzk
+lodged in my brain, to become the centre of all my dreams and
+speculations. Well I know the day. I was in bed, sharing the measles
+with some of the other children. Mother brought us a thick letter from
+father, written just before boarding the ship. The letter was full of
+excitement. There was something in it besides the description of
+travel, something besides the pictures of crowds of people, of foreign
+cities, of a ship ready to put out to sea. My father was travelling at
+the expense of a charitable organization, without means of his own,
+without plans, to a strange world where he had no friends; and yet he
+wrote with the confidence of a well-equipped soldier going into
+battle. The rhetoric is mine. Father simply wrote that the emigration
+committee was taking good care of everybody, that the weather was
+fine, and the ship comfortable. But I heard something, as we read the
+letter together in the darkened room, that was more than the words
+seemed to say. There was an elation, a hint of triumph, such as had
+never been in my father's letters before. I cannot tell how I knew it.
+I felt a stirring, a straining in my father's letter. It was there,
+even though my mother stumbled over strange words, even though she
+cried, as women will when somebody is going away. My father was
+inspired by a vision. He saw something&mdash;he promised us something. It
+was this "America." And "America" became my dream.</p>
+
+<p>While it was nothing new for my father to go far from home in search
+of his fortune, the circumstances in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>which he left us were unlike
+anything we had experienced before. We had absolutely no reliable
+source of income, no settled home, no immediate prospects. We hardly
+knew where we belonged in the simple scheme of our society. My mother,
+as a bread-winner, had nothing like her former success. Her health was
+permanently impaired, her place in the business world had long been
+filled by others, and there was no capital to start her anew. Her
+brothers did what they could for her. They were well-to-do, but they
+all had large families, with marriageable daughters and sons to be
+bought out of military service. The allowance they made her was
+generous compared to their means,&mdash;affection and duty could do no
+more,&mdash;but there were four of us growing children, and my mother was
+obliged to make every effort within her power to piece out her income.</p>
+
+<p>How quickly we came down from a large establishment, with servants and
+retainers, and a place among the best in Polotzk, to a single room
+hired by the week, and the humblest associations, and the averted
+heads of former friends! But oftenest it was my mother who turned away
+her head. She took to using the side streets to avoid the pitiful eyes
+of the kind, and the scornful eyes of the haughty. Both were turned on
+her as she trudged from store to store, and from house to house,
+peddling tea or other ware; and both were hard to bear. Many a winter
+morning she arose in the dark, to tramp three or four miles in the
+gripping cold, through the dragging snow, with a pound of tea for a
+distant customer; and her profit was perhaps twenty kopecks. Many a
+time she fell on the ice, as she climbed the steep bank on the far
+side of the Dvina, a heavy basket on each arm. More than once she
+fainted at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>doors of her customers, ashamed to knock as suppliant
+where she had used to be received as an honored guest. I hope the
+angels did not have to count the tears that fell on her frost-bitten,
+aching hands as she counted her bitter earnings at night.</p>
+
+<p>And who took care of us children while my mother tramped the streets
+with her basket? Why, who but Fetchke? Who but the little housewife of
+twelve? Sure of our safety was my mother with Fetchke to watch; sure
+of our comfort with Fetchke to cook the soup and divide the scrap of
+meat and remember the next meal. Joseph was in heder all day; the baby
+was a quiet little thing; Mashke was no worse than usual. But still
+there was plenty to do, with order to keep in a crowded room, and the
+washing, and the mending. And Fetchke did it all. She went to the
+river with the women to wash the clothes, and tucked up her dress and
+stood bare-legged in the water, like the rest of them, and beat and
+rubbed with all her might, till our miserable rags gleamed white
+again.</p>
+
+<p>And I? I usually had a cold, or a cough, or something to disable me;
+and I never had any talent for housework. If I swept and sanded the
+floor, polished the samovar, and ran errands, I was doing much. I
+minded the baby, who did not need much minding. I was willing enough,
+I suppose, but the hard things were done without my help.</p>
+
+<p>Not that I mean to belittle the part that I played in our reduced
+domestic economy. Indeed, I am very particular to get all the credit
+due me. I always remind my sister Deborah, who was the baby of those
+humble days, that it was I who pierced her ears. Earrings were a
+requisite part of a girl's toilet. Even a beggar girl must <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>have
+earrings, were they only loops of thread with glass beads. I heard my
+mother bemoan the baby because she had not time to pierce her ears.
+Promptly I armed myself with a coarse needle and a spool of thread,
+and towed Deborah out into the woodshed. The operation was entirely
+successful, though the baby was entirely ungrateful. And I am proud to
+this day of the unflinching manner in which I did what I conceived to
+be my duty. If Deborah chooses to go with ungarnished ears, it is her
+affair; my conscience is free of all reproach.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep144" id="imagep144"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep144.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep144.jpg" width="95%" alt="Winter Scene on the Dvina" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">WINTER SCENE ON THE DVINA<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>I had a direct way in everything. I rushed right in&mdash;I spoke right
+out. My mother sent me sometimes to deliver a package of tea, and I
+was proud to help in business. One day I went across the Dvina and far
+up "the other side." It was a good-sized expedition for me to make
+alone, and I was not a little pleased with myself when I delivered my
+package, safe and intact, into the hands of my customer. But the
+storekeeper was not pleased at all. She sniffed and sniffed, she
+pinched the tea, she shook it all out on the counter.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Na</i>, take it back," she said in disgust; "this is not the tea I
+always buy. It's a poorer quality."</p>
+
+<p>I knew the woman was mistaken. I was acquainted with my mother's
+several grades of tea. So I spoke up manfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," I said; "this is the tea my mother always sends you. There
+is no worse tea."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing in my life ever hurt me more than that woman's answer to my
+argument. She laughed&mdash;she simply laughed. But I understood, even
+before she controlled herself sufficiently to make verbal remarks,
+that I had spoken like a fool, had lost my mother a customer. I had
+only spoken the truth, but I had not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>expressed it diplomatically.
+That was no way to make business.</p>
+
+<p>I felt very sore to be returning home with the tea still in my hand,
+but I forgot my trouble in watching a summer storm gather up the
+river. The few passengers who took the boat with me looked scared as
+the sky darkened, and the boatman grasped his oars very soberly. It
+took my breath away to see the signs, but I liked it; and I was much
+disappointed to get home dry.</p>
+
+<p>When my mother heard of my misadventure she laughed, too; but that was
+different, and I was able to laugh with her.</p>
+
+<p>This is the way I helped in the housekeeping and in business. I hope
+it does not appear as if I did not take our situation to heart, for I
+did&mdash;in my own fashion. It was plain, even to an idle dreamer like me,
+that we were living on the charity of our friends, and barely living
+at that. It was plain, from my father's letters, that he was scarcely
+able to support himself in America, and that there was no immediate
+prospect of our joining him. I realized it all, but I considered it
+temporary, and I found plenty of comfort in writing long letters to my
+father&mdash;real, original letters this time, not copies of Reb' Isaiah's
+model&mdash;letters which my father treasured for years.</p>
+
+<p>As an instance of what I mean by my own fashion of taking trouble to
+heart, I recall the day when our household effects were attached for a
+debt. We had plenty of debts, but the stern creditor who set the law
+on us this time was none of ours. The claim was against a family to
+whom my mother sublet two of our three rooms, furnished with her own
+things. The police officers, who swooped down upon us without warning,
+as was their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>habit, asked no questions and paid no heed to
+explanations. They affixed a seal to every lame chair and cracked
+pitcher in the place; aye, to every faded petticoat found hanging in
+the wardrobe. These goods, comprising all our possessions and all our
+tenant's, would presently be removed, to be sold at auction, for the
+benefit of the creditor.</p>
+
+<p>Lame chairs and faded petticoats, when they are the last one has, have
+a vital value in the owner's eyes. My mother moved about, weeping
+distractedly, all the while the officers were in the house. The
+frightened children cried. Our neighbors gathered to bemoan our
+misfortune. And over everything was the peculiar dread which only Jews
+in Russia feel when agents of the Government invade their homes.</p>
+
+<p>The fear of the moment was in my heart, as in every other heart there.
+It was a horrid, oppressive fear. I retired to a quiet corner to
+grapple with it. I was not given to weeping, but I must think things
+out in words. I repeated to myself that the trouble was all about
+money. Somebody wanted money from our tenant, who had none to give.
+Our furniture was going to be sold to make this money. It was a
+mistake, but then the officers would not believe my mother. Still, it
+was only about money. Nobody was dead, nobody was ill. It was all
+about <i>money</i>. Why, there was plenty of money in Polotzk! My own uncle
+had many times as much as the creditor claimed. He could buy all our
+things back, or somebody else could. What did it matter? It was only
+<i>money</i>, and money was got by working, and we were all willing to
+work. There was nothing gone, nothing lost, as when somebody died.
+This furniture could be moved from place to place, and so could money
+be moved, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>nothing was lost out of the world by the transfer.
+<i>That</i> was all. If anybody&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Why, what do I see at the window? Breine Malke, our next-door
+neighbor, is&mdash;yes, she is smuggling something out of the window! If
+she is caught&mdash;! Oh, I must help! Breine Malke beckons. She wants me
+to do something. I see&mdash;I understand. I must stand in the doorway, to
+obstruct the view of the officers, who are all engaged in the next
+room just now. I move readily to my post, but I cannot resist my
+curiosity. I must look over my shoulder a last time, to see what it is
+Breine Malke wants to smuggle out.</p>
+
+<p>I can scarcely stifle my laughter. Of all our earthly goods, our
+neighbor has chosen for salvation a dented bandbox containing a
+moth-eaten bonnet from my mother's happier days! And I laugh not only
+from amusement but also from lightness of heart. For I have succeeded
+in reducing our catastrophe to its simplest terms, and I find that it
+is only a trifle, and no matter of life and death.</p>
+
+<p>I could not help it. That was the way it looked to me.</p>
+
+<p>I am sure I made as serious efforts as anybody to prepare myself for
+life in America on the lines indicated in my father's letters. In
+America, he wrote, it was no disgrace to work at a trade. Workmen and
+capitalists were equal. The employer addressed the employee as <i>you</i>,
+not, familiarly, as <i>thou</i>. The cobbler and the teacher had the same
+title, "Mister." And all the children, boys and girls, Jews and
+Gentiles, went to school! Education would be ours for the asking, and
+economic independence also, as soon as we were prepared. He wanted
+Fetchke and me to be taught some trade; so my sister was apprenticed
+to a dressmaker and I to a milliner.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>Fetchke, of course, was successful, and I, of course, was not. My
+sister managed to learn her trade, although most of the time at the
+dressmaker's she had to spend in sweeping, running errands, and
+minding the babies; the usual occupations of the apprentice in any
+trade.</p>
+
+<p>But I&mdash;I had to be taken away from the milliner's after a couple of
+months. I did try, honestly. With all my eyes I watched my mistress
+build up a chimney pot of straw and things. I ripped up old bonnets
+with enthusiasm. I picked up everybody's spools and thimbles, and
+other far-rolling objects. I did just as I was told, for I was
+determined to become a famous milliner, since America honored the
+workman so. But most of the time I was sent away on errands&mdash;to the
+market to buy soup greens, to the corner store to get change, and all
+over town with bandboxes half as round again as I. It was winter, and
+I was not very well dressed. I froze; I coughed; my mistress said I
+was not of much use to her. So my mother kept me at home, and my
+career as a milliner was blighted.</p>
+
+<p>This was during our last year in Russia, when I was between twelve and
+thirteen years of age. I was old enough to be ashamed of my failures,
+but I did not have much time to think about them, because my Uncle
+Solomon took me with him to Vitebsk.</p>
+
+<p>It was not my first visit to that city. A few years before I had spent
+some days there, in the care of my father's cousin Rachel, who
+journeyed periodically to the capital of the province to replenish her
+stock of spools and combs and like small wares, by the sale of which
+she was slowly earning her dowry.</p>
+
+<p>On that first occasion, Cousin Rachel, who had developed in business
+that dual conscience, one for her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>Jewish neighbors and one for the
+Gentiles, decided to carry me without a ticket. I was so small, though
+of an age to pay half-fare, that it was not difficult. I remember her
+simple stratagem from beginning to end. When we approached the ticket
+office she whispered to me to stoop a little, and I stooped. The
+ticket agent passed me. In the car she bade me curl up in the seat,
+and I curled up. She threw a shawl over me and bade me pretend to
+sleep, and I pretended to sleep. I heard the conductor collect the
+tickets. I knew when he was looking at me. I heard him ask my age and
+I heard Cousin Rachel lie about it. I was allowed to sit up when the
+conductor was gone, and I sat up and looked out of the window and saw
+everything, and was perfectly, perfectly happy. I was fond of my
+cousin, and I smiled at her in perfect understanding and admiration of
+her cleverness in beating the railroad company.</p>
+
+<p>I knew then, as I know now, beyond a doubt, that my Uncle David's
+daughter was an honorable woman. With the righteous she dealt
+squarely; with the unjust, as best she could. She was in duty bound to
+make all the money she could, for money was her only protection in the
+midst of the enemy. Every kopeck she earned or saved was a scale in
+her coat of armor. We learned this code early in life, in Polotzk; so
+I was pleased with the success of our ruse on this occasion, though I
+should have been horrified if I had seen Cousin Rachel cheat a Jew.</p>
+
+<p>We made our headquarters in that part of Vitebsk where my father's
+numerous cousins and aunts lived, in more or less poverty, or at most
+in the humblest comfort; but I was taken to my Uncle Solomon's to
+spend the Sabbath. I remember a long walk, through <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>magnificent
+avenues and past splendid shops and houses and gardens. Vitebsk was a
+metropolis beside provincial Polotzk; and I was very small, even
+without stooping.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Solomon lived in the better part of the city, and I found his
+place very attractive. Still, after a night's sleep, I was ready for
+further travel and adventures, and I set out, without a word to
+anybody, to retrace my steps clear across the city.</p>
+
+<p>The way was twice as long as on the preceding day, perhaps because
+such small feet set the pace, perhaps because I lingered as long as I
+pleased at the shop windows. At some corners, too, I had to stop and
+study my route. I do not think I was frightened at all, though I
+imagine my back was very straight and my head very high all the way;
+for I was well aware that I was out on an adventure.</p>
+
+<p>I did not speak to any one till I reached my Aunt Leah's; and then I
+hardly had a chance to speak, I was so much hugged and laughed over
+and cried over, and questioned and cross-questioned, without anybody
+waiting to hear my answers. I had meant to surprise Cousin Rachel, and
+I had frightened her. When she had come to Uncle Solomon's to take me
+back, she found the house in an uproar, everybody frightened at my
+disappearance. The neighborhood was searched, and at last messengers
+were sent to Aunt Leah's. The messengers in their haste quite
+overlooked me. It was their fault if they took a short cut unknown to
+me. I was all the time faithfully steering by the sign of the tobacco
+shop, and the shop with the jumping-jack in the window, and the garden
+with the iron fence, and the sentry box opposite a drug store, and all
+the rest of my landmarks, as carefully entered on my mental chart the
+day before.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>All this I told my scared relatives as soon as they let me, till they
+were convinced that I was not lost, nor stolen by the gypsies, nor
+otherwise done away with. Cousin Rachel was so glad that she would not
+have to return to Polotzk empty-handed that she would not let anybody
+scold me. She made me tell over and over what I had seen on the way,
+till they all laughed and praised my acuteness for seeing so much more
+than they had supposed there was to see. Indeed, I was made a heroine,
+which was just what I intended to be when I set out on my adventure.
+And thus ended most of my unlawful escapades; I was more petted than
+scolded for my insubordination.</p>
+
+<p>My second journey to Vitebsk, in the company of Uncle Solomon, I
+remember as well as the first. I had been up all night, dancing at a
+wedding, and had gone home only to pick up my small bundle and be
+picked up, in turn, by my uncle. I was a little taller now, and had my
+own ticket, like a real traveller.</p>
+
+<p>It was still early in the morning when the train pulled out of the
+station, or else it was a misty day. I know the fields looked soft and
+gray when we got out into the country, and the trees were blurred. I
+did not want to sleep. A new day had begun&mdash;a new adventure. I would
+not miss any of it.</p>
+
+<p>But the last day, so unnaturally prolonged, was entangled in the
+skirts of the new. When did yesterday end? Why was not this new day
+the same day continued? I looked up at my uncle, but he was smiling at
+me in that amused way of his&mdash;he always seemed to be amused at me, and
+he would make me talk and then laugh at me&mdash;so I did not ask my
+question. Indeed, I could not formulate it, so I kept staring out on
+the dim <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>country, and thinking, and thinking; and all the while the
+engine throbbed and lurched, and the wheels ground along, and I was
+astonished to hear that they were keeping perfectly the time of the
+last waltz I had danced at the wedding. I sang it through in my head.
+Yes, that was the rhythm. The engine knew it, the whole machine
+repeated it, and sent vibrations through my body that were just like
+the movements of the waltz. I was so much interested in this discovery
+that I forgot the problem of the Continuity of Time; and from that day
+to this, whenever I have heard that waltz,&mdash;one of the sweet Danube
+waltzes,&mdash;I have lived through that entire experience; the festive
+night, the misty morning, the abnormal consciousness of time, as if I
+had existed forever, without a break; the journey, the dim landscape,
+and the tune singing itself in my head. Never can I hear that waltz
+without the accompaniment of engine wheels grinding rhythmically along
+speeding tracks.</p>
+
+<p>I remained in Vitebsk about six months. I do not believe I was ever
+homesick during all that time. I was too happy to be homesick. The
+life suited me extremely well. My life in Polotzk had grown meaner and
+duller, as the family fortunes declined. For years there had been no
+lessons, no pleasant excursions, no jolly gatherings with uncles and
+aunts. Poverty, shadowed by pride, trampled down our simple ambitions
+and simpler joys. I cannot honestly say that I was very sensitive to
+our losses. I do not remember suffering because there was no jam on my
+bread, and no new dress for the holidays. I do not know whether I was
+hurt when some of our playmates abandoned us. I remember myself
+oftener in the attitude of an onlooker, as on the occasion of the
+attachment of our furniture, when I went off into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>a corner to think
+about it. Perhaps I was not able to cling to negations. The possession
+of the bread was a more absorbing fact than the loss of the jam. If I
+were to read my character backwards, I ought to believe that I did
+miss what I lacked in our days of privation; for I know, to my shame,
+that in more recent years I have cried for jam. But I am trying not to
+reason, only to remember; and from many scattered and shadowy
+memories, that glimmer and fade away so fast that I cannot fix them on
+this page, I form an idea, almost a conviction, that it was with me as
+I say.</p>
+
+<p>However indifferent I may have been to what I had not, I was fully
+alive to what I had. So when I came to Vitebsk I eagerly seized on the
+many new things that I found around me; and these new impressions and
+experiences affected me so much that I count that visit as an epoch in
+my Russian life.</p>
+
+<p>I was very much at home in my uncle's household. I was a little afraid
+of my aunt, who had a quick temper, but on the whole I liked her. She
+was fair and thin and had a pretty smile in the wake of her tempers.
+Uncle Solomon was an old friend. I was fond of him and he made much of
+me. His fine brown eyes were full of smiles, and there always was a
+pleasant smile for me, or a teasing one.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Solomon was comparatively prosperous, so I soon forgot whatever
+I had known at home of sordid cares. I do not remember that I was ever
+haunted by the thought of my mother, who slaved to keep us in bread;
+or of my sister, so little older than myself, who bent her little back
+to a woman's work. I took up the life around me as if there were no
+other life. I did not play all the time, but I enjoyed whatever work I
+found <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>because I was so happy. I helped my Cousin Dinke help her
+mother with the housework. I put it this way because I think my aunt
+never set me any tasks; but Dinke was glad to have me help wash dishes
+and sweep and make beds. My cousin was a gentle, sweet girl, blue-eyed
+and fair, and altogether attractive. She talked to me about grown-up
+things, and I liked it. When her friends came to visit her she did not
+mind having me about, although my skirts were so short.</p>
+
+<p>My helping hand was extended also to my smaller cousins, Mendele and
+Perele. I played lotto with Mendele and let him beat me; I found him
+when he was lost, and I helped him play tricks on our elders. Perele,
+the baby, was at times my special charge, and I think she did not
+suffer in my hands. I was a good nurse, though my methods were
+somewhat original.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Solomon was often away on business, and in his absence Cousin
+Hirshel was my hero. Hirshel was only a little older than I, but he
+was a pupil in the high school, and wore the student's uniform, and
+knew nearly as much as my uncle, I thought. When he buckled on his
+satchel of books in the morning, and strode away straight as a
+soldier,&mdash;no heder boy ever walked like that,&mdash;I stood in the doorway
+and worshipped his retreating steps. I met him on his return in the
+late afternoon, and hung over him when he laid out his books for his
+lessons. Sometimes he had long Russian pieces to commit to memory. He
+would walk up and down repeating the lines out loud, and I learned as
+fast as he. He would let me hold the book while he recited, and a
+proud girl was I if I could correct him.</p>
+
+<p>My interest in his lessons amused him; he did not take me seriously.
+He looked much like his father, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>twinkled his eyes at me in the
+same way and made fun of me, too. But sometimes he condescended to set
+me a lesson in spelling or arithmetic,&mdash;in reading I was as good as
+he,&mdash;and if I did well, he praised me and went and told the family
+about it; but lest I grow too proud of my achievements, he would sit
+down and do mysterious sums&mdash;I now believe it was algebra&mdash;to which I
+had no clue whatever, and which duly impressed me with a sense of my
+ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>There were other books in the house than school-books. The Hebrew
+books, of course, were there, as in other Jewish homes; but I was no
+longer devoted to the Psalms. There were a few books about in Russian
+and in Yiddish, that were neither works of devotion nor of
+instruction. These were story-books and poems. They were a great
+surprise to me and a greater delight. I read them hungrily, all there
+were&mdash;a mere handful, but to me an overwhelming treasure. Of all those
+books I remember by name only "Robinson Crusoe." I think I preferred
+the stories to the poems, though poetry was good to recite, walking up
+and down, like Cousin Hirshel. That was my introduction to secular
+literature, but I did not understand it at the time.</p>
+
+<p>When I had exhausted the books, I began on the old volumes of a
+Russian periodical which I found on a shelf in my room. There was a
+high stack of these paper volumes, and I was so hungry for books that
+I went at them greedily, fearing that I might not get through before I
+had to return to Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p>I read every spare minute of the day, and most of the night. I
+scarcely ever stopped at night until my lamp burned out. Then I would
+creep into bed beside Dinke, but often my head burned so from
+excitement that I did <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>not sleep at once. And no wonder. The violent
+romances which rushed through the pages of that periodical were fit to
+inflame an older, more sophisticated brain than mine. I must believe
+that it was a thoroughly respectable magazine, because I found it in
+my Uncle Solomon's house; but the novels it printed were certainly
+sensational, if I dare judge from my lurid recollections. These
+romances, indeed, may have had their literary qualities, which I was
+too untrained to appreciate. I remember nothing but startling
+adventures of strange heroes and heroines, violent catastrophes in
+every chapter, beautiful maidens abducted by cruel Cossacks, inhuman
+mothers who poisoned their daughters for jealousy of their lovers; and
+all these unheard-of things happening in a strange world, the very
+language of which was unnatural to me. I was quick enough to fix
+meanings to new words, however, so keen was my interest in what I
+read. Indeed, when I recall the zest with which I devoured those
+fearful pages, the thrill with which I followed the heartless mother
+or the abused maiden in her adventures, my heart beating in my throat
+when my little lamp began to flicker; and then, myself, big-eyed and
+shivery in the dark, stealing to bed like a guilty ghost,&mdash;when I
+remember all this, I have an unpleasant feeling, as of one hearing of
+another's debauch; and I would be glad to shake the little bony
+culprit that I was then.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle was away so much of the time that I doubt if he knew how I
+spent my nights. My aunt, poor hard-worked housewife, knew too little
+of books to direct my reading. My cousins were not enough older than
+myself to play mentors to me. Besides all this, I think it was tacitly
+agreed, at my uncle's as at home, that Mashke was best let alone in
+such matters. So I burnt my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>midnight lamp, and filled my mind with a
+conglomeration of images entirely unsuited to my mental digestion; and
+no one can say what they would have bred in me, besides headache and
+nervousness, had they not been so soon dispelled and superseded by a
+host of strong new impressions. For these readings ended with my
+visit, which was closely followed by the preparations for our
+emigration.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, then, I do not feel that I was seriously harmed by my
+wild reading. I have not been told that my taste was corrupted, and my
+morals, I believe, have also escaped serious stricture. I would even
+say that I have never been hurt by any revelation, however distorted
+or untimely, that I found in books, good or poor; that I have never
+read an idle book that was entirely useless; and that I have never
+quite lost whatever was significant to my spirit in any book, good or
+bad, even though my conscious memory can give no account of it.</p>
+
+<p>One lived, at Uncle Solomon's, not only one's own life, but the life
+of all around. My uncle, when he returned after a short absence, had
+stories to tell and adventures to describe; and I learned that one
+might travel considerably and see things unknown even in Vitebsk,
+without going as far as America. My cousins sometimes went to the
+theatre, and I listened with rapture to their account of what they had
+seen, and I learned the songs they had heard. Once Cousin Hirshel went
+to see a giant, who exhibited himself for three kopecks, and came home
+with such marvellous accounts of his astonishing proportions, and his
+amazing feats of strength, that little Mendele cried for envy, and I
+had to play lotto with him and let him beat me oh, so easily! till he
+felt himself a man again.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>And sometimes I had adventures of my own. I explored the city to some
+extent by myself, or else my cousins took me with them on their
+errands. There were so many fine people to see, such wonderful shops,
+such great distances to go. Once they took me to a bookstore. I saw
+shelves and shelves of books, and people buying them, and taking them
+away to keep. I was told that some people had in their own houses more
+books than were in the store. Was not that wonderful? It was a great
+city, Vitebsk; I never could exhaust its delights.</p>
+
+<p>Although I did not often think of my people at home, struggling
+desperately to live while I revelled in abundance and pleasure and
+excitement, I did do my little to help the family by giving lessons in
+lacemaking. As this was the only time in my life that I earned money
+by the work of my hands, I take care not to forget it and I like to
+give an account of it.</p>
+
+<p>I was always, as I have elsewhere admitted, very clumsy with my hands,
+counting five thumbs to the hand. Knitting and embroidery, at which my
+sister was so clever, I could never do with any degree of skill. The
+blue peacock with the red tail that I achieved in cross-stitch was not
+a performance of any grace. Neither was I very much downcast at my
+failures in this field; I was not an ambitious needlewoman. But when
+the fad for "Russian lace" was introduced into Polotzk by a family of
+sisters who had been expelled from St. Petersburg, and all feminine
+Polotzk, on both sides of the Dvina, dropped knitting and crochet
+needles and embroidery frames to take up pillow and bobbins, I, too,
+was carried away by the novelty, and applied myself heartily to learn
+the intricate art, with the result that I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>did master it. The Russian
+sisters charged enormous fees for lessons, and made a fortune out of
+the sale of patterns while they held the monopoly. Their pupils passed
+on the art at reduced fees, and their pupils' pupils charged still
+less; until even the humblest cottage rang with the pretty click of
+the bobbins, and my Cousin Rachel sold steel pins by the ounce,
+instead of by the dozen, and the women exchanged cardboard patterns
+from one end of town to the other.</p>
+
+<p>My teacher, who taught me without fee, being a friend of our
+prosperous days, lived "on the other side." It was winter, and many a
+time I crossed the frozen river, carrying a lace pillow as big as
+myself, till my hands were numb with cold. But I persisted, afraid as
+I was of cold; and when I came to Vitebsk I was glad of my one
+accomplishment. For Vitebsk had not yet seen "Russian lace," and I was
+an acceptable teacher of the new art, though I was such a mite,
+because there was no other. I taught my Cousin Dinke, of course, and I
+had a number of paying pupils. I gave lessons at my pupils' homes, and
+was very proud, going thus about town and being received as a person
+of importance. If my feet did not reach the floor when I sat in a
+chair, my hands knew their business for once; and I was such a
+conscientious and enthusiastic teacher that I had the satisfaction of
+seeing all my pupils execute difficult pieces before I left Vitebsk.</p>
+
+<p>I never have seen money that was half so bright to look at, half so
+pretty to clink, as the money I earned by these lessons. And it was
+easy to decide what to do with my wealth. I bought presents for
+everybody I knew. I remember to this day the pattern of the shawl I
+bought for my mother. When I came home and unpacked my treasures, I
+was the proudest girl in Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>The proudest, but not the happiest. I found my family in such a
+pitiful state that all my joy was stifled by care, if only for a
+while.</p>
+
+<p>Unwilling to spoil my holiday, my mother had not written me how things
+had gone from bad to worse during my absence, and I was not prepared.
+Fetchke met me at the station, and conducted me to a more wretched
+hole than I had ever called home before.</p>
+
+<p>I went into the room alone, having been greeted outside by my mother
+and brother. It was evening, and the shabbiness of the apartment was
+all the gloomier for the light of a small kerosene lamp standing on
+the bare deal table. At one end of the table&mdash;is this Deborah? My
+little sister, dressed in an ugly gray jacket, sat motionless in the
+lamplight, her fair head drooping, her little hands folded on the edge
+of the table. At sight of her I grew suddenly old. It was merely that
+she was a shy little girl, unbecomingly dressed, and perhaps a little
+pale from underfeeding. But to me, at that moment, she was the
+personification of dejection, the living symbol of the fallen family
+state.</p>
+
+<p>Of course my sober mood did not last long. Even "fallen family state"
+could be interpreted in terms of money&mdash;absent money&mdash;and that, as
+once established, was a trifling matter. Hadn't I earned money myself?
+Heaps of it! Only look at this, and this, and this that I brought from
+Vitebsk, bought with my own money! No, I did not remain old. For many
+years more I was a very childish child.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I had spent my time in Vitebsk to better advantage than at the
+milliner's, from any point of view. When I returned to my native town
+I <i>saw</i> things. I saw the narrowness, the stifling narrowness, of life
+in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>Polotzk. My books, my walks, my visits, as teacher, to many homes,
+had been so many doors opening on a wider world; so many horizons, one
+beyond the other. The boundaries of life had stretched, and I had
+filled my lungs with the thrilling air from a great Beyond. Child
+though I was, Polotzk, when I came back, was too small for me.</p>
+
+<p>And even Vitebsk, for all its peepholes into a Beyond, presently began
+to shrink in my imagination, as America loomed near. My father's
+letters warned us to prepare for the summons, and we lived in a quiver
+of expectation.</p>
+
+<p>Not that my father had grown suddenly rich. He was so far from rich
+that he was going to borrow every cent of the money for our
+third-class passage; but he had a business in view which he could
+carry on all the better for having the family with him; and, besides,
+we were borrowing right and left anyway, and to no definite purpose.
+With the children, he argued, every year in Russia was a year lost.
+They should be spending the precious years in school, in learning
+English, in becoming Americans. United in America, there were ten
+chances of our getting to our feet again to one chance in our
+scattered, aimless state.</p>
+
+<p>So at last I was going to America! Really, really going, at last! The
+boundaries burst. The arch of heaven soared. A million suns shone out
+for every star. The winds rushed in from outer space, roaring in my
+ears, "America! America!"</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE EXODUS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>On the day when our steamer ticket arrived, my mother did not go out
+with her basket, my brother stayed out of heder, and my sister salted
+the soup three times. I do not know what I did to celebrate the
+occasion. Very likely I played tricks on Deborah, and wrote a long
+letter to my father.</p>
+
+<p>Before sunset the news was all over Polotzk that Hannah Hayye had
+received a steamer ticket for America. Then they began to come. Friends
+and foes, distant relatives and new acquaintances, young and old, wise
+and foolish, debtors and creditors, and mere neighbors,&mdash;from every
+quarter of the city, from both sides of the Dvina, from over the
+Polota, from nowhere,&mdash;a steady stream of them poured into our street,
+both day and night, till the hour of our departure. And my mother gave
+audience. Her faded kerchief halfway off her head, her black ringlets
+straying, her apron often at her eyes, she received her guests in a
+rainbow of smiles and tears. She was the heroine of Polotzk, and she
+conducted herself appropriately. She gave her heart's thanks for the
+congratulations and blessings that poured in on her; ready tears for
+condolences; patient answers to monotonous questions; and handshakes
+and kisses and hugs she gave gratis.</p>
+
+<p>What did they not ask, the eager, foolish, friendly people? They
+wanted to handle the ticket, and mother must read them what is written
+on it. How much did it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>cost? Was it all paid for? Were we going to
+have a foreign passport or did we intend to steal across the border?
+Were we not all going to have new dresses to travel in? Was it sure
+that we could get koscher food on the ship? And with the questions
+poured in suggestions, and solid chunks of advice were rammed in by
+nimble prophecies. Mother ought to make a pilgrimage to a "Good
+Jew"&mdash;say, the Rebbe of Lubavitch&mdash;to get his blessing on our journey.
+She must be sure and pack her prayer books and Bible, and twenty
+pounds of zwieback at the least. If they did serve trefah on the ship,
+she and the four children would have to starve, unless she carried
+provisions from home.&mdash;Oh, she must take all the featherbeds!
+Featherbeds are scarce in America. In America they sleep on hard
+mattresses, even in winter. Haveh Mirel, Yachne the dressmaker's
+daughter, who emigrated to New York two years ago, wrote her mother
+that she got up from childbed with sore sides, because she had no
+featherbed.&mdash;Mother mustn't carry her money in a pocketbook. She must
+sew it into the lining of her jacket. The policemen in Castle Garden
+take all their money from the passengers as they land, unless the
+travellers deny having any.</p>
+
+<p>And so on, and so on, till my poor mother was completely bewildered.
+And as the day set for our departure approached, the people came
+oftener and stayed longer, and rehearsed my mother in long messages
+for their friends in America, praying that she deliver them promptly
+on her arrival, and without fail, and might God bless her for her
+kindness, and she must be sure and write them how she found their
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>Hayye Dvoshe, the wig-maker, for the eleventh time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>repeating herself,
+to my mother, still patiently attentive, thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Promise me, I beg you. I don't sleep nights for thinking of him.
+Emigrated to America eighteen months ago, fresh and well and strong,
+with twenty-five ruble in his pocket, besides his steamer ticket, with
+new phylacteries, and a silk skull-cap, and a suit as good as
+new,&mdash;made it only three years before,&mdash;everything respectable, there
+could be nothing better;&mdash;sent one letter, how he arrived in Castle
+Garden, how well he was received by his uncle's son-in-law, how he was
+conducted to the baths, how they bought him an American suit,
+everything good, fine, pleasant;&mdash;wrote how his relative promised him
+a position in his business&mdash;a clothing merchant is he&mdash;makes
+gold,&mdash;and since then not a postal card, not a word, just as if he had
+vanished, as if the earth had swallowed him. <i>Oi, weh!</i> what haven't I
+imagined, what haven't I dreamed, what haven't I lamented! Already
+three letters have I sent&mdash;the last one, you know, you yourself wrote
+for me, Hannah Hayye, dear&mdash;and no answer. Lost, as if in the sea!"</p>
+
+<p>And after the application of a corner of her shawl to eyes and nose,
+Hayye Dvoshe, continuing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"So you will go into the newspaper, and ask them what has become of my
+M&ouml;shele, and if he isn't in Castle Garden, maybe he went up to
+Balti-moreh,&mdash;it's in the neighborhood, you know,&mdash;and you can tell
+them, for a mark, that he has a silk handkerchief with his monogram in
+Russian, that his betrothed embroidered for him before the engagement
+was broken. And may God grant you an easy journey, and may you arrive
+in a propitious hour, and may you find your husband well, and strong,
+and rich, and may you both live to lead your children <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>to the wedding
+canopy, and may America shower gold on you. Amen."</p>
+
+<p>The weeks skipped, the days took wing, an hour was a flash of thought;
+so brimful of events was the interval before our departure. And no one
+was more alive than I to the multiple significance of the daily drama.
+My mother, full of grief at the parting from home and family and all
+things dear, anxious about the journey, uncertain about the future,
+but ready, as ever, to take up what new burdens awaited her; my
+sister, one with our mother in every hope and apprehension; my
+brother, rejoicing in his sudden release from heder; and the little
+sister, vaguely excited by mysteries afoot; the uncles and aunts and
+devoted neighbors, sad and solemn over their coming loss; and my
+father away over in Boston, eager and anxious about us in Polotzk,&mdash;an
+American citizen impatient to start his children on American
+careers,&mdash;I knew the minds of every one of these, and I lived their
+days and nights with them after an apish fashion of my own.</p>
+
+<p>But at bottom I was aloof from them all. What made me silent and
+big-eyed was the sense of being in the midst of a tremendous
+adventure. From morning till night I was all attention. I must credit
+myself with some pang of parting; I certainly felt the thrill of
+expectation; but keener than these was my delight in the progress of
+the great adventure. It was delightful just to be myself. I rejoiced,
+with the younger children, during the weeks of packing and
+preparation, in the relaxation of discipline and the general
+demoralization of our daily life. It was pleasant to be petted and
+spoiled by favorite cousins and stuffed with belated sweets by
+unfavorite ones. It was distinctly interesting to catch my mother
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>weeping in corner cupboards over precious rubbish that could by no
+means be carried to America. It was agreeable to have my Uncle Moses
+stroke my hair and regard me with affectionate eyes, while he told me
+that I would soon forget him, and asked me, so coaxingly, to write him
+an account of our journey. It was delicious to be notorious through
+the length and breadth of Polotzk; to be stopped and questioned at
+every shop-door, when I ran out to buy two kopecks' worth of butter;
+to be treated with respect by my former playmates, if ever I found
+time to mingle with them; to be pointed at by my enemies, as I passed
+them importantly on the street. And all my delight and pride and
+interest were steeped in a super-feeling, the sense that it was I,
+Mashke, <i>I myself</i>, that was moving and acting in the midst of unusual
+events. Now that I was sure of America, I was in no hurry to depart,
+and not impatient to arrive. I was willing to linger over every detail
+of our progress, and so cherish the flavor of the adventure.</p>
+
+<p>The last night in Polotzk we slept at my uncle's house, having
+disposed of all our belongings, to the last three-legged stool, except
+such as we were taking with us. I could go straight to the room where
+I slept with my aunt that night, if I were suddenly set down in
+Polotzk. But I did not really sleep. Excitement kept me awake, and my
+aunt snored hideously. In the morning I was going away from Polotzk,
+forever and ever. I was going on a wonderful journey. I was going to
+America. How could I sleep?</p>
+
+<p>My uncle gave out a false bulletin, with the last batch that the
+gossips carried away in the evening. He told them that we were not
+going to start till the second day. This he did in the hope of
+smuggling us quietly out, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>so saving us the wear and tear of a
+public farewell. But his ruse failed of success. Half of Polotzk was
+at my uncle's gate in the morning, to conduct us to the railway
+station, and the other half was already there before we arrived.</p>
+
+<p>The procession resembled both a funeral and a triumph. The women wept
+over us, reminding us eloquently of the perils of the sea, of the
+bewilderment of a foreign land, of the torments of homesickness that
+awaited us. They bewailed my mother's lot, who had to tear herself
+away from blood relations to go among strangers; who had to face
+gendarmes, ticket agents, and sailors, unprotected by a masculine
+escort; who had to care for four young children in the confusion of
+travel, and very likely feed them trefah or see them starve on the
+way. Or they praised her for a brave pilgrim, and expressed confidence
+in her ability to cope with gendarmes and ticket agents, and blessed
+her with every other word, and all but carried her in their arms.</p>
+
+<p>At the station the procession disbanded and became a mob. My uncle and
+my tall cousins did their best to protect us, but we wanderers were
+almost torn to pieces. They did get us into a car at last, but the
+riot on the station platform continued unquelled. When the warning
+bell rang out, it was drowned in a confounding babel of
+voices,&mdash;fragments of the oft-repeated messages, admonitions,
+lamentations, blessings, farewells. "Don't forget!"&mdash;"Take care of&mdash;"
+"Keep your tickets&mdash;" "M&ouml;shele&mdash;newspapers!" "Garlick is best!" "Happy
+journey!" "God help you!" "Good-bye! Good-bye!" "Remember&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The last I saw of Polotzk was an agitated mass of people, waving
+colored handkerchiefs and other frantic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>bits of calico, madly
+gesticulating, falling on each other's necks, gone wild altogether.
+Then the station became invisible, and the shining tracks spun out
+from sky to sky. I was in the middle of the great, great world, and
+the longest road was mine.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Memory may take a rest while I copy from a contemporaneous document
+the story of the great voyage. In accordance with my promise to my
+uncle, I wrote, during my first months in America, a detailed account
+of our adventures between Polotzk and Boston. Ink was cheap, and the
+epistle, in Yiddish, occupied me for many hot summer hours. It was a
+great disaster, therefore, to have a lamp upset on my writing-table,
+when I was near the end, soaking the thick pile of letter sheets in
+kerosene. I was obliged to make a fair copy for my uncle, and my
+father kept the oily, smelly original. After a couple of years'
+teasing, he induced me to translate the letter into English, for the
+benefit of a friend who did not know Yiddish; for the benefit of the
+present narrative, which was not thought of thirteen years ago. I can
+hardly refrain from moralizing as I turn to the leaves of my childish
+manuscript, grateful at last for the calamity of the overturned lamp.</p>
+
+<p>Our route lay over the German border, with Hamburg for our port. On
+the way to the frontier we stopped for a farewell visit in Vilna,
+where my mother had a brother. Vilna is slighted in my description. I
+find special mention of only two things, the horse-cars and the
+bookstores.</p>
+
+<p>On a gray wet morning in early April we set out for the frontier. This
+was the real beginning of our journey, and all my faculties of
+observation were alert. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>I took note of everything,&mdash;the weather, the
+trains, the bustle of railroad stations, our fellow passengers, and
+the family mood at every stage of our progress.</p>
+
+<p>The bags and bundles which composed our travelling outfit were much
+more bulky than valuable. A trifling sum of money, the steamer ticket,
+and the foreign passport were the magic agents by means of which we
+hoped to span the five thousand miles of earth and water between us
+and my father. The passport was supposed to pass us over the frontier
+without any trouble, but on account of the prevalence of cholera in
+some parts of the country, the poorer sort of travellers, such as
+emigrants, were subjected, at this time, to more than ordinary
+supervision and regulation.</p>
+
+<p>At Versbolovo, the last station on the Russian side, we met the first
+of our troubles. A German physician and several gendarmes boarded the
+train and put us through a searching examination as to our health,
+destination, and financial resources. As a result of the inquisition
+we were informed that we would not be allowed to cross the frontier
+unless we exchanged our third-class steamer ticket for second-class,
+which would require two hundred rubles more than we possessed. Our
+passport was taken from us, and we were to be turned back on our
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>My letter describes the situation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>We were homeless, houseless, and friendless in a strange place.
+We had hardly money enough to last us through the voyage for
+which we had hoped and waited for three long years. We had
+suffered much that the reunion we longed for might come about;
+we had prepared ourselves to suffer more in order to bring it
+about, and had parted with those we loved, with places that were
+dear to us in spite of what we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>passed through in them, never
+again to see them, as we were convinced&mdash;all for the same dear
+end. With strong hopes and high spirits that hid the sad
+parting, we had started on our long journey. And now we were
+checked so unexpectedly but surely, the blow coming from where
+we little expected it, being, as we believed, safe in that
+quarter. When my mother had recovered enough to speak, she began
+to argue with the gendarme, telling him our story and begging
+him to be kind. The children were frightened and all but I
+cried. I was only wondering what would happen.</p></div>
+
+<p>Moved by our distress, the German officers gave us the best advice
+they could. We were to get out at the station of Kibart on the Russian
+side, and apply to one Herr Schidorsky, who might help us on our way.</p>
+
+<p>The letter goes on:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>We are in Kibart, at the depot. The least important particular,
+even, of that place, I noticed and remembered. How the
+porter&mdash;he was an ugly, grinning man&mdash;carried in our things and
+put them away in the southern corner of the big room, on the
+floor; how we sat down on a settee near them, a yellow settee;
+how the glass roof let in so much light that we had to shade our
+eyes because the car had been dark and we had been crying; how
+there were only a few people besides ourselves there, and how I
+began to count them and stopped when I noticed a sign over the
+head of the fifth person&mdash;a little woman with a red nose and a
+pimple on it&mdash;and tried to read the German, with the aid of the
+Russian translation below. I noticed all this and remembered it,
+as if there were nothing else in the world for me to think of.</p></div>
+
+<p>The letter dwells gratefully on the kindness of Herr Schidorsky, who
+became the agent of our salvation. He procured my mother a pass to
+Eidtkuhnen, the German <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>frontier station, where his older brother, as
+chairman of a well-known emigrant aid association, arranged for our
+admission into Germany. During the negotiations, which took several
+days, the good man of Kibart entertained us in his own house, shabby
+emigrants though we were. The Schidorsky brothers were Jews, but it is
+not on that account that their name has been lovingly remembered for
+fifteen years in my family.</p>
+
+<p>On the German side our course joined that of many other emigrant
+groups, on their way to Hamburg and other ports. We were a clumsy
+enough crowd, with wide, unsophisticated eyes, with awkward bundles
+hugged in our arms, and our hearts set on America.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to my uncle faithfully describes every stage of our
+bustling progress. Here is a sample scene of many that I recorded:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>There was a terrible confusion in the baggage-room where we were
+directed to go. Boxes, baskets, bags, valises, and great,
+shapeless things belonging to no particular class, were thrown
+about by porters and other men, who sorted them and put tickets
+on all but those containing provisions, while others were opened
+and examined in haste. At last our turn came, and our things,
+along with those of all other American-bound travellers, were
+taken away to be steamed and smoked and other such processes
+gone through. We were told to wait till notice should be given
+us of something else to be done.</p></div>
+
+<p>The phrases "we were told to do this" and "told to do that" occur
+again and again in my narrative, and the most effective handling of
+the facts could give no more vivid picture of the proceedings. We
+emigrants were herded at the stations, packed in the cars, and driven
+from place to place like cattle.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>At the expected hour we all tried to find room in a car<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+indicated by the conductor. We tried, but could only find enough
+space on the floor for our baggage, on which we made-believe
+sitting comfortably. For now we were obliged to exchange the
+comparative comforts of a third-class passenger train for the
+certain discomforts of a fourth-class one. There were only four
+narrow benches in the whole car, and about twice as many people
+were already seated on these as they were probably supposed to
+accommodate. All other space, to the last inch, was crowded by
+passengers or their luggage. It was very hot and close and
+altogether uncomfortable, and still at every new station fresh
+passengers came crowding in, and actually made room, spare as it
+was, for themselves. It became so terrible that all glared madly
+at the conductor as he allowed more people to come into that
+prison, and trembled at the announcement of every station. I
+cannot see even now how the officers could allow such a thing;
+it was really dangerous.</p></div>
+
+<p>The following is my attempt to describe a flying glimpse of a
+metropolis:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>Towards evening we came into Berlin. I grow dizzy even now when
+I think of our whirling through that city. It seemed we were
+going faster and faster all the time, but it was only the whirl
+of trains passing in opposite directions and close to us that
+made it seem so. The sight of crowds of people such as we had
+never seen before, hurrying to and fro, in and out of great
+depots that danced past us, helped to make it more so. Strange
+sights, splendid buildings, shops, people, and animals, all
+mingled in one great, confused mass of a disposition to
+continually move in a great hurry, wildly, with no other aim but
+to make one's head go round and round, in following its dreadful
+motions. Round and round went my head. It was nothing but
+trains, depots, crowds,&mdash;crowds, depots, trains,&mdash;again and
+again, with no beginning, no end, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>only a mad dance! Faster and
+faster we go, faster still, and the noise increases with the
+speed. Bells, whistles, hammers, locomotives shrieking madly,
+men's voices, peddlers' cries, horses' hoofs, dogs'
+barkings&mdash;all united in doing their best to drown every other
+sound but their own, and made such a deafening uproar in the
+attempt that nothing could keep it out.</p></div>
+
+<p>The plight of the bewildered emigrant on the way to foreign parts is
+always pitiful enough, but for us who came from plague-ridden Russia
+the terrors of the way were doubled.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>In a great lonely field, opposite a solitary house within a
+large yard, our train pulled up at last, and a conductor
+commanded the passengers to make haste and get out. He need not
+have told us to hurry; we were glad enough to be free again
+after such a long imprisonment in the uncomfortable car. All
+rushed to the door. We breathed more freely in the open field,
+but the conductor did not wait for us to enjoy our freedom. He
+hurried us into the one large room which made up the house, and
+then into the yard. Here a great many men and women, dressed in
+white, received us, the women attending to the women and girls
+of the passengers, and the men to the others.</p>
+
+<p>This was another scene of bewildering confusion, parents losing
+their children, and little ones crying; baggage being thrown
+together in one corner of the yard, heedless of contents, which
+suffered in consequence; those white-clad Germans shouting
+commands, always accompanied with "Quick! Quick!"&mdash;the confused
+passengers obeying all orders like meek children, only
+questioning now and then what was going to be done with them.</p>
+
+<p>And no wonder if in some minds stories arose of people being
+captured by robbers, murderers, and the like. Here we had been
+taken to a lonely place where only that house was to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>be seen;
+our things were taken away, our friends separated from us; a man
+came to inspect us, as if to ascertain our full value;
+strange-looking people driving us about like dumb animals,
+helpless and unresisting; children we could not see crying in a
+way that suggested terrible things; ourselves driven into a
+little room where a great kettle was boiling on a little stove;
+our clothes taken off, our bodies rubbed with a slippery
+substance that might be any bad thing; a shower of warm water
+let down on us without warning; again driven to another little
+room where we sit, wrapped in woollen blankets till large,
+coarse bags are brought in, their contents turned out, and we
+see only a cloud of steam, and hear the women's orders to dress
+ourselves,&mdash;"Quick! Quick!"&mdash;or else we'll miss&mdash;something we
+cannot hear. We are forced to pick out our clothes from among
+all the others, with the steam blinding us; we choke, cough,
+entreat the women to give us time; they persist, "Quick!
+Quick!&mdash;or you'll miss the train!"&mdash;Oh, so we really won't be
+murdered! They are only making us ready for the continuing of
+our journey, cleaning us of all suspicions of dangerous
+sickness. Thank God!</p></div>
+
+<p>In Polotzk, if the cholera broke out, as it did once or twice in every
+generation, we made no such fuss as did these Germans. Those who died
+of the sickness were buried, and those who lived ran to the synagogues
+to pray. We travellers felt hurt at the way the Germans treated us. My
+mother nearly died of cholera once, but she was given a new name, a
+lucky one, which saved her; and that was when she was a small girl.
+None of us were sick now, yet hear how we were treated! Those
+gendarmes and nurses always shouted their commands at us from a
+distance, as fearful of our touch as if we had been lepers.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived in Hamburg early one morning, after a long night in the
+crowded cars. We were marched up to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>a strange vehicle, long and
+narrow and high, drawn by two horses and commanded by a mute driver.
+We were piled up on this wagon, our baggage was thrown after us, and
+we started on a sight-seeing tour across the city of Hamburg. The
+sights I faithfully enumerate for the benefit of my uncle include
+little carts drawn by dogs, and big cars that run of themselves, later
+identified as electric cars.</p>
+
+<p>The humorous side of our adventures did not escape me. Again and again
+I come across a laugh in the long pages of the historic epistle. The
+description of the ride through Hamburg ends with this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>The sight-seeing was not all on our side. I noticed many people
+stopping to look at us as if amused, though most passed by us as
+though used to such sights. We did make a queer appearance all
+in a long row, up above people's heads. In fact, we looked like
+a flock of giant fowls roosting, only wide awake.</p></div>
+
+<p>The smiles and shivers fairly crowded each other in some parts of our
+career.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>Suddenly, when everything interesting seemed at an end, we all
+recollected how long it was since we had started on our funny
+ride. Hours, we thought, and still the horses ran. Now we rode
+through quieter streets where there were fewer shops and more
+wooden houses. Still the horses seemed to have but just started.
+I looked over our perch again. Something made me think of a
+description I had read of criminals being carried on long
+journeys in uncomfortable things&mdash;like this? Well, it was
+strange&mdash;this long, long drive, the conveyance, no word of
+explanation; and all, though going different ways, being packed
+off together. We were strangers; the driver knew it. He might
+take us anywhere&mdash;how could we tell? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>I was frightened again as
+in Berlin. The faces around me confessed the same.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, we are frightened. We are very still. Some Polish women
+over there have fallen asleep, and the rest of us look such a
+picture of woe, and yet so funny, it is a sight to see and
+remember.</p></div>
+
+<p>Our mysterious ride came to an end on the outskirts of the city, where
+we were once more lined up, cross-questioned, disinfected, labelled,
+and pigeonholed. This was one of the occasions when we suspected that
+we were the victims of a conspiracy to extort money from us; for here,
+as at every repetition of the purifying operations we had undergone, a
+fee was levied on us, so much per head. My mother, indeed, seeing her
+tiny hoard melting away, had long since sold some articles from our
+baggage to a fellow passenger richer than she, but even so she did not
+have enough money to pay the fee demanded of her in Hamburg. Her
+statement was not accepted, and we all suffered the last indignity of
+having our persons searched.</p>
+
+<p>This last place of detention turned out to be a prison. "Quarantine"
+they called it, and there was a great deal of it&mdash;two weeks of it. Two
+weeks within high brick walls, several hundred of us herded in half a
+dozen compartments,&mdash;numbered compartments,&mdash;sleeping in rows, like
+sick people in a hospital; with roll-call morning and night, and short
+rations three times a day; with never a sign of the free world beyond
+our barred windows; with anxiety and longing and homesickness in our
+hearts, and in our ears the unfamiliar voice of the invisible ocean,
+which drew and repelled us at the same time. The fortnight in
+quarantine was not an episode; it was an epoch, divisible into eras,
+periods, events.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>The greatest event was the arrival of some ship to take some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+the waiting passengers. When the gates were opened and the lucky
+ones said good-bye, those left behind felt hopeless of ever
+seeing the gates open for them. It was both pleasant and
+painful, for the strangers grew to be fast friends in a day, and
+really rejoiced in each other's fortune; but the regretful envy
+could not be helped either.</p></div>
+
+<p>Our turn came at last. We were conducted through the gate of
+departure, and after some hours of bewildering man&oelig;uvres, described
+in great detail in the report to my uncle, we found ourselves&mdash;we five
+frightened pilgrims from Polotzk&mdash;on the deck of a great big steamship
+afloat on the strange big waters of the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>For sixteen days the ship was our world. My letter dwells solemnly on
+the details of the life at sea, as if afraid to cheat my uncle of the
+smallest circumstance. It does not shrink from describing the torments
+of seasickness; it notes every change in the weather. A rough night is
+described, when the ship pitched and rolled so that people were thrown
+from their berths; days and nights when we crawled through dense fogs,
+our foghorn drawing answering warnings from invisible ships. The
+perils of the sea were not minimized in the imaginations of us
+inexperienced voyagers. The captain and his officers ate their
+dinners, smoked their pipes and slept soundly in their turns, while we
+frightened emigrants turned our faces to the wall and awaited our
+watery graves.</p>
+
+<p>All this while the seasickness lasted. Then came happy hours on deck,
+with fugitive sunshine, birds atop the crested waves, band music and
+dancing and fun. I explored the ship, made friends with officers and
+crew, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>or pursued my thoughts in quiet nooks. It was my first
+experience of the ocean, and I was profoundly moved.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>Oh, what solemn thoughts I had! How deeply I felt the greatness,
+the power of the scene! The immeasurable distance from horizon
+to horizon; the huge billows forever changing their shapes&mdash;now
+only a wavy and rolling plain, now a chain of great mountains,
+coming and going farther away; then a town in the distance,
+perhaps, with spires and towers and buildings of gigantic
+dimensions; and mostly a vast mass of uncertain shapes, knocking
+against each other in fury, and seething and foaming in their
+anger; the gray sky, with its mountains of gloomy clouds,
+flying, moving with the waves, as it seemed, very near them; the
+absence of any object besides the one ship; and the deep, solemn
+groans of the sea, sounding as if all the voices of the world
+had been turned into sighs and then gathered into that one
+mournful sound&mdash;so deeply did I feel the presence of these
+things, that the feeling became one of awe, both painful and
+sweet, and stirring and warming, and deep and calm and grand.</p>
+
+<p>I would imagine myself all alone on the ocean, and Robinson
+Crusoe was very real to me. I was alone sometimes. I was aware
+of no human presence; I was conscious only of sea and sky and
+something I did not understand. And as I listened to its solemn
+voice, I felt as if I had found a friend, and knew that I loved
+the ocean. It seemed as if it were within as well as without,
+part of myself; and I wondered how I had lived without it, and
+if I could ever part with it.</p></div>
+
+<p>And so suffering, fearing, brooding, rejoicing we crept nearer and
+nearer to the coveted shore, until, on a glorious May morning, six
+weeks after our departure from Polotzk, our eyes beheld the Promised
+Land, and my father received us in his arms.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE PROMISED LAND</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Having made such good time across the ocean, I ought to be able to
+proceed no less rapidly on <i>terra firma</i>, where, after all, I am more
+at home. And yet here is where I falter. Not that I hesitated, even
+for the space of a breath, in my first steps in America. There was no
+time to hesitate. The most ignorant immigrant, on landing proceeds to
+give and receive greetings, to eat, sleep and rise, after the manner
+of his own country; wherein he is corrected, admonished, and laughed
+at, whether by interested friends or the most indifferent strangers;
+and his American experience is thus begun. The process is spontaneous
+on all sides, like the education of the child by the family circle.
+But while the most stupid nursery maid is able to contribute her part
+toward the result, we do not expect an analysis of the process to be
+furnished by any member of the family, least of all by the engaging
+infant. The philosophical maiden aunt alone, or some other witness
+equally psychological and aloof, is able to trace the myriad efforts
+by which the little Johnnie or Nellie acquires a secure hold on the
+disjointed parts of the huge plaything, life.</p>
+
+<p>Now I was not exactly an infant when I was set down, on a May day some
+fifteen years ago, in this pleasant nursery of America. I had long
+since acquired the use of my faculties, and had collected some bits of
+experience practical and emotional, and had even learned to give an
+account of them. Still, I had very little <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>perspective, and my
+observations and comparisons were superficial. I was too much carried
+away to analyze the forces that were moving me. My Polotzk I knew well
+before I began to judge it and experiment with it. America was
+bewilderingly strange, unimaginably complex, delightfully unexplored.
+I rushed impetuously out of the cage of my provincialism and looked
+eagerly about the brilliant universe. My question was, What have we
+here?&mdash;not, What does this mean? That query came much later. When I
+now become retrospectively introspective, I fall into the predicament
+of the centipede in the rhyme, who got along very smoothly until he
+was asked which leg came after which, whereupon he became so rattled
+that he couldn't take a step. I know I have come on a thousand feet,
+on wings, winds and American machines,&mdash;I have leaped and run and
+climbed and crawled,&mdash;but to tell which step came after which I find a
+puzzling matter. Plenty of maiden aunts were present during my second
+infancy, in the guise of immigrant officials, school-teachers,
+settlement workers, and sundry other unprejudiced and critical
+observers. Their statistics I might properly borrow to fill the gaps
+in my recollections, but I am prevented by my sense of harmony. The
+individual, we know, is a creature unknown to the statistician,
+whereas I undertook to give the personal view of everything. So I am
+bound to unravel, as well as I can, the tangle of events, outer and
+inner, which made up the first breathless years of my American life.</p>
+
+<p>During his three years of probation, my father had made a number of
+false starts in business. His history for that period is the history
+of thousands who come to America, like him, with pockets empty, hands
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>untrained to the use of tools, minds cramped by centuries of
+repression in their native land. Dozens of these men pass under your
+eyes every day, my American friend, too absorbed in their honest
+affairs to notice the looks of suspicion which you cast at them, the
+repugnance with which you shrink from their touch. You see them
+shuffle from door to door with a basket of spools and buttons, or
+bending over the sizzling irons in a basement tailor shop, or
+rummaging in your ash can, or moving a pushcart from curb to curb, at
+the command of the burly policeman. "The Jew peddler!" you say, and
+dismiss him from your premises and from your thoughts, never dreaming
+that the sordid drama of his days may have a moral that concerns you.
+What if the creature with the untidy beard carries in his bosom his
+citizenship papers? What if the cross-legged tailor is supporting a
+boy in college who is one day going to mend your state constitution
+for you? What if the ragpicker's daughters are hastening over the
+ocean to teach your children in the public schools? Think, every time
+you pass the greasy alien on the street, that he was born thousands of
+years before the oldest native American; and he may have something to
+communicate to you, when you two shall have learned a common language.
+Remember that his very physiognomy is a cipher the key to which it
+behooves you to search for most diligently.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>By the time we joined my father, he had surveyed many avenues of
+approach toward the coveted citadel of fortune. One of these,
+heretofore untried, he now proposed to essay, armed with new courage,
+and cheered on by the presence of his family. In partnership with an
+energetic little man who had an English chapter in his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>history, he
+prepared to set up a refreshment booth on Crescent Beach. But while he
+was completing arrangements at the beach we remained in town, where we
+enjoyed the educational advantages of a thickly populated
+neighborhood; namely, Wall Street, in the West End of Boston.</p>
+
+<p>Anybody who knows Boston knows that the West and North Ends are the
+wrong ends of that city. They form the tenement district, or, in the
+newer phrase, the slums of Boston. Anybody who is acquainted with the
+slums of any American metropolis knows that that is the quarter where
+poor immigrants foregather, to live, for the most part, as unkempt,
+half-washed, toiling, unaspiring foreigners; pitiful in the eyes of
+social missionaries, the despair of boards of health, the hope of ward
+politicians, the touchstone of American democracy. The well-versed
+metropolitan knows the slums as a sort of house of detention for poor
+aliens, where they live on probation till they can show a certificate
+of good citizenship.</p>
+
+<p>He may know all this and yet not guess how Wall Street, in the West
+End, appears in the eyes of a little immigrant from Polotzk. What
+would the sophisticated sight-seer say about Union Place, off Wall
+Street, where my new home waited for me? He would say that it is no
+place at all, but a short box of an alley. Two rows of three-story
+tenements are its sides, a stingy strip of sky is its lid, a littered
+pavement is the floor, and a narrow mouth its exit.</p>
+
+<p>But I saw a very different picture on my introduction to Union Place.
+I saw two imposing rows of brick buildings, loftier than any dwelling
+I had ever lived in. Brick was even on the ground for me to tread on,
+instead of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>common earth or boards. Many friendly windows stood open,
+filled with uncovered heads of women and children. I thought the
+people were interested in us, which was very neighborly. I looked up
+to the topmost row of windows, and my eyes were filled with the May
+blue of an American sky!</p>
+
+<p>In our days of affluence in Russia we had been accustomed to
+upholstered parlors, embroidered linen, silver spoons and
+candlesticks, goblets of gold, kitchen shelves shining with copper and
+brass. We had featherbeds heaped halfway to the ceiling; we had
+clothes presses dusky with velvet and silk and fine woollen. The three
+small rooms into which my father now ushered us, up one flight of
+stairs, contained only the necessary beds, with lean mattresses; a few
+wooden chairs; a table or two; a mysterious iron structure, which
+later turned out to be a stove; a couple of unornamental kerosene
+lamps; and a scanty array of cooking-utensils and crockery. And yet we
+were all impressed with our new home and its furniture. It was not
+only because we had just passed through our seven lean years, cooking
+in earthen vessels, eating black bread on holidays and wearing cotton;
+it was chiefly because these wooden chairs and tin pans were American
+chairs and pans that they shone glorious in our eyes. And if there was
+anything lacking for comfort or decoration we expected it to be
+presently supplied&mdash;at least, we children did. Perhaps my mother
+alone, of us newcomers, appreciated the shabbiness of the little
+apartment, and realized that for her there was as yet no laying down
+of the burden of poverty.</p>
+
+<p>Our initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new
+soil. My father found occasion to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>instruct or correct us even on
+the way from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded
+together in a rickety cab. He told us not to lean out of the windows,
+not to point, and explained the word "greenhorn." We did not want to
+be "greenhorns," and gave the strictest attention to my father's
+instructions. I do not know when my parents found opportunity to
+review together the history of Polotzk in the three years past, for we
+children had no patience with the subject; my mother's narrative was
+constantly interrupted by irrelevant questions, interjections, and
+explanations.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep184" id="imagep184"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep184.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep184.jpg" width="55%" alt="Union Place (Boston) Where My New Home Waited for Me" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">UNION PLACE (BOSTON) WHERE MY NEW HOME WAITED FOR ME<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father
+produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking,
+from little tin cans that had printing all over them. He attempted to
+introduce us to a queer, slippery kind of fruit, which he called
+"banana," but had to give it up for the time being. After the meal, he
+had better luck with a curious piece of furniture on runners, which he
+called "rocking-chair." There were five of us newcomers, and we found
+five different ways of getting into the American machine of perpetual
+motion, and as many ways of getting out of it. One born and bred to
+the use of a rocking-chair cannot imagine how ludicrous people can
+make themselves when attempting to use it for the first time. We
+laughed immoderately over our various experiments with the novelty,
+which was a wholesome way of letting off steam after the unusual
+excitement of the day.</p>
+
+<p>In our flat we did not think of such a thing as storing the coal in
+the bathtub. There was no bathtub. So in the evening of the first day
+my father conducted us to the public baths. As we moved along in a
+little procession, I was delighted with the illumination of the
+streets. So <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>many lamps, and they burned until morning, my father
+said, and so people did not need to carry lanterns. In America, then,
+everything was free, as we had heard in Russia. Light was free; the
+streets were as bright as a synagogue on a holy day. Music was free;
+we had been serenaded, to our gaping delight, by a brass band of many
+pieces, soon after our installation on Union Place.</p>
+
+<p>Education was free. That subject my father had written about
+repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence
+of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not
+even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to
+promise us when he sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter. On
+our second day I was thrilled with the realization of what this
+freedom of education meant. A little girl from across the alley came
+and offered to conduct us to school. My father was out, but we five
+between us had a few words of English by this time. We knew the word
+school. We understood. This child, who had never seen us till
+yesterday, who could not pronounce our names, who was not much better
+dressed than we, was able to offer us the freedom of the schools of
+Boston! No application made, no questions asked, no examinations,
+rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees. The doors stood open
+for every one of us. The smallest child could show us the way.</p>
+
+<p>This incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance
+of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete
+proof&mdash;almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand
+it.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not
+to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of
+the term, he said, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>we were going to move to Crescent Beach in a
+week or so. We had to wait until the opening of the schools in
+September. What a loss of precious time&mdash;from May till September!</p>
+
+<p>Not that the time was really lost. Even the interval on Union Place
+was crowded with lessons and experiences. We had to visit the stores
+and be dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to learn
+the mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube;
+we had to learn to trade with the fruit peddler through the window,
+and not to be afraid of the policeman; and, above all, we had to learn
+English.</p>
+
+<p>The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a
+group by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen
+them from those early days till now, I should still have remembered
+them with gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of my American
+teachers, I must begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and
+taught us our first steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the
+cookstove, the woman who showed her how to make the fire was an angel
+of deliverance. A fairy godmother to us children was she who led us to
+a wonderful country called "uptown," where, in a dazzlingly beautiful
+palace called a "department store," we exchanged our hateful homemade
+European costumes, which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the
+children on the street, for real American machine-made garments, and
+issued forth glorified in each other's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>With our despised immigrant clothing we shed also our impossible
+Hebrew names. A committee of our friends, several years ahead of us in
+American experience, put their heads together and concocted American
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>names for us all. Those of our real names that had no pleasing
+American equivalents they ruthlessly discarded, content if they
+retained the initials. My mother, possessing a name that was not
+easily translatable, was punished with the undignified nickname of
+Annie. Fetchke, Joseph, and Deborah issued as Frieda, Joseph, and
+Dora, respectively. As for poor me, I was simply cheated. The name
+they gave me was hardly new. My Hebrew name being Maryashe in full,
+Mashke for short, Russianized into Marya (<i>Mar-ya</i>), my friends said
+that it would hold good in English as <i>Mary</i>; which was very
+disappointing, as I longed to possess a strange-sounding American name
+like the others.</p>
+
+<p>I am forgetting the consolation I had, in this matter of names, from
+the use of my surname, which I have had no occasion to mention until
+now. I found on my arrival that my father was "Mr. Antin" on the
+slightest provocation, and not, as in Polotzk, on state occasions
+alone. And so I was "Mary Antin," and I felt very important to answer
+to such a dignified title. It was just like America that even plain
+people should wear their surnames on week days.</p>
+
+<p>As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and
+so clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to
+Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household
+goods, my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way,
+and I am sure he was not ashamed of us. So much we had achieved toward
+our Americanization during the two weeks since our landing.</p>
+
+<p>Crescent Beach is a name that is printed in very small type on the
+maps of the environs of Boston, but a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>life-size strip of sand curves
+from Winthrop to Lynn; and that is historic ground in the annals of my
+family. The place is now a popular resort for holiday crowds, and is
+famous under the name of Revere Beach. When the reunited Antins made
+their stand there, however, there were no boulevards, no stately
+bath-houses, no hotels, no gaudy amusement places, no illuminations,
+no showmen, no tawdry rabble. There was only the bright clean sweep of
+sand, the summer sea, and the summer sky. At high tide the whole
+Atlantic rushed in, tossing the seaweeds in his mane; at low tide he
+rushed out, growling and gnashing his granite teeth. Between tides a
+baby might play on the beach, digging with pebbles and shells, till it
+lay asleep on the sand. The whole sun shone by day, troops of stars by
+night, and the great moon in its season.</p>
+
+<p>Into this grand cycle of the seaside day I came to live and learn and
+play. A few people came with me, as I have already intimated; but the
+main thing was that <i>I</i> came to live on the edge of the sea&mdash;I, who
+had spent my life inland, believing that the great waters of the world
+were spread out before me in the Dvina. My idea of the human world had
+grown enormously during the long journey; my idea of the earth had
+expanded with every day at sea; my idea of the world outside the earth
+now budded and swelled during my prolonged experience of the wide and
+unobstructed heavens.</p>
+
+<p>Not that I got any inkling of the conception of a multiple world. I
+had had no lessons in cosmogony, and I had no spontaneous revelation
+of the true position of the earth in the universe. For me, as for my
+fathers, the sun set and rose, and I did not feel the earth rushing
+through space. But I lay stretched out in the sun, my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>eyes level with
+the sea, till I seemed to be absorbed bodily by the very materials of
+the world around me; till I could not feel my hand as separate from
+the warm sand in which it was buried. Or I crouched on the beach at
+full moon, wondering, wondering, between the two splendors of the sky
+and the sea. Or I ran out to meet the incoming storm, my face full in
+the wind, my being a-tingle with an awesome delight to the tips of my
+fog-matted locks flying behind; and stood clinging to some stake or
+upturned boat, shaken by the roar and rumble of the waves. So
+clinging, I pretended that I was in danger, and was deliciously
+frightened; I held on with both hands, and shook my head, exulting in
+the tumult around me, equally ready to laugh or sob. Or else I sat, on
+the stillest days, with my back to the sea, not looking at all, but
+just listening to the rustle of the waves on the sand; not thinking at
+all, but just breathing with the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Thus courting the influence of sea and sky and variable weather, I was
+bound to have dreams, hints, imaginings. It was no more than this,
+perhaps: that the world as I knew it was not large enough to contain
+all that I saw and felt; that the thoughts that flashed through my
+mind, not half understood, unrelated to my utterable thoughts,
+concerned something for which I had as yet no name. Every imaginative
+growing child has these flashes of intuition, especially one that
+becomes intimate with some one aspect of nature. With me it was the
+growing time, that idle summer by the sea, and I grew all the faster
+because I had been so cramped before. My mind, too, had so recently
+been worked upon by the impressive experience of a change of country
+that I was more than commonly alive to impressions, which are the
+seeds of ideas.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>Let no one suppose that I spent my time entirely, or even chiefly, in
+inspired solitude. By far the best part of my day was spent in
+play&mdash;frank, hearty, boisterous play, such as comes natural to
+American children. In Polotzk I had already begun to be considered too
+old for play, excepting set games or organized frolics. Here I found
+myself included with children who still played, and I willingly
+returned to childhood. There were plenty of playfellows. My father's
+energetic little partner had a little wife and a large family. He kept
+them in the little cottage next to ours; and that the shanty survived
+the tumultuous presence of that brood is a wonder to me to-day. The
+young Wilners included an assortment of boys, girls, and twins, of
+every possible variety of age, size, disposition, and sex. They
+swarmed in and out of the cottage all day long, wearing the door-sill
+hollow, and trampling the ground to powder. They swung out of windows
+like monkeys, slid up the roof like flies, and shot out of trees like
+fowls. Even a small person like me couldn't go anywhere without being
+run over by a Wilner; and I could never tell which Wilner it was
+because none of them ever stood still long enough to be identified;
+and also because I suspected that they were in the habit of
+interchanging conspicuous articles of clothing, which was very
+confusing.</p>
+
+<p>You would suppose that the little mother must have been utterly lost,
+bewildered, trodden down in this horde of urchins; but you are
+mistaken. Mrs. Wilner was a positively majestic little person. She
+ruled her brood with the utmost coolness and strictness. She had even
+the biggest boy under her thumb, frequently under her palm. If they
+enjoyed the wildest freedom outdoors, indoors the young Wilners lived
+by the clock. And so at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>five o'clock in the evening, on seven days in
+the week, my father's partner's children could be seen in two long
+rows around the supper table. You could tell them apart on this
+occasion, because they all had their faces washed. And this is the
+time to count them: there are twelve little Wilners at table.</p>
+
+<p>I managed to retain my identity in this multitude somehow, and while I
+was very much impressed with their numbers, I even dared to pick and
+choose my friends among the Wilners. One or two of the smaller boys I
+liked best of all, for a game of hide-and-seek or a frolic on the
+beach. We played in the water like ducks, never taking the trouble to
+get dry. One day I waded out with one of the boys, to see which of us
+dared go farthest. The tide was extremely low, and we had not wet our
+knees when we began to look back to see if familiar objects were still
+in sight. I thought we had been wading for hours, and still the water
+was so shallow and quiet. My companion was marching straight ahead, so
+I did the same. Suddenly a swell lifted us almost off our feet, and we
+clutched at each other simultaneously. There was a lesser swell, and
+little waves began to run, and a sigh went up from the sea. The tide
+was turning&mdash;perhaps a storm was on the way&mdash;and we were miles,
+dreadful miles from dry land.</p>
+
+<p>Boy and girl turned without a word, four determined bare legs
+ploughing through the water, four scared eyes straining toward the
+land. Through an eternity of toil and fear they kept dumbly on, death
+at their heels, pride still in their hearts. At last they reach
+high-water mark&mdash;six hours before full tide.</p>
+
+<p>Each has seen the other afraid, and each rejoices in the knowledge.
+But only the boy is sure of his tongue.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>"You was scared, warn't you?" he taunts.</p>
+
+<p>The girl understands so much, and is able to reply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You can schwimmen, I not."</p>
+
+<p>"Betcher life I can schwimmen," the other mocks.</p>
+
+<p>And the girl walks off, angry and hurt.</p>
+
+<p>"An' I can walk on my hands," the tormentor calls after her. "Say, you
+greenhorn, why don'tcher look?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl keeps straight on, vowing that she would never walk with that
+rude boy again, neither by land nor sea, not even though the waters
+should part at his bidding.</p>
+
+<p>I am forgetting the more serious business which had brought us to
+Crescent Beach. While we children disported ourselves like mermaids
+and mermen in the surf, our respective fathers dispensed cold
+lemonade, hot peanuts, and pink popcorn, and piled up our respective
+fortunes, nickel by nickel, penny by penny. I was very proud of my
+connection with the public life of the beach. I admired greatly our
+shining soda fountain, the rows of sparkling glasses, the pyramids of
+oranges, the sausage chains, the neat white counter, and the bright
+array of tin spoons. It seemed to me that none of the other
+refreshment stands on the beach&mdash;there were a few&mdash;were half so
+attractive as ours. I thought my father looked very well in a long
+white apron and shirt sleeves. He dished out ice cream with
+enthusiasm, so I supposed he was getting rich. It never occurred to me
+to compare his present occupation with the position for which he had
+been originally destined; or if I thought about it, I was just as well
+content, for by this time I had by heart my father's saying, "America
+is not Polotzk." All occupations were respectable, all men were equal,
+in America.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>If I admired the soda fountain and the sausage chains, I almost
+worshipped the partner, Mr. Wilner. I was content to stand for an hour
+at a time watching him make potato chips. In his cook's cap and apron,
+with a ladle in his hand and a smile on his face, he moved about with
+the greatest agility, whisking his raw materials out of nowhere,
+dipping into his bubbling kettle with a flourish, and bringing forth
+the finished product with a caper. Such potato chips were not to be had
+anywhere else on Crescent Beach. Thin as tissue paper, crisp as dry
+snow, and salt as the sea&mdash;such thirst-producing, lemonade-selling,
+nickel-bringing potato chips only Mr. Wilner could make. On holidays,
+when dozens of family parties came out by every train from town, he
+could hardly keep up with the demand for his potato chips. And with a
+waiting crowd around him our partner was at his best. He was as voluble
+as he was skilful, and as witty as he was voluble; at least so I
+guessed from the laughter that frequently drowned his voice. I could
+not understand his jokes, but if I could get near enough to watch his
+lips and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could
+talk so fast, and in English, was marvel enough, but that this prodigy
+should belong to <i>our</i> establishment was a fact to thrill me. I had
+never seen anything like Mr. Wilner, except a wedding jester; but then
+he spoke common Yiddish. So proud was I of the talent and good taste
+displayed at our stand that if my father beckoned to me in the crowd
+and sent me on an errand, I hoped the people noticed that I, too, was
+connected with the establishment.</p>
+
+<p>And all this splendor and glory and distinction came to a sudden end.
+There was some trouble about a license&mdash;some fee or fine&mdash;there was a
+storm in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>night that damaged the soda fountain and other
+fixtures&mdash;there was talk and consultation between the houses of Antin
+and Wilner&mdash;and the promising partnership was dissolved. No more would
+the merry partner gather the crowd on the beach; no more would the
+twelve young Wilners gambol like mermen and mermaids in the surf. And
+the less numerous tribe of Antin must also say farewell to the jolly
+seaside life; for men in such humble business as my father's carry
+their families, along with their other earthly goods, wherever they
+go, after the manner of the gypsies. We had driven a feeble stake into
+the sand. The jealous Atlantic, in conspiracy with the Sunday law, had
+torn it out. We must seek our luck elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>In Polotzk we had supposed that "America" was practically synonymous
+with "Boston." When we landed in Boston, the horizon was pushed back,
+and we annexed Crescent Beach. And now, espying other lands of
+promise, we took possession of the province of Chelsea, in the name of
+our necessity.</p>
+
+<p>In Chelsea, as in Boston, we made our stand in the wrong end of the
+town. Arlington Street was inhabited by poor Jews, poor Negroes, and a
+sprinkling of poor Irish. The side streets leading from it were
+occupied by more poor Jews and Negroes. It was a proper locality for a
+man without capital to do business. My father rented a tenement with a
+store in the basement. He put in a few barrels of flour and of sugar,
+a few boxes of crackers, a few gallons of kerosene, an assortment of
+soap of the "save the coupon" brands; in the cellar, a few barrels of
+potatoes, and a pyramid of kindling-wood; in the showcase, an alluring
+display of penny candy. He put out his sign, with a gilt-lettered
+warning of "Strictly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>Cash," and proceeded to give credit
+indiscriminately. That was the regular way to do business on Arlington
+Street. My father, in his three years' apprenticeship, had learned the
+tricks of many trades. He knew when and how to "bluff." The legend of
+"Strictly Cash" was a protection against notoriously irresponsible
+customers; while none of the "good" customers, who had a record for
+paying regularly on Saturday, hesitated to enter the store with empty
+purses.</p>
+
+<p>If my father knew the tricks of the trade, my mother could be counted
+on to throw all her talent and tact into the business. Of course she
+had no English yet, but as she could perform the acts of weighing,
+measuring, and mental computation of fractions mechanically, she was
+able to give her whole attention to the dark mysteries of the
+language, as intercourse with her customers gave her opportunity. In
+this she made such rapid progress that she soon lost all sense of
+disadvantage, and conducted herself behind the counter very much as if
+she were back in her old store in Polotzk. It was far more cosey than
+Polotzk&mdash;at least, so it seemed to me; for behind the store was the
+kitchen, where, in the intervals of slack trade, she did her cooking
+and washing. Arlington Street customers were used to waiting while the
+storekeeper salted the soup or rescued a loaf from the oven.</p>
+
+<p>Once more Fortune favored my family with a thin little smile, and my
+father, in reply to a friendly inquiry, would say, "One makes a
+living," with a shrug of the shoulders that added "but nothing to boast
+of." It was characteristic of my attitude toward bread-and-butter
+matters that this contented me, and I felt free to devote myself to the
+conquest of my new world. Looking back <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>to those critical first years,
+I see myself always behaving like a child let loose in a garden to play
+and dig and chase the butterflies. Occasionally, indeed, I was stung by
+the wasp of family trouble; but I knew a healing ointment&mdash;my faith in
+America. My father had come to America to make a living. America, which
+was free and fair and kind, must presently yield him what he sought. I
+had come to America to see a new world, and I followed my own ends with
+the utmost assiduity; only, as I ran out to explore, I would look back
+to see if my house were in order behind me&mdash;if my family still kept its
+head above water.</p>
+
+<p>In after years, when I passed as an American among Americans, if I was
+suddenly made aware of the past that lay forgotten,&mdash;if a letter from
+Russia, or a paragraph in the newspaper, or a conversation overheard
+in the street-car, suddenly reminded me of what I might have been,&mdash;I
+thought it miracle enough that I, Mashke, the granddaughter of Raphael
+the Russian, born to a humble destiny, should be at home in an
+American metropolis, be free to fashion my own life, and should dream
+my dreams in English phrases. But in the beginning my admiration was
+spent on more concrete embodiments of the splendors of America; such
+as fine houses, gay shops, electric engines and apparatus, public
+buildings, illuminations, and parades. My early letters to my Russian
+friends were filled with boastful descriptions of these glories of my
+new country. No native citizen of Chelsea took such pride and delight
+in its institutions as I did. It required no fife and drum corps, no
+Fourth of July procession, to set me tingling with patriotism. Even
+the common agents and instruments of municipal life, such as the
+letter carrier and the fire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>engine, I regarded with a measure of
+respect. I know what I thought of people who said that Chelsea was a
+very small, dull, unaspiring town, with no discernible excuse for a
+separate name or existence.</p>
+
+<p>The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the
+bright September morning when I entered the public school. That day I
+must always remember, even if I live to be so old that I cannot tell
+my name. To most people their first day at school is a memorable
+occasion. In my case the importance of the day was a hundred times
+magnified, on account of the years I had waited, the road I had come,
+and the conscious ambitions I entertained.</p>
+
+<p>I am wearily aware that I am speaking in extreme figures, in
+superlatives. I wish I knew some other way to render the mental life
+of the immigrant child of reasoning age. I may have been ever so much
+an exception in acuteness of observation, powers of comparison, and
+abnormal self-consciousness; none the less were my thoughts and
+conduct typical of the attitude of the intelligent immigrant child
+toward American institutions. And what the child thinks and feels is a
+reflection of the hopes, desires, and purposes of the parents who
+brought him overseas, no matter how precocious and independent the
+child may be. Your immigrant inspectors will tell you what poverty the
+foreigner brings in his baggage, what want in his pockets. Let the
+overgrown boy of twelve, reverently drawing his letters in the baby
+class, testify to the noble dreams and high ideals that may be hidden
+beneath the greasy caftan of the immigrant. Speaking for the Jews, at
+least, I know I am safe in inviting such an investigation.</p>
+
+<p>Who were my companions on my first day at school? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>Whose hand was in
+mine, as I stood, overcome with awe, by the teacher's desk, and
+whispered my name as my father prompted? Was it Frieda's steady,
+capable hand? Was it her loyal heart that throbbed, beat for beat with
+mine, as it had done through all our childish adventures? Frieda's
+heart did throb that day, but not with my emotions. My heart pulsed
+with joy and pride and ambition; in her heart longing fought with
+abnegation. For I was led to the schoolroom, with its sunshine and its
+singing and the teacher's cheery smile; while she was led to the
+workshop, with its foul air, care-lined faces, and the foreman's stern
+command. Our going to school was the fulfilment of my father's best
+promises to us, and Frieda's share in it was to fashion and fit the
+calico frocks in which the baby sister and I made our first appearance
+in a public schoolroom.</p>
+
+<p>I remember to this day the gray pattern of the calico, so
+affectionately did I regard it as it hung upon the wall&mdash;my
+consecration robe awaiting the beatific day. And Frieda, I am sure,
+remembers it, too, so longingly did she regard it as the crisp,
+starchy breadths of it slid between her fingers. But whatever were her
+longings, she said nothing of them; she bent over the sewing-machine
+humming an Old-World melody. In every straight, smooth seam, perhaps,
+she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched
+the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of
+rebellion made her straighten up for an instant, the next instant she
+was bending to adjust a ruffle to the best advantage. And when the
+momentous day arrived, and the little sister and I stood up to be
+arrayed, it was Frieda herself who patted and smoothed my stiff new
+calico; who made me turn round <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>and round, to see that I was perfect;
+who stooped to pull out a disfiguring basting-thread. If there was
+anything in her heart besides sisterly love and pride and good-will,
+as we parted that morning, it was a sense of loss and a woman's
+acquiescence in her fate; for we had been close friends, and now our
+ways would lie apart. Longing she felt, but no envy. She did not
+grudge me what she was denied. Until that morning we had been children
+together, but now, at the fiat of her destiny, she became a woman,
+with all a woman's cares; whilst I, so little younger than she, was
+bidden to dance at the May festival of untroubled childhood.</p>
+
+<p>I wish, for my comfort, that I could say that I had some notion of the
+difference in our lots, some sense of the injustice to her, of the
+indulgence to me. I wish I could even say that I gave serious thought
+to the matter. There had always been a distinction between us rather
+out of proportion to the difference in our years. Her good health and
+domestic instincts had made it natural for her to become my mother's
+right hand, in the years preceding the emigration, when there were no
+more servants or dependents. Then there was the family tradition that
+Mary was the quicker, the brighter of the two, and that hers could be
+no common lot. Frieda was relied upon for help, and her sister for
+glory. And when I failed as a milliner's apprentice, while Frieda made
+excellent progress at the dressmaker's, our fates, indeed, were
+sealed. It was understood, even before we reached Boston, that she
+would go to work and I to school. In view of the family prejudices, it
+was the inevitable course. No injustice was intended. My father sent
+us hand in hand to school, before he had ever thought of America. If,
+in America, he had been able <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>to support his family unaided, it would
+have been the culmination of his best hopes to see all his children at
+school, with equal advantages at home. But when he had done his best,
+and was still unable to provide even bread and shelter for us all, he
+was compelled to make us children self-supporting as fast as it was
+practicable. There was no choosing possible; Frieda was the oldest,
+the strongest, the best prepared, and the only one who was of legal
+age to be put to work.</p>
+
+<p>My father has nothing to answer for. He divided the world between his
+children in accordance with the laws of the country and the compulsion
+of his circumstances. I have no need of defending him. It is myself
+that I would like to defend, and I cannot. I remember that I accepted
+the arrangements made for my sister and me without much reflection,
+and everything that was planned for my advantage I took as a matter of
+course. I was no heartless monster, but a decidedly self-centred
+child. If my sister had seemed unhappy it would have troubled me; but
+I am ashamed to recall that I did not consider how little it was that
+contented her. I was so preoccupied with my own happiness that I did
+not half perceive the splendid devotion of her attitude towards me,
+the sweetness of her joy in my good luck. She not only stood by
+approvingly when I was helped to everything; she cheerfully waited on
+me herself. And I took everything from her hand as if it were my due.</p>
+
+<p>The two of us stood a moment in the doorway of the tenement house on
+Arlington Street, that wonderful September morning when I first went
+to school. It was I that ran away, on winged feet of joy and
+expectation; it was she whose feet were bound in the treadmill of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>daily toil. And I was so blind that I did not see that the glory lay
+on her, and not on me.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Father himself conducted us to school. He would not have delegated
+that mission to the President of the United States. He had awaited the
+day with impatience equal to mine, and the visions he saw as he
+hurried us over the sun-flecked pavements transcended all my dreams.
+Almost his first act on landing on American soil, three years before,
+had been his application for naturalization. He had taken the
+remaining steps in the process with eager promptness, and at the
+earliest moment allowed by the law, he became a citizen of the United
+States. It is true that he had left home in search of bread for his
+hungry family, but he went blessing the necessity that drove him to
+America. The boasted freedom of the New World meant to him far more
+than the right to reside, travel, and work wherever he pleased; it
+meant the freedom to speak his thoughts, to throw off the shackles of
+superstition, to test his own fate, unhindered by political or
+religious tyranny. He was only a young man when he landed&mdash;thirty-two;
+and most of his life he had been held in leading-strings. He was
+hungry for his untasted manhood.</p>
+
+<p>Three years passed in sordid struggle and disappointment. He was not
+prepared to make a living even in America, where the day laborer eats
+wheat instead of rye. Apparently the American flag could not protect
+him against the pursuing Nemesis of his limitations; he must expiate
+the sins of his fathers who slept across the seas. He had been endowed
+at birth with a poor constitution, a nervous, restless temperament,
+and an abundance of hindering prejudices. In his boyhood his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>body was
+starved, that his mind might be stuffed with useless learning. In his
+youth this dearly gotten learning was sold, and the price was the
+bread and salt which he had not been trained to earn for himself.
+Under the wedding canopy he was bound for life to a girl whose
+features were still strange to him; and he was bidden to multiply
+himself, that sacred learning might be perpetuated in his sons, to the
+glory of the God of his fathers. All this while he had been led about
+as a creature without a will, a chattel, an instrument. In his
+maturity he awoke, and found himself poor in health, poor in purse,
+poor in useful knowledge, and hampered on all sides. At the first nod
+of opportunity he broke away from his prison, and strove to atone for
+his wasted youth by a life of useful labor; while at the same time he
+sought to lighten the gloom of his narrow scholarship by freely
+partaking of modern ideas. But his utmost endeavor still left him far
+from his goal. In business, nothing prospered with him. Some fault of
+hand or mind or temperament led him to failure where other men found
+success. Wherever the blame for his disabilities be placed, he reaped
+their bitter fruit. "Give me bread!" he cried to America. "What will
+you do to earn it?" the challenge came back. And he found that he was
+master of no art, of no trade; that even his precious learning was of
+no avail, because he had only the most antiquated methods of
+communicating it.</p>
+
+<p>So in his primary quest he had failed. There was left him the
+compensation of intellectual freedom. That he sought to realize in
+every possible way. He had very little opportunity to prosecute his
+education, which, in truth, had never been begun. His struggle for a
+bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>evening
+school; but he lost nothing of what was to be learned through reading,
+through attendance at public meetings, through exercising the rights
+of citizenship. Even here he was hindered by a natural inability to
+acquire the English language. In time, indeed, he learned to read, to
+follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write
+correctly, and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this
+day.</p>
+
+<p>If education, culture, the higher life were shining things to be
+worshipped from afar, he had still a means left whereby he could draw
+one step nearer to them. He could send his children to school, to
+learn all those things that he knew by fame to be desirable. The
+common school, at least, perhaps high school; for one or two, perhaps
+even college! His children should be students, should fill his house
+with books and intellectual company; and thus he would walk by proxy
+in the Elysian Fields of liberal learning. As for the children
+themselves, he knew no surer way to their advancement and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>So it was with a heart full of longing and hope that my father led us
+to school on that first day. He took long strides in his eagerness,
+the rest of us running and hopping to keep up.</p>
+
+<p>At last the four of us stood around the teacher's desk; and my father,
+in his impossible English, gave us over in her charge, with some
+broken word of his hopes for us that his swelling heart could no
+longer contain. I venture to say that Miss Nixon was struck by
+something uncommon in the group we made, something outside of Semitic
+features and the abashed manner of the alien. My little sister was as
+pretty as a doll, with her clear pink-and-white face, short golden
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>curls, and eyes like blue violets when you caught them looking up. My
+brother might have been a girl, too, with his cherubic contours of
+face, rich red color, glossy black hair, and fine eyebrows. Whatever
+secret fears were in his heart, remembering his former teachers, who
+had taught with the rod, he stood up straight and uncringing before
+the American teacher, his cap respectfully doffed. Next to him stood a
+starved-looking girl with eyes ready to pop out, and short dark curls
+that would not have made much of a wig for a Jewish bride.</p>
+
+<p>All three children carried themselves rather better than the common
+run of "green" pupils that were brought to Miss Nixon. But the figure
+that challenged attention to the group was the tall, straight father,
+with his earnest face and fine forehead, nervous hands eloquent in
+gesture, and a voice full of feeling. This foreigner, who brought his
+children to school as if it were an act of consecration, who regarded
+the teacher of the primer class with reverence, who spoke of visions,
+like a man inspired, in a common schoolroom, was not like other
+aliens, who brought their children in dull obedience to the law; was
+not like the native fathers, who brought their unmanageable boys, glad
+to be relieved of their care. I think Miss Nixon guessed what my
+father's best English could not convey. I think she divined that by
+the simple act of delivering our school certificates to her he took
+possession of America.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>INITIATION</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>It is not worth while to refer to voluminous school statistics to see
+just how many "green" pupils entered school last September, not
+knowing the days of the week in English, who next February will be
+declaiming patriotic verses in honor of George Washington and Abraham
+Lincoln, with a foreign accent, indeed, but with plenty of enthusiasm.
+It is enough to know that this hundred-fold miracle is common to the
+schools in every part of the United States where immigrants are
+received. And if I was one of Chelsea's hundred in 1894, it was only
+to be expected, since I was one of the older of the "green" children,
+and had had a start in my irregular schooling in Russia, and was
+carried along by a tremendous desire to learn, and had my family to
+cheer me on.</p>
+
+<p>I was not a bit too large for my little chair and desk in the baby
+class, but my mind, of course, was too mature by six or seven years
+for the work. So as soon as I could understand what the teacher said
+in class, I was advanced to the second grade. This was within a week
+after Miss Nixon took me in hand. But I do not mean to give my dear
+teacher all the credit for my rapid progress, nor even half the
+credit. I shall divide it with her on behalf of my race and my family.
+I was Jew enough to have an aptitude for language in general, and to
+bend my mind earnestly to my task; I was Antin enough to read each
+lesson with my heart, which gave me an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>inkling of what was coming
+next, and so carried me along by leaps and bounds. As for the teacher,
+she could best explain what theory she followed in teaching us
+foreigners to read. I can only describe the method, which was so
+simple that I wish holiness could be taught in the same way.</p>
+
+<p>There were about half a dozen of us beginners in English, in age from
+six to fifteen. Miss Nixon made a special class of us, and aided us so
+skilfully and earnestly in our endeavors to "see-a-cat," and
+"hear-a-dog-bark," and "look-at-the-hen," that we turned over page
+after page of the ravishing history, eager to find out how the common
+world looked, smelled, and tasted in the strange speech. The teacher
+knew just when to let us help each other out with a word in our own
+tongue,&mdash;it happened that we were all Jews,&mdash;and so, working all
+together, we actually covered more ground in a lesson than the native
+classes, composed entirely of the little tots.</p>
+
+<p>But we stuck&mdash;stuck fast&mdash;at the definite article; and sometimes the
+lesson resolved itself into a species of lingual gymnastics, in which
+we all looked as if we meant to bite our tongues off. Miss Nixon was
+pretty, and she must have looked well with her white teeth showing in
+the act; but at the time I was too solemnly occupied to admire her
+looks. I did take great pleasure in her smile of approval, whenever I
+pronounced well; and her patience and perseverance in struggling with
+us over that thick little word are becoming to her even now, after
+fifteen years. It is not her fault if any of us to-day give a buzzing
+sound to the dreadful English <i>th</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never have a better opportunity to make public declaration of
+my love for the English language. I am <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>glad that American history
+runs, chapter for chapter, the way it does; for thus America came to
+be the country I love so dearly. I am glad, most of all, that the
+Americans began by being Englishmen, for thus did I come to inherit
+this beautiful language in which I think. It seems to me that in any
+other language happiness is not so sweet, logic is not so clear. I am
+not sure that I could believe in my neighbors as I do if I thought
+about them in un-English words. I could almost say that my conviction
+of immortality is bound up with the English of its promise. And as I
+am attached to my prejudices, I must love the English language!</p>
+
+<p>Whenever the teachers did anything special to help me over my private
+difficulties, my gratitude went out to them, silently. It meant so
+much to me that they halted the lesson to give me a lift, that I needs
+must love them for it. Dear Miss Carrol, of the second grade, would be
+amazed to hear what small things I remember, all because I was so
+impressed at the time with her readiness and sweetness in taking
+notice of my difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Says Miss Carrol, looking straight at me:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If Johnnie has three marbles, and Charlie has twice as many, how many
+marbles has Charlie?"</p>
+
+<p>I raise my hand for permission to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Teacher, I don't know vhat is tvice."</p>
+
+<p>Teacher beckons me to her, and whispers to me the meaning of the
+strange word, and I am able to write the sum correctly. It's all in
+the day's work with her; with me, it is a special act of kindness and
+efficiency.</p>
+
+<p>She whom I found in the next grade became so dear a friend that I can
+hardly name her with the rest, though I mention none of them lightly.
+Her approval was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>always dear to me, first because she was "Teacher,"
+and afterwards, as long as she lived, because she was my Miss
+Dillingham. Great was my grief, therefore, when, shortly after my
+admission to her class, I incurred discipline, the first, and next to
+the last, time in my school career.</p>
+
+<p>The class was repeating in chorus the Lord's Prayer, heads bowed on
+desks. I was doing my best to keep up by the sound; my mind could not
+go beyond the word "hallowed," for which I had not found the meaning.
+In the middle of the prayer a Jewish boy across the aisle trod on my
+foot to get my attention. "You must not say that," he admonished in a
+solemn whisper; "it's Christian." I whispered back that it wasn't, and
+went on to the "Amen." I did not know but what he was right, but the
+name of Christ was not in the prayer, and I was bound to do everything
+that the class did. If I had any Jewish scruples, they were lagging
+away behind my interest in school affairs. How American this was: two
+pupils side by side in the schoolroom, each holding to his own
+opinion, but both submitting to the common law; for the boy at least
+bowed his head as the teacher ordered.</p>
+
+<p>But all Miss Dillingham knew of it was that two of her pupils
+whispered during morning prayer, and she must discipline them. So I
+was degraded from the honor row to the lowest row, and it was many a
+day before I forgave that young missionary; it was not enough for my
+vengeance that he suffered punishment with me. Teacher, of course,
+heard us both defend ourselves, but there was a time and a place for
+religious arguments, and she meant to help us remember that point.</p>
+
+<p>I remember to this day what a struggle we had over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>the word "water,"
+Miss Dillingham and I. It seemed as if I could not give the sound of
+<i>w</i>; I said "vater" every time. Patiently my teacher worked with me,
+inventing mouth exercises for me, to get my stubborn lips to produce
+that <i>w</i>; and when at last I could say "village" and "water" in rapid
+alternation, without misplacing the two initials, that memorable word
+was sweet on my lips. For we had conquered, and Teacher was pleased.</p>
+
+<p>Getting a language in this way, word by word, has a charm that may be
+set against the disadvantages. It is like gathering a posy blossom by
+blossom. Bring the bouquet into your chamber, and these nasturtiums
+stand for the whole flaming carnival of them tumbling over the fence
+out there; these yellow pansies recall the velvet crescent of color
+glowing under the bay window; this spray of honeysuckle smells like
+the wind-tossed masses of it on the porch, ripe and bee-laden; the
+whole garden in a glass tumbler. So it is with one who gathers words,
+loving them. Particular words remain associated with important
+occasions in the learner's mind. I could thus write a history of my
+English vocabulary that should be at the same time an account of my
+comings and goings, my mistakes and my triumphs, during the years of
+my initiation.</p>
+
+<p>If I was eager and diligent, my teachers did not sleep. As fast as my
+knowledge of English allowed, they advanced me from grade to grade,
+without reference to the usual schedule of promotions. My father was
+right, when he often said, in discussing my prospects, that ability
+would be promptly recognized in the public schools. Rapid as was my
+progress, on account of the advantages with which I started, some of
+the other "green" pupils were not far behind me; within a grade <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>or
+two, by the end of the year. My brother, whose childhood had been one
+hideous nightmare, what with the stupid rebbe, the cruel whip, and the
+general repression of life in the Pale, surprised my father by the
+progress he made under intelligent, sympathetic guidance. Indeed, he
+soon had a reputation in the school that the American boys envied; and
+all through the school course he more than held his own with pupils of
+his age. So much for the right and wrong way of doing things.</p>
+
+<p>There is a record of my early progress in English much better than my
+recollections, however accurate and definite these may be. I have
+several reasons for introducing it here. First, it shows what the
+Russian Jew can do with an adopted language; next, it proves that
+vigilance of our public-school teachers of which I spoke; and last, I
+am proud of it! That is an unnecessary confession, but I could not be
+satisfied to insert the record here, with my vanity unavowed.</p>
+
+<p>This is the document, copied from an educational journal, a tattered
+copy of which lies in my lap as I write&mdash;treasured for fifteen years,
+you see, by my vanity.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><span class="sc">Editor "Primary Education</span>":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>This is the uncorrected paper of a Russian child twelve years
+old, who had studied English only four months. She had never,
+until September, been to school even in her own country and has
+heard English spoken <i>only</i> at school. I shall be glad if the
+paper of my pupil and the above explanation may appear in your
+paper.</p>
+
+<p class="right sc">M.S. Dillingham.</p>
+
+<p class="sc" style="font-size: 90%;">Chelsea, Mass.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block">
+<p class="cen">SNOW</p>
+
+<p>Snow is frozen moisture which comes from the clouds. Now the
+snow is coming down in feather-flakes, which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>makes nice
+snow-balls. But there is still one kind of snow more. This kind
+of snow is called snow-crystals, for it comes down in little
+curly balls. These snow-crystals aren't quiet as good for
+snow-balls as feather-flakes, for they (the snow-crystals) are
+dry: so they can't keep together as feather-flakes do.</p>
+
+<p>The snow is dear to some children for they like sleighing.</p>
+
+<p>As I said at the top&mdash;the snow comes from the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Now the trees are bare, and no flowers are to see in the fields
+and gardens, (we all know why) and the whole world seems like
+asleep without the happy birds songs which left us till spring.
+But the snow which drove away all these pretty and happy things,
+try, (as I think) not to make us at all unhappy; they covered up
+the branches of the trees, the fields, the gardens and houses,
+and the whole world looks like dressed in a beautiful
+white&mdash;instead of green&mdash;dress, with the sky looking down on it
+with a pale face.</p>
+
+<p>And so the people can find some joy in it, too, without the
+happy summer.</p>
+
+<p class="right sc">Mary Antin.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>And now that it stands there, with <i>her</i> name over it, I am ashamed of
+my flippant talk about vanity. More to me than all the praise I could
+hope to win by the conquest of fifty languages is the association of
+this dear friend with my earliest efforts at writing; and it pleases
+me to remember that to her I owe my very first appearance in print.
+Vanity is the least part of it, when I remember how she called me to
+her desk, one day after school was out, and showed me my
+composition&mdash;my own words, that I had written out of my own
+head&mdash;printed out, clear black and white, with my name at the end!
+Nothing so wonderful had ever happened to me before. My whole
+consciousness was suddenly transformed. I suppose that was the moment
+when I became <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>a writer. I always loved to write,&mdash;I wrote letters
+whenever I had an excuse,&mdash;yet it had never occurred to me to sit down
+and write my thoughts for no person in particular, merely to put the
+word on paper. But now, as I read my own words, in a delicious
+confusion, the idea was born. I stared at my name: <span class="sc">Mary
+Antin</span>. Was that really I? The printed characters composing it
+seemed strange to me all of a sudden. If that was my name, and those
+were the words out of my own head, what relation did it all have to
+<i>me</i>, who was alone there with Miss Dillingham, and the printed page
+between us? Why, it meant that I could write again, and see my writing
+printed for people to read! I could write many, many, many things: I
+could write a book! The idea was so huge, so bewildering, that my mind
+scarcely could accommodate it.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know what my teacher said to me; probably very little. It was
+her way to say only a little, and look at me, and trust me to
+understand. Once she had occasion to lecture me about living a shut-up
+life; she wanted me to go outdoors. I had been repeatedly scolded and
+reproved on that score by other people, but I had only laughed, saying
+that I was too happy to change my ways. But when Miss Dillingham spoke
+to me, I saw that it was a serious matter; and yet she only said a few
+words, and looked at me with that smile of hers that was only half a
+smile, and the rest a meaning. Another time she had a great question
+to ask me, touching my life to the quick. She merely put her question,
+and was silent; but I knew what answer she expected, and not being
+able to give it then, I went away sad and reproved. Years later I had
+my triumphant answer, but she was no longer there to receive it; and
+so her eyes look at me, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>from the picture on the mantel there, with a
+reproach I no longer merit.</p>
+
+<p>I ought to go back and strike out all that talk about vanity. What
+reason have I to be vain, when I reflect how at every step I was
+petted, nursed, and encouraged? I did not even discover my own talent.
+It was discovered first by my father in Russia, and next by my friend
+in America. What did I ever do but write when they told me to write? I
+suppose my grandfather who drove a spavined horse through lonely
+country lanes sat in the shade of crisp-leaved oaks to refresh himself
+with a bit of black bread; and an acorn falling beside him, in the
+immense stillness, shook his heart with the echo, and left him
+wondering. I suppose my father stole away from the synagogue one long
+festival day, and stretched himself out in the sun-warmed grass, and
+lost himself in dreams that made the world of men unreal when he
+returned to them. And so what is there left for me to do, who do not
+have to drive a horse nor interpret ancient lore, but put my
+grandfather's question into words and set to music my father's dream?
+The tongue am I of those who lived before me, as those that are to
+come will be the voice of my unspoken thoughts. And so who shall be
+applauded if the song be sweet, if the prophecy be true?</p>
+
+<p>I never heard of any one who was so watched and coaxed, so passed
+along from hand to helping hand, as was I. I always had friends. They
+sprang up everywhere, as if they had stood waiting for me to come. So
+here was my teacher, the moment she saw that I could give a good
+paraphrase of her talk on "Snow," bent on finding out what more I
+could do. One day she asked me if I had ever written poetry. I had
+not, but I went <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>home and tried. I believe it was more snow, and I
+know it was wretched. I wish I could produce a copy of that early
+effusion; it would prove that my judgment is not severe. Wretched it
+was,&mdash;worse, a great deal, than reams of poetry that is written by
+children about whom there is no fuss made. But Miss Dillingham was not
+discouraged. She saw that I had no idea of metre, so she proceeded to
+teach me. We repeated miles of poetry together, smooth lines that sang
+themselves, mostly out of Longfellow. Then I would go home and
+write&mdash;oh, about the snow in our back yard!&mdash;but when Miss Dillingham
+came to read my verses, they limped and they lagged and they dragged,
+and there was no tune that would fit them.</p>
+
+<p>At last came the moment of illumination: I saw where my trouble lay. I
+had supposed that my lines matched when they had an equal number of
+syllables, taking no account of accent. Now I knew better; now I could
+write poetry! The everlasting snow melted at last, and the mud puddles
+dried in the spring sun, and the grass on the common was green, and
+still I wrote poetry! Again I wish I had some example of my springtime
+rhapsodies, the veriest rubbish of the sort that ever a child
+perpetrated. Lizzie McDee, who had red hair and freckles, and a
+Sunday-school manner on weekdays, and was below me in the class, did a
+great deal better. We used to compare verses; and while I do not
+remember that I ever had the grace to own that she was the better
+poet, I do know that I secretly wondered why the teachers did not
+invite her to stay after school and study poetry, while they took so
+much pains with me. But so it was always with me: somebody did
+something for me all the time.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>Making fair allowance for my youth, retarded education, and
+strangeness to the language, it must still be admitted that I never
+wrote good verse. But I loved to read it. My half-hours with Miss
+Dillingham were full of delight for me, quite apart from my new-born
+ambition to become a writer. What, then, was my joy, when Miss
+Dillingham, just before locking up her desk one evening, presented me
+with a volume of Longfellow's poems! It was a thin volume of
+selections, but to me it was a bottomless treasure. I had never owned
+a book before. The sense of possession alone was a source of bliss,
+and this book I already knew and loved. And so Miss Dillingham, who
+was my first American friend, and who first put my name in print, was
+also the one to start my library. Deep is my regret when I consider
+that she was gone before I had given much of an account of all her
+gifts of love and service to me.</p>
+
+<p>About the middle of the year I was promoted to the grammar school.
+Then it was that I walked on air. For I said to myself that I was a
+<i>student</i> now, in earnest, not merely a school-girl learning to spell
+and cipher. I was going to learn out-of-the-way things, things that
+had nothing to do with ordinary life&mdash;things to <i>know</i>. When I walked
+home afternoons, with the great big geography book under my arm, it
+seemed to me that the earth was conscious of my step. Sometimes I
+carried home half the books in my desk, not because I should need
+them, but because I loved to hold them; and also because I loved to be
+seen carrying books. It was a badge of scholarship, and I was proud of
+it. I remembered the days in Vitebsk when I used to watch my cousin
+Hirshel start for school in the morning, every thread of his student's
+uniform, every worn copybook <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>in his satchel, glorified in my envious
+eyes. And now I was myself as he: aye, greater than he; for I knew
+English, and I could write poetry.</p>
+
+<p>If my head was not turned at this time it was because I was so busy
+from morning till night. My father did his best to make me vain and
+silly. He made much of me to every chance caller, boasting of my
+progress at school, and of my exalted friends, the teachers. For a
+school-teacher was no ordinary mortal in his eyes; she was a superior
+being, set above the common run of men by her erudition and devotion
+to higher things. That a school-teacher could be shallow or petty, or
+greedy for pay, was a thing that he could not have been brought to
+believe, at this time. And he was right, if he could only have stuck
+to it in later years, when a new-born pessimism, fathered by his
+perception that in America, too, some things needed mending, threw him
+to the opposite extreme of opinion, crying that nothing in the
+American scheme of society or government was worth tinkering.</p>
+
+<p>He surely was right in his first appraisal of the teacher. The mean
+sort of teachers are not teachers at all; they are self-seekers who
+take up teaching as a business, to support themselves and keep their
+hands white. These same persons, did they keep store or drive a milk
+wagon or wash babies for a living, would be respectable. As
+trespassers on a noble profession, they are worth no more than the
+books and slates and desks over which they preside; so much furniture,
+to be had by the gross. They do not love their work. They contribute
+nothing to the higher development of their pupils. They busy
+themselves, not with research into the science of teaching, but with
+organizing political demonstrations to advance the cause of selfish
+candidates for public office, who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>promise them rewards. The true
+teachers are of another strain. Apostles all of an ideal, they go to
+their work in a spirit of love and inquiry, seeking not comfort, not
+position, not old-age pensions, but truth that is the soul of wisdom,
+the joy of big-eyed children, the food of hungry youth.</p>
+
+<p>They were true teachers who used to come to me on Arlington Street, so
+my father had reason to boast of the distinction brought upon his
+house. For the school-teacher in her trim, unostentatious dress was an
+uncommon visitor in our neighborhood; and the talk that passed in the
+bare little "parlor" over the grocery store would not have been
+entirely comprehensible to our next-door neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>In the grammar school I had as good teaching as I had had in the
+primary. It seems to me in retrospect that it was as good, on the
+whole, as the public school ideals of the time made possible. When I
+recall how I was taught geography, I see, indeed, that there was room
+for improvement occasionally both in the substance and in the method
+of instruction. But I know of at least one teacher of Chelsea who
+realized this; for I met her, eight years later, at a great
+metropolitan university that holds a summer session for the benefit of
+school-teachers who want to keep up with the advance in their science.
+Very likely they no longer teach geography entirely within doors, and
+by rote, as I was taught. Fifteen years is plenty of time for
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>When I joined the first grammar grade, the class had had a half-year's
+start of me, but it was not long before I found my place near the
+head. In all branches except geography it was genuine progress. I
+overtook the youngsters in their study of numbers, spelling, reading,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>and composition. In geography I merely made a bluff, but I did not
+know it. Neither did my teacher. I came up to such tests as she put
+me.</p>
+
+<p>The lesson was on Chelsea, which was right: geography, like charity,
+should begin at home. Our text ran on for a paragraph or so on the
+location, boundaries, natural features, and industries of the town,
+with a bit of local history thrown in. We were to learn all these
+interesting facts, and be prepared to write them out from memory the
+next day. I went home and learned&mdash;learned every word of the text,
+every comma, every footnote. When the teacher had read my paper she
+marked it "EE." "E" was for "excellent," but my paper was absolutely
+perfect, and must be put in a class by itself. The teacher exhibited
+my paper before the class, with some remarks about the diligence that
+could overtake in a week pupils who had had half a year's start. I
+took it all as modestly as I could, never doubting that I was indeed a
+very bright little girl, and getting to be very learned to boot. I was
+"perfect" in geography, a most erudite subject.</p>
+
+<p>But what was the truth? The words that I repeated so accurately on my
+paper had about as much meaning to me as the words of the Psalms I
+used to chant in Hebrew. I got an idea that the city of Chelsea, and
+the world in general, was laid out flat, like the common, and shaved
+off at the ends, to allow the north, south, east, and west to snuggle
+up close, like the frame around a picture. If I looked at the map, I
+was utterly bewildered; I could find no correspondence between the
+picture and the verbal explanations. With words I was safe; I could
+learn any number of words by heart, and sometime or other they would
+pop out of the medley, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>clothed with meaning. Chelsea, I read, was
+bounded on all sides&mdash;"bounded" appealed to my imagination&mdash;by various
+things that I had never identified, much as I had roamed about the
+town. I immediately pictured these remote boundaries as a six-foot
+fence in a good state of preservation, with the Mystic River, the
+towns of Everett and Revere, and East Boston Creek, rejoicing, on the
+south, west, north, and east of it, respectively, that they had got
+inside; while the rest of the world peeped in enviously through a knot
+hole. In the middle of this cherished area piano factories&mdash;or was it
+shoe factories?&mdash;proudly reared their chimneys, while the population
+promenaded on a <i>rope walk</i>, saluted at every turn by the benevolent
+inmates of the Soldiers' Home on the top of Powderhorn Hill.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the fault was partly mine, because I always would reduce
+everything to a picture. Partly it may have been because I had not had
+time to digest the general definitions and explanations at the
+beginning of the book. Still, I can take but little of the blame, when
+I consider how I fared through my geography, right to the end of the
+grammar-school course. I did in time disentangle the symbolism of the
+orange revolving on a knitting-needle from the astronomical facts in
+the case, but it took years of training under a master of the subject
+to rid me of my distrust of the map as a representation of the earth.
+To this day I sometimes blunder back to my early impression that any
+given portion of the earth's surface is constructed upon a skeleton
+consisting of two crossed bars, terminating in arrowheads which pin
+the cardinal points into place; and if I want to find any desired
+point of the compass, I am inclined to throw myself flat on my nose,
+my head due north, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>and my outstretched arms seeking the east and west
+respectively.</p>
+
+<p>For in the schoolroom, as far as the study of the map went, we began
+with the symbol and stuck to the symbol. No teacher of geography I
+ever had, except the master I referred to, took the pains to ascertain
+whether I had any sense of the facts for which the symbols stood.
+Outside the study of maps, geography consisted of statistics: tables
+of population, imports and exports, manufactures, and degrees of
+temperature; dimensions of rivers, mountains, and political states;
+with lists of minerals, plants, and plagues native to any given part
+of the globe. The only part of the whole subject that meant anything
+to me was the description of the aspect of foreign lands, and the
+manners and customs of their peoples. The relation of physiography to
+human history&mdash;what might be called the moral of geography&mdash;was not
+taught at all, or was touched upon in an unimpressive manner. The
+prevalence of this defect in the teaching of school geography is borne
+out by the surprise of the college freshman, who remarked to the
+professor of geology that it was curious to note how all the big
+rivers and harbors on the Atlantic coastal plain occurred in the
+neighborhood of large cities! A little instruction in the elements of
+chartography&mdash;a little practice in the use of the compass and the
+spirit level, a topographical map of the town common, an excursion
+with a road map&mdash;would have given me a fat round earth in place of my
+paper ghost; would have illumined the one dark alley in my school
+life.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>"MY COUNTRY"</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The public school has done its best for us foreigners, and for the
+country, when it has made us into good Americans. I am glad it is mine
+to tell how the miracle was wrought in one case. You should be glad to
+hear of it, you born Americans; for it is the story of the growth of
+your country; of the flocking of your brothers and sisters from the
+far ends of the earth to the flag you love; of the recruiting of your
+armies of workers, thinkers, and leaders. And you will be glad to hear
+of it, my comrades in adoption; for it is a rehearsal of your own
+experience, the thrill and wonder of which your own hearts have felt.</p>
+
+<p>How long would you say, wise reader, it takes to make an American? By
+the middle of my second year in school I had reached the sixth grade.
+When, after the Christmas holidays, we began to study the life of
+Washington, running through a summary of the Revolution, and the early
+days of the Republic, it seemed to me that all my reading and study
+had been idle until then. The reader, the arithmetic, the song book,
+that had so fascinated me until now, became suddenly sober exercise
+books, tools wherewith to hew a way to the source of inspiration. When
+the teacher read to us out of a big book with many bookmarks in it, I
+sat rigid with attention in my little chair, my hands tightly clasped
+on the edge of my desk; and I painfully held my breath, to prevent
+sighs of disappointment escaping, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>as I saw the teacher skip the parts
+between bookmarks. When the class read, and it came my turn, my voice
+shook and the book trembled in my hands. I could not pronounce the
+name of George Washington without a pause. Never had I prayed, never
+had I chanted the songs of David, never had I called upon the Most
+Holy, in such utter reverence and worship as I repeated the simple
+sentences of my child's story of the patriot. I gazed with adoration
+at the portraits of George and Martha Washington, till I could see
+them with my eyes shut. And whereas formerly my self-consciousness had
+bordered on conceit, and I thought myself an uncommon person, parading
+my schoolbooks through the streets, and swelling with pride when a
+teacher detained me in conversation, now I grew humble all at once,
+seeing how insignificant I was beside the Great.</p>
+
+<p>As I read about the noble boy who would not tell a lie to save himself
+from punishment, I was for the first time truly repentant of my sins.
+Formerly I had fasted and prayed and made sacrifice on the Day of
+Atonement, but it was more than half play, in mimicry of my elders. I
+had no real horror of sin, and I knew so many ways of escaping
+punishment. I am sure my family, my neighbors, my teachers in
+Polotzk&mdash;all my world, in fact&mdash;strove together, by example and
+precept, to teach me goodness. Saintliness had a new incarnation in
+about every third person I knew. I did respect the saints, but I could
+not help seeing that most of them were a little bit stupid, and that
+mischief was much more fun than piety. Goodness, as I had known it,
+was respectable, but not necessarily admirable. The people I really
+admired, like my Uncle Solomon, and Cousin Rachel, were those who
+preached the least and laughed the most. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>My sister Frieda was
+perfectly good, but she did not think the less of me because I played
+tricks. What I loved in my friends was not inimitable. One could be
+downright good if one really wanted to. One could be learned if one
+had books and teachers. One could sing funny songs and tell anecdotes
+if one travelled about and picked up such things, like one's uncles
+and cousins. But a human being strictly good, perfectly wise, and
+unfailingly valiant, all at the same time, I had never heard or
+dreamed of. This wonderful George Washington was as inimitable as he
+was irreproachable. Even if I had never, never told a lie, I could not
+compare myself to George Washington; for I was not brave&mdash;I was afraid
+to go out when snowballs whizzed&mdash;and I could never be the First
+President of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>So I was forced to revise my own estimate of myself. But the twin of
+my new-born humility, paradoxical as it may seem, was a sense of
+dignity I had never known before. For if I found that I was a person
+of small consequence, I discovered at the same time that I was more
+nobly related than I had ever supposed. I had relatives and friends
+who were notable people by the old standards,&mdash;I had never been
+ashamed of my family,&mdash;but this George Washington, who died long
+before I was born, was like a king in greatness, and he and I were
+Fellow Citizens. There was a great deal about Fellow Citizens in the
+patriotic literature we read at this time; and I knew from my father
+how he was a Citizen, through the process of naturalization, and how I
+also was a citizen, by virtue of my relation to him. Undoubtedly I was
+a Fellow Citizen, and George Washington was another. It thrilled me to
+realize what sudden greatness had fallen on me; and at the same time
+it sobered me, as with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>sense of responsibility. I strove to conduct
+myself as befitted a Fellow Citizen.</p>
+
+<p>Before books came into my life, I was given to stargazing and
+daydreaming. When books were given me, I fell upon them as a glutton
+pounces on his meat after a period of enforced starvation. I lived
+with my nose in a book, and took no notice of the alternations of the
+sun and stars. But now, after the advent of George Washington and the
+American Revolution, I began to dream again. I strayed on the common
+after school instead of hurrying home to read. I hung on fence rails,
+my pet book forgotten under my arm, and gazed off to the
+yellow-streaked February sunset, and beyond, and beyond. I was no
+longer the central figure of my dreams; the dry weeds in the lane
+crackled beneath the tread of Heroes.</p>
+
+<p>What more could America give a child? Ah, much more! As I read how the
+patriots planned the Revolution, and the women gave their sons to die
+in battle, and the heroes led to victory, and the rejoicing people set
+up the Republic, it dawned on me gradually what was meant by <i>my
+country</i>. The people all desiring noble things, and striving for them
+together, defying their oppressors, giving their lives for each
+other&mdash;all this it was that made <i>my country</i>. It was not a thing that
+I <i>understood</i>; I could not go home and tell Frieda about it, as I
+told her other things I learned at school. But I knew one could say
+"my country" and <i>feel</i> it, as one felt "God" or "myself." My teacher,
+my schoolmates, Miss Dillingham, George Washington himself could not
+mean more than I when they said "my country," after I had once felt
+it. For the Country was for all the Citizens, and <i>I was a Citizen</i>.
+And when we stood up to sing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>"America," I shouted the words with all
+my might. I was in very earnest proclaiming to the world my love for
+my new-found country.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I love thy rocks and rills.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy woods and templed hills."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">Boston Harbor, Crescent Beach, Chelsea Square&mdash;all was hallowed ground
+to me. As the day approached when the school was to hold exercises in
+honor of Washington's Birthday, the halls resounded at all hours with
+the strains of patriotic songs; and I, who was a model of the
+attentive pupil, more than once lost my place in the lesson as I
+strained to hear, through closed doors, some neighboring class
+rehearsing "The Star-Spangled Banner." If the doors happened to open,
+and the chorus broke out unveiled&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">delicious tremors ran up and down my spine, and I was faint with
+suppressed enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>Where had been my country until now? What flag had I loved? What
+heroes had I worshipped? The very names of these things had been
+unknown to me. Well I knew that Polotzk was not my country. It was
+<i>goluth</i>&mdash;exile. On many occasions in the year we prayed to God to
+lead us out of exile. The beautiful Passover service closed with the
+words, "Next year, may we be in Jerusalem." On childish lips, indeed,
+those words were no conscious aspiration; we repeated the Hebrew
+syllables after our elders, but without their hope and longing. Still
+not a child among us was too young to feel in his own flesh the lash
+of the oppressor. We knew what it was to be Jews in exile, from the
+spiteful treatment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>we suffered at the hands of the smallest urchin
+who crossed himself; and thence we knew that Israel had good reason to
+pray for deliverance. But the story of the Exodus was not history to
+me in the sense that the story of the American Revolution was. It was
+more like a glorious myth, a belief in which had the effect of cutting
+me off from the actual world, by linking me with a world of phantoms.
+Those moments of exaltation which the contemplation of the Biblical
+past afforded us, allowing us to call ourselves the children of
+princes, served but to tinge with a more poignant sense of
+disinheritance the long humdrum stretches of our life. In very truth
+we were a people without a country. Surrounded by mocking foes and
+detractors, it was difficult for me to realize the persons of my
+people's heroes or the events in which they moved. Except in moments
+of abstraction from the world around me, I scarcely understood that
+Jerusalem was an actual spot on the earth, where once the Kings of the
+Bible, real people, like my neighbors in Polotzk, ruled in puissant
+majesty. For the conditions of our civil life did not permit us to
+cultivate a spirit of nationalism. The freedom of worship that was
+grudgingly granted within the narrow limits of the Pale by no means
+included the right to set up openly any ideal of a Hebrew State, any
+hero other than the Czar. What we children picked up of our ancient
+political history was confused with the miraculous story of the
+Creation, with the supernatural legends and hazy associations of Bible
+lore. As to our future, we Jews in Polotzk had no national
+expectations; only a life-worn dreamer here and there hoped to die in
+Palestine. If Fetchke and I sang, with my father, first making sure of
+our audience, "Zion, Zion, Holy Zion, not forever is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>it lost," we did
+not really picture to ourselves Jud&aelig;a restored.</p>
+
+<p>So it came to pass that we did not know what <i>my country</i> could mean
+to a man. And as we had no country, so we had no flag to love. It was
+by no far-fetched symbolism that the banner of the House of Romanoff
+became the emblem of our latter-day bondage in our eyes. Even a child
+would know how to hate the flag that we were forced, on pain of severe
+penalties, to hoist above our housetops, in celebration of the advent
+of one of our oppressors. And as it was with country and flag, so it
+was with heroes of war. We hated the uniform of the soldier, to the
+last brass button. On the person of a Gentile, it was the symbol of
+tyranny; on the person of a Jew, it was the emblem of shame.</p>
+
+<p>So a little Jewish girl in Polotzk was apt to grow up hungry-minded
+and empty-hearted; and if, still in her outreaching youth, she was set
+down in a land of outspoken patriotism, she was likely to love her new
+country with a great love, and to embrace its heroes in a great
+worship. Naturalization, with us Russian Jews, may mean more than the
+adoption of the immigrant by America. It may mean the adoption of
+America by the immigrant.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of the Washington celebration I recited a poem that I had
+composed in my enthusiasm. But "composed" is not the word. The process
+of putting on paper the sentiments that seethed in my soul was really
+very discomposing. I dug the words out of my heart, squeezed the
+rhymes out of my brain, forced the missing syllables out of their
+hiding-places in the dictionary. May I never again know such travail
+of the spirit as I endured during the fevered days when I was engaged
+on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>the poem. It was not as if I wanted to say that snow was white or
+grass was green. I could do that without a dictionary. It was a
+question now of the loftiest sentiments, of the most abstract truths,
+the names of which were very new in my vocabulary. It was necessary to
+use polysyllables, and plenty of them; and where to find rhymes for
+such words as "tyranny," "freedom," and "justice," when you had less
+than two years' acquaintance with English! The name I wished to
+celebrate was the most difficult of all. Nothing but "Washington"
+rhymed with "Washington." It was a most ambitious undertaking, but my
+heart could find no rest till it had proclaimed itself to the world;
+so I wrestled with my difficulties, and spared not ink, till
+inspiration perched on my penpoint, and my soul gave up its best.</p>
+
+<p>When I had done, I was myself impressed with the length, gravity, and
+nobility of my poem. My father was overcome with emotion as he read
+it. His hands trembled as he held the paper to the light, and the mist
+gathered in his eyes. My teacher, Miss Dwight, was plainly astonished
+at my performance, and said many kind things, and asked many
+questions; all of which I took very solemnly, like one who had been in
+the clouds and returned to earth with a sign upon him. When Miss
+Dwight asked me to read my poem to the class on the day of
+celebration, I readily consented. It was not in me to refuse a chance
+to tell my schoolmates what I thought of George Washington.</p>
+
+<p>I was not a heroic figure when I stood up in front of the class to
+pronounce the praises of the Father of his Country. Thin, pale, and
+hollow, with a shadow of short black curls on my brow, and the staring
+look of prominent eyes, I must have looked more frightened <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>than
+imposing. My dress added no grace to my appearance. "Plaids" were in
+fashion, and my frock was of a red-and-green "plaid" that had a
+ghastly effect on my complexion. I hated it when I thought of it, but
+on the great day I did not know I had any dress on. Heels clapped
+together, and hands glued to my sides, I lifted up my voice in praise
+of George Washington. It was not much of a voice; like my hollow
+cheeks, it suggested consumption. My pronunciation was faulty, my
+declamation flat. But I had the courage of my convictions. I was face
+to face with twoscore Fellow Citizens, in clean blouses and extra
+frills. I must tell them what George Washington had done for their
+country&mdash;for <i>our</i> country&mdash;for me.</p>
+
+<p>I can laugh now at the impossible metres, the grandiose phrases, the
+verbose repetitions of my poem. Years ago I must have laughed at it,
+when I threw my only copy into the wastebasket. The copy I am now
+turning over was loaned me by Miss Dwight, who faithfully preserved it
+all these years, for the sake, no doubt, of what I strove to express
+when I laboriously hitched together those dozen and more ungraceful
+stanzas. But to the forty Fellow Citizens sitting in rows in front of
+me it was no laughing matter. Even the bad boys sat in attitudes of
+attention, hypnotized by the solemnity of my demeanor. If they got any
+inkling of what the hail of big words was about, it must have been
+through occult suggestion. I fixed their eighty eyes with my single
+stare, and gave it to them, stanza after stanza, with such emphasis as
+the lameness of the lines permitted.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He whose courage, will, amazing bravery,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Did free his land from a despot's rule,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From man's greatest evil, almost slavery,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And all that's taught in tyranny's school.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who gave his land its liberty,<br /></span><span class='pn'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+<span class="i2">Who was he?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'T was he who e'er will be our pride.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Immortal Washington,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who always did in truth confide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We hail our Washington!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep230" id="imagep230"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep230.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep230.jpg" width="95%" alt="Twoscore of my Fellow-Citizens--Public School, Chelsea" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">TWOSCORE OF MY FELLOW-CITIZENS&mdash;PUBLIC SCHOOL, CHELSEA<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The best of the verses were no better than these, but the children
+listened. They had to. Presently I gave them news, declaring that
+Washington</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wrote the famous Constitution; sacred's the hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That this blessed guide to man had given, which says, "One<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all of mankind are alike, excepting none."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This was received in respectful silence, possibly because the other
+Fellow Citizens were as hazy about historical facts as I at this
+point. "Hurrah for Washington!" they understood, and "Three cheers for
+the Red, White, and Blue!" was only to be expected on that occasion.
+But there ran a special note through my poem&mdash;a thought that only
+Israel Rubinstein or Beckie Aronovitch could have fully understood,
+besides myself. For I made myself the spokesman of the "luckless sons
+of Abraham," saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then we weary Hebrew children at last found rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the land where reigned Freedom, and like a nest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To homeless birds your land proved to us, and therefore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will we gratefully sing your praise evermore.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The boys and girls who had never been turned away from any door
+because of their father's religion sat as if fascinated in their
+places. But they woke up and applauded heartily when I was done,
+following the example of Miss Dwight, who wore the happy face which
+meant that one of her pupils had done well.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>The recitation was repeated, by request, before several other classes,
+and the applause was equally prolonged at each repetition. After the
+exercises I was surrounded, praised, questioned, and made much of, by
+teachers as well as pupils. Plainly I had not poured my praise of
+George Washington into deaf ears. The teachers asked me if anybody had
+helped me with the poem. The girls invariably asked, "Mary Antin, how
+could you think of all those words?" None of them thought of the
+dictionary!</p>
+
+<p>If I had been satisfied with my poem in the first place, the applause
+with which it was received by my teachers and schoolmates convinced me
+that I had produced a very fine thing indeed. So the person, whoever
+it was,&mdash;perhaps my father&mdash;who suggested that my tribute to
+Washington ought to be printed, did not find me difficult to persuade.
+When I had achieved an absolutely perfect copy of my verses, at the
+expense of a dozen sheets of blue-ruled note paper, I crossed the
+Mystic River to Boston and boldly invaded Newspaper Row.</p>
+
+<p>It never occurred to me to send my manuscript by mail. In fact, it has
+never been my way to send a delegate where I could go myself.
+Consciously or unconsciously, I have always acted on the motto of a
+wise man who was one of the dearest friends that Boston kept for me
+until I came. "Personal presence moves the world," said the great Dr.
+Hale; and I went in person to beard the editor in his armchair.</p>
+
+<p>From the ferry slip to the offices of the "Boston Transcript" the way
+was long, strange, and full of perils; but I kept resolutely on up
+Hanover Street, being familiar with that part of my route, till I came
+to a puzzling corner. There I stopped, utterly bewildered by the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>tangle of streets, the roar of traffic, the giddy swarm of
+pedestrians. With the precious manuscript tightly clasped, I balanced
+myself on the curbstone, afraid to plunge into the boiling vortex of
+the crossing. Every time I made a start, a clanging street car
+snatched up the way. I could not even pick out my street; the
+unobtrusive street signs were lost to my unpractised sight, in the
+glaring confusion of store signs and advertisements. If I accosted a
+pedestrian to ask the way, I had to speak several times before I was
+heard. Jews, hurrying by with bearded chins on their bosoms and eyes
+intent, shrugged their shoulders at the name "Transcript," and
+shrugged till they were out of sight. Italians sauntering behind their
+fruit carts answered my inquiry with a lift of the head that made
+their earrings gleam, and a wave of the hand that referred me to all
+four points of the compass at once. I was trying to catch the eye of
+the tall policeman who stood grandly in the middle of the crossing, a
+stout pillar around which the waves of traffic broke, when deliverance
+bellowed in my ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Herald, Globe, Record, <i>Tra-avel-er</i>! Eh? Whatcher want, sis?" The
+tall newsboy had to stoop to me. "Transcript? Sure!" And in half a
+twinkling he had picked me out a paper from his bundle. When I
+explained to him, he good-naturedly tucked the paper in again, piloted
+me across, unravelled the end of Washington Street for me, and with
+much pointing out of landmarks, headed me for my destination, my nose
+seeking the spire of the Old South Church.</p>
+
+<p>I found the "Transcript" building a waste of corridors tunnelled by a
+maze of staircases. On the glazed-glass doors were many signs with the
+names or nicknames of many persons: "City Editor"; "Beggars and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>Peddlers not Allowed." The nameless world not included in these
+categories was warned off, forbidden to be or do: "Private&mdash;No
+Admittance"; "Don't Knock." And the various inhospitable legends on
+the doors and walls were punctuated by frequent cuspidors on the
+floor. There was no sign anywhere of the welcome which I, as an
+author, expected to find in the home of a newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>I was descending from the top story to the street for the seventh
+time, trying to decide what kind of editor a patriotic poem belonged
+to, when an untidy boy carrying broad paper streamers and whistling
+shrilly, in defiance of an express prohibition on the wall, bustled
+through the corridor and left a door ajar. I slipped in behind him,
+and found myself in a room full of editors.</p>
+
+<p>I was a little surprised at the appearance of the editors. I had
+imagined my editor would look like Mr. Jones, the principal of my
+school, whose coat was always buttoned, and whose finger nails were
+beautiful. These people were in shirt sleeves, and they smoked, and
+they didn't politely turn in their revolving chairs when I came in,
+and ask, "What can I do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>The room was noisy with typewriters, and nobody heard my "Please, can
+you tell me." At last one of the machines stopped, and the operator
+thought he heard something in the pause. He looked up through his own
+smoke. I guess he thought he saw something, for he stared. It troubled
+me a little to have him stare so. I realized suddenly that the hand in
+which I carried my manuscript was moist, and I was afraid it would
+make marks on the paper. I held out the manuscript to the editor,
+explaining that it was a poem about George Washington, and would he
+please print it in the "Transcript."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>There was something queer about that particular editor. The way he
+stared and smiled made me feel about eleven inches high, and my voice
+kept growing smaller and smaller as I neared the end of my speech.</p>
+
+<p>At last he spoke, laying down his pipe, and sitting back at his ease.</p>
+
+<p>"So you have brought us a poem, my child?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's about George Washington," I repeated impressively. "Don't you
+want to read it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be delighted, my dear, but the fact is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He did not take my paper. He stood up and called across the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Jack! here is a young lady who has brought us a poem&mdash;about
+George Washington.&mdash;Wrote it yourself, my dear?&mdash;Wrote it all herself.
+What shall we do with her?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Jack came over, and another man. My editor made me repeat my
+business, and they all looked interested, but nobody took my paper
+from me. They put their hands into their pockets, and my hand kept
+growing clammier all the time. The three seemed to be consulting, but
+I could not understand what they said, or why Mr. Jack laughed.</p>
+
+<p>A fourth man, who had been writing busily at a desk near by, broke in
+on the consultation.</p>
+
+<p>"That's enough, boys," he said, "that's enough. Take the young lady to
+Mr. Hurd."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hurd, it was found, was away on a vacation, and of several other
+editors in several offices, to whom I was referred, none proved to be
+the proper editor to take charge of a poem about George Washington. At
+last an elderly editor suggested that as Mr. Hurd would be away for
+some time, I would do well to give up <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>the "Transcript" and try the
+"Herald," across the way.</p>
+
+<p>A little tired by my wanderings, and bewildered by the complexity of
+the editorial system, but still confident about my mission, I picked
+my way across Washington Street and found the "Herald" offices. Here I
+had instant good luck. The first editor I addressed took my paper and
+invited me to a seat. He read my poem much more quickly than I could
+myself, and said it was very nice, and asked me some questions, and
+made notes on a slip of paper which he pinned to my manuscript. He
+said he would have my piece printed very soon, and would send me a
+copy of the issue in which it appeared. As I was going, I could not
+help giving the editor my hand, although I had not experienced any
+handshaking in Newspaper Row. I felt that as author and editor we were
+on a very pleasant footing, and I gave him my hand in token of
+comradeship.</p>
+
+<p>I had regained my full stature and something over, during this cordial
+interview, and when I stepped out into the street and saw the crowd
+intently studying the bulletin board I swelled out of all proportion.
+For I told myself that I, Mary Antin, was one of the inspired
+brotherhood who made newspapers so interesting. I did not know whether
+my poem would be put upon the bulletin board; but at any rate, it
+would be in the paper, with my name at the bottom, like my story about
+"Snow" in Miss Dillingham's school journal. And all these people in
+the streets, and more, thousands of people&mdash;all Boston!&mdash;would read my
+poem, and learn my name, and wonder who I was. I smiled to myself in
+delicious amusement when a man deliberately put me out of his path, as
+I dreamed my way through the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>jostling crowd; if he only <i>knew</i> whom
+he was treating so unceremoniously!</p>
+
+<p>When the paper with my poem in it arrived, the whole house pounced
+upon it at once. I was surprised to find that my verses were not all
+over the front page. The poem was a little hard to find, if anything,
+being tucked away in the middle of the voluminous sheet. But when we
+found it, it looked wonderful, just like real poetry, not at all as if
+somebody we knew had written it. It occupied a gratifying amount of
+space, and was introduced by a flattering biographical sketch of the
+author&mdash;the <i>author</i>!&mdash;the material for which the friendly editor had
+artfully drawn from me during that happy interview. And my name, as I
+had prophesied, was at the bottom!</p>
+
+<p>When the excitement in the house had subsided, my father took all the
+change out of the cash drawer and went to buy up the "Herald." He did
+not count the pennies. He just bought "Heralds," all he could lay his
+hands on, and distributed them gratis to all our friends, relatives,
+and acquaintances; to all who could read, and to some who could not.
+For weeks he carried a clipping from the "Herald" in his breast
+pocket, and few were the occasions when he did not manage to introduce
+it into the conversation. He treasured that clipping as for years he
+had treasured the letters I wrote him from Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p>Although my father bought up most of the issue containing my poem, a
+few hundred copies were left to circulate among the general public,
+enough to spread the flame of my patriotic ardor and to enkindle a
+thousand sluggish hearts. Really, there was something more solemn than
+vanity in my satisfaction. Pleased as I was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>with my notoriety&mdash;and
+nobody but I knew how exceedingly pleased&mdash;I had a sober feeling about
+it all. I enjoyed being praised and admired and envied; but what gave
+a divine flavor to my happiness was the idea that I had publicly borne
+testimony to the goodness of my exalted hero, to the greatness of my
+adopted country. I did not discount the homage of Arlington Street,
+because I did not properly rate the intelligence of its population. I
+took the admiration of my schoolmates without a grain of salt; it was
+just so much honey to me. I could not know that what made me great in
+the eyes of my neighbors was that "there was a piece about me in the
+paper"; it mattered very little to them what the "piece" was about. I
+thought they really admired my sentiments. On the street, in the
+schoolyard, I was pointed out. The people said, "That's Mary Antin.
+She had her name in the paper." <i>I</i> thought they said, "This is she
+who loves her country and worships George Washington."</p>
+
+<p>To repeat, I was well aware that I was something of a celebrity, and
+took all possible satisfaction in the fact; yet I gave my schoolmates
+no occasion to call me "stuck-up." My vanity did not express itself in
+strutting or wagging the head. I played tag and puss-in-the-corner in
+the schoolyard, and did everything that was comrade-like. But in the
+schoolroom I conducted myself gravely, as befitted one who was
+preparing for the noble career of a poet.</p>
+
+<p>I am forgetting Lizzie McDee. I am trying to give the impression that
+I behaved with at least outward modesty during my schoolgirl triumphs,
+whereas Lizzie could testify that she knew Mary Antin as a vain
+boastful, curly-headed little Jew. For I had a special style of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>deportment for Lizzie. If there was any girl in the school besides me
+who could keep near the top of the class all the year through, and
+give bright answers when the principal or the school committee popped
+sudden questions, and write rhymes that almost always rhymed, <i>I</i> was
+determined that that ambitious person should not soar unduly in her
+own estimation. So I took care to show Lizzie all my poetry, and when
+she showed me hers I did not admire it too warmly. Lizzie, as I have
+already said, was in a Sunday-school mood even on week days; her
+verses all had morals. My poems were about the crystal snow, and the
+ocean blue, and sweet spring, and fleecy clouds; when I tried to drag
+in a moral it kicked so that the music of my lines went out in a
+groan. So I had a sweet revenge when Lizzie, one day, volunteered to
+bolster up the eloquence of Mr. Jones, the principal, who was
+lecturing the class for bad behavior, by comparing the bad boy in the
+schoolroom to the rotten apple that spoils the barrelful. The groans,
+coughs, a-hem's, feet shufflings, and paper pellets that filled the
+room as Saint Elizabeth sat down, even in the principal's presence,
+were sweet balm to my smart of envy; I didn't care if I didn't know
+how to moralize.</p>
+
+<p>When my teacher had visitors I was aware that I was the show pupil of
+the class. I was always made to recite, my compositions were passed
+around, and often I was called up on the platform&mdash;oh, climax of
+exaltation!&mdash;to be interviewed by the distinguished strangers; while
+the class took advantage of the teacher's distraction, to hold
+forbidden intercourse on matters not prescribed in the curriculum.
+When I returned to my seat, after such public audience with the great,
+I looked to see if Lizzie McDee was taking notice; and Lizzie, who was
+a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>generous soul, her Sunday-school airs notwithstanding, generally
+smiled, and I forgave her her rhymes.</p>
+
+<p>Not but what I paid a price for my honors. With all my self-possession
+I had a certain capacity for shyness. Even when I arose to recite
+before the customary audience of my class I suffered from incipient
+stage fright, and my voice trembled over the first few words. When
+visitors were in the room I was even more troubled; and when I was
+made the special object of their attention my triumph was marred by
+acute distress. If I was called up to speak to the visitors, forty
+pairs of eyes pricked me in the back as I went. I stumbled in the
+aisle, and knocked down things that were not at all in my way; and my
+awkwardness increasing my embarrassment I would gladly have changed
+places with Lizzie or the bad boy in the back row; anything, only to
+be less conspicuous. When I found myself shaking hands with an august
+School-Committeeman, or a teacher from New York, the remnants of my
+self-possession vanished in awe; and it was in a very husky voice that
+I repeated, as I was asked, my name, lineage, and personal history. On
+the whole, I do not think that the School-Committeeman found a very
+forward creature in the solemn-faced little girl with the tight curls
+and the terrible red-and-green "plaid."</p>
+
+<p>These awful audiences did not always end with the handshaking.
+Sometimes the great personages asked me to write to them, and
+exchanged addresses with me. Some of these correspondences continued
+through years, and were the source of much pleasure, on one side at
+least. And Arlington Street took notice when I received letters with
+important-looking or aristocratic-looking letterheads. Lizzie McDee
+also took notice. <i>I</i> saw to that.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>MIRACLES</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>It was not always in admiration that the finger was pointed at me. One
+day I found myself the centre of an excited group in the middle of the
+schoolyard, with a dozen girls interrupting each other to express
+their disapproval of me. For I had coolly told them, in answer to a
+question, that I did not believe in God.</p>
+
+<p>How had I arrived at such a conviction? How had I come, from praying
+and fasting and Psalm-singing, to extreme impiety? Alas! my
+backsliding had cost me no travail of spirit. Always weak in my faith,
+playing at sanctity as I played at soldiers, just as I was in the mood
+or not, I had neglected my books of devotion and given myself up to
+profane literature at the first opportunity, in Vitebsk; and I never
+took up my prayer book again. On my return to Polotzk, America loomed
+so near that my imagination was fully occupied, and I did not revive
+the secret experiments with which I used to test the nature and
+intention of Deity. It was more to me that I was going to America than
+that I might not be going to Heaven. And when we joined my father, and
+I saw that he did not wear the sacred fringes, and did not put on the
+phylacteries and pray, I was neither surprised nor shocked,
+remembering the Sabbath night when he had with his own hand turned out
+the lamp. When I saw him go out to work on Sabbath exactly as on a
+week day, I understood why God had not annihilated me with his
+lightnings that time when I purposely carried something <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>in my pocket
+on Sabbath: there was no God, and there was no sin. And I ran out to
+play, pleased to find that I was free, like other little girls in the
+street, instead of being hemmed about with prohibitions and
+obligations at every step. And yet if the golden truth of Judaism had
+not been handed me in the motley rags of formalism, I might not have
+been so ready to put away my religion.</p>
+
+<p>It was Rachel Goldstein who provoked my avowal of atheism. She asked
+if I wasn't going to stay out of school during Passover, and I said
+no. Wasn't I a Jew? she wanted to know. No, I wasn't; I was a
+Freethinker. What was that? I didn't believe in God. Rachel was
+horrified. Why, Kitty Maloney believed in God, and Kitty was only a
+Catholic! She appealed to Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>"Kitty Maloney! Come over here. Don't you believe in God?&mdash;There, now,
+Mary Antin!&mdash;Mary Antin says she doesn't believe in God!"</p>
+
+<p>Rachel Goldstein's horror is duplicated. Kitty Maloney, who used to
+mock Rachel's Jewish accent, instantly becomes her voluble ally, and
+proceeds to annihilate me by plying me with crucial questions.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe in God? Then who made you, Mary Antin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nature made me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nature</i> made you! What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;everything. It's the trees&mdash;no, it's what makes the trees grow.
+<i>That's</i> what it is."</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>God</i> made the trees, Mary Antin," from Rachel and Kitty in
+chorus. "Maggie O'Reilly! Listen to Mary Antin. She says there isn't
+any God. She says the trees made her!"</p>
+
+<p>Rachel and Kitty and Maggie, Sadie and Annie and Beckie, made a circle
+around me, and pressed me with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>questions, and mocked me, and
+threatened me with hell flames and utter extinction. I held my ground
+against them all obstinately enough, though my argument was
+exceedingly lame. I glibly repeated phrases I had heard my father use,
+but I had no real understanding of his atheistic doctrines. I had been
+surprised into this dispute. I had no spontaneous interest in the
+subject; my mind was occupied with other things. But as the number of
+my opponents grew, and I saw how unanimously they condemned me, my
+indifference turned into a heat of indignation. The actual point at
+issue was as little as ever to me, but I perceived that a crowd of
+Free Americans were disputing the right of a Fellow Citizen to have
+any kind of God she chose. I knew, from my father's teaching, that
+this persecution was contrary to the Constitution of the United
+States, and I held my ground as befitted the defender of a cause.
+George Washington would not have treated me as Rachel Goldstein and
+Kitty Maloney were doing! "This is a free country," I reminded them in
+the middle of the argument.</p>
+
+<p>The excitement in the yard amounted to a toy riot. When the school
+bell rang and the children began to file in, I stood out there as long
+as any of my enemies remained, although it was my habit to go to my
+room very promptly. And as the foes of American Liberty crowded and
+pushed in the line, whispering to those who had not heard that a
+heretic had been discovered in their midst, the teacher who kept the
+line in the corridor was obliged to scold and pull the noisy ones into
+order; and Sadie Cohen told her, in tones of awe, what the commotion
+was about.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bland waited till the children had filed in before she asked me,
+in a tone encouraging confidence, to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>give my version of the story.
+This I did, huskily but fearlessly; and the teacher, who was a woman
+of tact, did not smile or commit herself in any way. She was sorry
+that the children had been rude to me, but she thought they would not
+trouble me any more if I let the subject drop. She made me understand,
+somewhat as Miss Dillingham had done on the occasion of my whispering
+during prayer, that it was proper American conduct to avoid religious
+arguments on school territory. I felt honored by this private
+initiation into the doctrine of the separation of Church and State,
+and I went to my seat with a good deal of dignity, my alarm about the
+safety of the Constitution allayed by the teacher's calmness.</p>
+
+<p>This is not so strictly the story of the second generation that I may
+not properly give a brief account of how it fared with my mother when
+my father undertook to purge his house of superstition. The process of
+her emancipation, it is true, was not obvious to me at the time, but
+what I observed of her outward conduct has been interpreted by my
+subsequent experience; so that to-day I understand how it happens that
+all the year round my mother keeps the same day of rest as her Gentile
+neighbors; but when the ram's horn blows on the Day of Atonement,
+calling upon Israel to cleanse its heart from sin and draw nearer to
+the God of its fathers, her soul is stirred as of old, and she needs
+must join in the ancient service. It means, I have come to know, that
+she has dropped the husk and retained the kernel of Judaism; but years
+were required for this process of instinctive selection.</p>
+
+<p>My father, in his ambition to make Americans of us, was rather
+headlong and strenuous in his methods. To <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>my mother, on the eve of
+departure for the New World, he wrote boldly that progressive Jews in
+America did not spend their days in praying; and he urged her to leave
+her wig in Polotzk, as a first step of progress. My mother, like the
+majority of women in the Pale, had all her life taken her religion on
+authority; so she was only fulfilling her duty to her husband when she
+took his hint, and set out upon her journey in her own hair. Not that
+it was done without reluctance; the Jewish faith in her was deeply
+rooted, as in the best of Jews it always is. The law of the Fathers
+was binding to her, and the outward symbols of obedience inseparable
+from the spirit. But the breath of revolt against orthodox externals
+was at this time beginning to reach us in Polotzk from the greater
+world, notably from America. Sons whose parents had impoverished
+themselves by paying the fine for non-appearance for military duty, in
+order to save their darlings from the inevitable sins of violated
+Judaism while in the service, sent home portraits of themselves with
+their faces shaved; and the grieved old fathers and mothers, after
+offering up special prayers for the renegades, and giving charity in
+their name, exhibited the significant portraits on their parlor
+tables. My mother's own nephew went no farther than Vilna, ten hours'
+journey from Polotzk, to learn to cut his beard; and even within our
+town limits young women of education were beginning to reject the wig
+after marriage. A notorious example was the beautiful daughter of
+Lozhe the Rav, who was not restrained by her father's conspicuous
+relation to Judaism from exhibiting her lovely black curls like a
+maiden; and it was a further sign of the times that the rav did not
+disown his daughter. What wonder, then, that my poor mother, shaken
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>by these foreshadowings of revolution in our midst, and by the express
+authority of her husband, gave up the emblem of matrimonial chastity
+with but a passing struggle? Considering how the heavy burdens which
+she had borne from childhood had never allowed her time to think for
+herself at all, but had obliged her always to tread blindly in the
+beaten paths, I think it greatly to her credit that in her puzzling
+situation she did not lose her poise entirely. Bred to submission,
+submit she must; and when she perceived a conflict of authorities, she
+prepared to accept the new order of things under which her children's
+future was to be formed; wherein she showed her native adaptability,
+the readiness to fall into line, which is one of the most charming
+traits of her gentle, self-effacing nature.</p>
+
+<p>My father gave my mother very little time to adjust herself. He was
+only three years from the Old World with its settled prejudices.
+Considering his education, he had thought out a good deal for himself,
+but his line of thinking had not as yet brought him to include woman
+in the intellectual emancipation for which he himself had been so
+eager even in Russia. This was still in the day when he was astonished
+to learn that women had written books&mdash;had used their minds, their
+imaginations, unaided. He still rated the mental capacity of the
+average woman as only a little above that of the cattle she tended. He
+held it to be a wife's duty to follow her husband in all things. He
+could do all the thinking for the family, he believed; and being
+convinced that to hold to the outward forms of orthodox Judaism was to
+be hampered in the race for Americanization, he did not hesitate to
+order our family life on unorthodox lines. There was no conscious
+despotism in this; it was only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>making manly haste to realize an ideal
+the nobility of which there was no one to dispute.</p>
+
+<p>My mother, as we know, had not the initial impulse to depart from
+ancient usage that my father had in his habitual scepticism. He had
+always been a nonconformist in his heart; she bore lovingly the yoke
+of prescribed conduct. Individual freedom, to him, was the only
+tolerable condition of life; to her it was confusion. My mother,
+therefore, gradually divested herself, at my father's bidding, of the
+mantle of orthodox observance; but the process cost her many a pang,
+because the fabric of that venerable garment was interwoven with the
+fabric of her soul.</p>
+
+<p>My father did not attempt to touch the fundamentals of her faith. He
+certainly did not forbid her to honor God by loving her neighbor,
+which is perhaps not far from being the whole of Judaism. If his loud
+denials of the existence of God influenced her to reconsider her
+creed, it was merely an incidental result of the freedom of expression
+he was so eager to practise, after his life of enforced hypocrisy. As
+the opinions of a mere woman on matters so abstract as religion did
+not interest him in the least, he counted it no particular triumph if
+he observed that my mother weakened in her faith as the years went by.
+He allowed her to keep a Jewish kitchen as long as she pleased, but he
+did not want us children to refuse invitations to the table of our
+Gentile neighbors. He would have no bar to our social intercourse with
+the world around us, for only by freely sharing the life of our
+neighbors could we come into our full inheritance of American freedom
+and opportunity. On the holy days he bought my mother a ticket for the
+synagogue, but the children he sent to school. On Sabbath <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>eve my
+mother might light the consecrated candles, but he kept the store open
+until Sunday morning. My mother might believe and worship as she
+pleased, up to the point where her orthodoxy began to interfere with
+the American progress of the family.</p>
+
+<p>The price that all of us paid for this disorganization of our family
+life has been levied on every immigrant Jewish household where the
+first generation clings to the traditions of the Old World, while the
+second generation leads the life of the New. Nothing more pitiful
+could be written in the annals of the Jews; nothing more inevitable;
+nothing more hopeful. Hopeful, yes; alike for the Jew and for the
+country that has given him shelter. For Israel is not the only party
+that has put up a forfeit in this contest. The nations may well sit by
+and watch the struggle, for humanity has a stake in it. I say this,
+whose life has borne witness, whose heart is heavy with revelations it
+has not made. And I speak for thousands; oh, for thousands!</p>
+
+<p>My gray hairs are too few for me to let these pages trespass the limit
+I have set myself. That part of my life which contains the climax of
+my personal drama I must leave to my grandchildren to record. My
+father might speak and tell how, in time, he discovered that in his
+first violent rejection of everything old and established he cast from
+him much that he afterwards missed. He might tell to what extent he
+later retraced his steps, seeking to recover what he had learned to
+value anew; how it fared with his avowed irreligion when put to the
+extreme test; to what, in short, his emancipation amounted. And he,
+like myself, would speak for thousands. My grandchildren, for all I
+know, may have a graver task than I have set them. Perhaps they may
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>have to testify that the faith of Israel is a heritage that no heir in
+the direct line has the power to alienate from his successors. Even I,
+with my limited perspective, think it doubtful if the conversion of
+the Jew to any alien belief or disbelief is ever thoroughly
+accomplished. What positive affirmation of the persistence of Judaism
+in the blood my descendants may have to make, I may not be present to
+hear.</p>
+
+<p>It would be superfluous to state that none of these hints and
+prophecies troubled me at the time when I horrified the schoolyard by
+denying the existence of God, on the authority of my father; and
+defended my right to my atheism, on the authority of the Constitution.
+I considered myself absolutely, eternally, delightfully emancipated
+from the yoke of indefensible superstitions. I was wild with
+indignation and pity when I remembered how my poor brother had been
+cruelly tormented because he did not want to sit in heder and learn
+what was after all false or useless. I knew now why poor Reb' Lebe had
+been unable to answer my questions; it was because the truth was not
+whispered outside America. I was very much in love with my
+enlightenment, and eager for opportunities to give proof of it.</p>
+
+<p>It was Miss Dillingham, she who helped me in so many ways, who
+unconsciously put me to an early test, the result of which gave me a
+shock that I did not get over for many a day. She invited me to tea
+one day, and I came in much trepidation. It was my first entrance into
+a genuine American household; my first meal at a Gentile&mdash;yes, a
+Christian&mdash;board. Would I know how to behave properly? I do not know
+whether I betrayed my anxiety; I am certain only that I was all eyes
+and ears, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>that nothing should escape me which might serve to guide
+me. This, after all, was a normal state for me to be in, so I suppose
+I looked natural, no matter how much I stared. I had been accustomed
+to consider my table manners irreproachable, but America was not
+Polotzk, as my father was ever saying; so I proceeded very cautiously
+with my spoons and forks. I was cunning enough to try to conceal my
+uncertainty; by being just a little bit slow, I did not get to any
+given spoon until the others at table had shown me which it was.</p>
+
+<p>All went well, until a platter was passed with a kind of meat that was
+strange to me. Some mischievous instinct told me that it was
+ham&mdash;forbidden food; and I, the liberal, the free, was afraid to touch
+it! I had a terrible moment of surprise, mortification, self-contempt;
+but I helped myself to a slice of ham, nevertheless, and hung my head
+over my plate to hide my confusion. I was furious with myself for my
+weakness. I to be afraid of a pink piece of pig's flesh, who had
+defied at least two religions in defence of free thought! And I began
+to reduce my ham to indivisible atoms, determined to eat more of it
+than anybody at the table.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! I learned that to eat in defence of principles was not so easy
+as to talk. I ate, but only a newly abnegated Jew can understand with
+what squirming, what protesting of the inner man, what exquisite
+abhorrence of myself. That Spartan boy who allowed the stolen fox
+hidden in his bosom to consume his vitals rather than be detected in
+the theft, showed no such miracle of self-control as did I, sitting
+there at my friend's tea-table, eating unjewish meat.</p>
+
+<p>And to think that so ridiculous a thing as a scrap of meat should be
+the symbol and test of things so august! <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>To think that in the mental
+life of a half-grown child should be reflected the struggles and
+triumphs of ages! Over and over and over again I discover that I am a
+wonderful thing, being human; that I am the image of the universe,
+being myself; that I am the repository of all the wisdom in the world,
+being alive and sane at the beginning of this twentieth century. The
+heir of the ages am I, and all that has been is in me, and shall
+continue to be in my immortal self.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A CHILD'S PARADISE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>All this while that I was studying and exploring in the borderland
+between the old life and the new; leaping at conclusions, and
+sometimes slipping; finding inspiration in common things, and
+interpretations in dumb things; eagerly scaling the ladder of
+learning, my eyes on star-diademmed peaks of ambition; building up
+friendships that should support my youth and enrich my womanhood;
+learning to think much of myself, and much more of my world,&mdash;while I
+was steadily gathering in my heritage, sowed in the dim past, and
+ripened in the sun of my own day, what was my sister doing?</p>
+
+<p>Why, what she had always done: keeping close to my mother's side on
+the dreary marches of a humdrum life; sensing sweet gardens of
+forbidden joy, but never turning from the path of duty. I cannot
+believe but that her sacrifices tasted as dust and ashes to her at
+times; for Frieda was a mere girl, whose childhood, on the whole, had
+been gray, while her appetite for happy things was as great as any
+normal girl's. She had a fine sense for what was best in the life
+about her, though she could not articulate her appreciation. She
+longed to possess the good things, but her position in the family
+forbidding possession, she developed a talent for vicarious enjoyment
+which I never in this life hope to imitate. And her simple mind did
+not busy itself with self-analysis. She did not even know why she was
+happy; she thought life was good to her. Still, there must have been
+moments <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>when she perceived that the finer things were not in
+themselves unattainable, but were kept from her by a social tyranny.
+This I can only surmise, as in our daily intercourse she never gave a
+sign of discontent.</p>
+
+<p>We continued to have part of our life in common for some time after
+she went to work. We formed ourselves into an evening school, she and
+I and the two youngsters, for the study of English and arithmetic. As
+soon as the supper dishes were put away, we gathered around the
+kitchen table, with books borrowed from school, and pencils supplied
+by my father with eager willingness. I was the teacher, the others the
+diligent pupils; and the earnestness with which we labored was worthy
+of the great things we meant to achieve. Whether the results were
+commensurate with our efforts I cannot say. I only know that Frieda's
+cheeks flamed with the excitement of reading English monosyllables;
+and her eyes shone like stars on a moonless night when I explained to
+her how she and I and George Washington were Fellow Citizens together.</p>
+
+<p>Inspired by our studious evenings, what Frieda Antin would not be glad
+to sit all day bent over the needle, that the family should keep on
+its feet, and Mary continue at school? The morning ride on the
+ferryboat, when spring winds dimpled the river, may have stirred her
+heart with nameless longings, but when she took her place at the
+machine her lot was glorified to her, and she wanted to sing; for the
+girls, the foreman, the boss, all talked about Mary Antin, whose poems
+were printed in an American newspaper. Wherever she went on her humble
+business, she was sure to hear her sister's name. For, with
+characteristic loyalty, the whole Jewish community claimed kinship
+with me, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>simply because I was a Jew; and they made much of my small
+triumphs, and pointed to me with pride, just as they always do when a
+Jew distinguishes himself in any worthy way. Frieda, going home from
+work at sunset, when rosy buds beaded the shining stems, may have felt
+the weariness of those who toil for bread; but when we opened our
+books after supper, her spirit revived afresh, and it was only when
+the lamp began to smoke that she thought of taking rest.</p>
+
+<p>At bedtime she and I chatted as we used to do when we were little
+girls in Polotzk; only now, instead of closing our eyes to see
+imaginary wonders, according to a bedtime game of ours, we exchanged
+anecdotes about the marvellous adventures of our American life. My
+contributions on these occasions were boastful accounts, I have no
+doubt, of what I did at school, and in the company of school-committee
+men, editors, and other notables; and Frieda's delight in my
+achievements was the very flower of her fine sympathy. As formerly,
+when I had been naughty and I invited her to share in my repentance,
+she used to join me in spiritual humility and solemnly dedicate
+herself to a better life; so now, when I was full of pride and
+ambition, she, too, felt the crown on her brows, and heard the
+applause of future generations murmuring in her ear. And so partaking
+of her sister's glory, what Frieda Antin would not say that her
+portion was sufficient reward for a youth of toil?</p>
+
+<p>I did not, like my sister, earn my bread in those days; but let us say
+that I earned my salt, by sweeping, scrubbing, and scouring, on
+Saturdays, when there was no school. My mother's housekeeping was
+necessarily irregular, as she was pretty constantly occupied in the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>store; so there was enough for us children to do to keep the bare
+rooms shining. Even here Frieda did the lion's share; it used to take
+me all Saturday to accomplish what Frieda would do with half a dozen
+turns of her capable hands. I did not like housework, but I loved
+order; so I polished windows with a will, and even got some fun out of
+scrubbing, by laying out the floor in patterns and tracing them all
+around the room in a lively flurry of soapsuds.</p>
+
+<p>There is a joy that comes from doing common things well, especially if
+they seem hard to us. When I faced a day's housework I was half
+paralyzed with a sense of inability, and I wasted precious minutes
+walking around it, to see what a very hard task I had. But having
+pitched in and conquered, it gave me an exquisite pleasure to survey
+my work. My hair tousled and my dress tucked up, streaked arms bare to
+the elbow, I would step on my heels over the damp, clean boards, and
+pass my hand over chair rounds and table legs, to prove that no dust
+was left. I could not wait to put my dress in order before running out
+into the street to see how my windows shone. Every workman who carries
+a dinner pail has these moments of keen delight in the product of his
+drudgery. Men of genius, likewise, in their hours of relaxation from
+their loftier tasks, prove this universal rule. I know a man who fills
+a chair at a great university. I have seen him hold a roomful of
+otherwise restless youths spellbound for an hour, while he discoursed
+about the respective inhabitants of the earth and sea at a time when
+nothing walked on fewer than four legs. And I have seen this scholar,
+his ponderous tomes shelved for a space, turning over and over with
+cherishing hands a letter-box that he had made out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>of card-board and
+paste, and exhibiting it proudly to his friends. For the hand was the
+first instrument of labor, that distinctive accomplishment by which
+man finally raised himself above his cousins, the lower animals; and a
+respect for the work of the hand survives as an instinct in all of us.</p>
+
+<p>The stretch of weeks from June to September, when the schools were
+closed, would have been hard to fill in had it not been for the public
+library. At first I made myself a calendar of the vacation months, and
+every morning I tore off a day, and comforted myself with the
+decreasing number of vacation days. But after I discovered the public
+library I was not impatient for the reopening of school. The library
+did not open till one o'clock in the afternoon, and each reader was
+allowed to take out only one book at a time. Long before one o'clock I
+was to be seen on the library steps, waiting for the door of paradise
+to open. I spent hours in the reading-room, pleased with the
+atmosphere of books, with the order and quiet of the place, so unlike
+anything on Arlington Street. The sense of these things permeated my
+consciousness even when I was absorbed in a book, just as the rustle
+of pages turned and the tiptoe tread of the librarian reached my ear,
+without distracting my attention. Anything so wonderful as a library
+had never been in my life. It was even better than school in some
+ways. One could read and read, and learn and learn, as fast as one
+knew how, without being obliged to stop for stupid little girls and
+inattentive little boys to catch up with the lesson. When I went home
+from the library I had a book under my arm; and I would finish it
+before the library opened next day, no matter till what hours of the
+night I burned my little lamp.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>What books did I read so diligently? Pretty nearly everything that
+came to my hand. I dare say the librarian helped me select my books,
+but, curiously enough, I do not remember. Something must have directed
+me, for I read a great many of the books that are written for
+children. Of these I remember with the greatest delight Louisa
+Alcott's stories. A less attractive series of books was of the Sunday
+School type. In volume after volume a very naughty little girl by the
+name of Lulu was always going into tempers, that her father might have
+opportunity to lecture her and point to her angelic little sister,
+Gracie, as an example of what she should be; after which they all felt
+better and prayed. Next to Louisa Alcott's books in my esteem were
+boys' books of adventure, many of them by Horatio Alger; and I read
+all, I suppose, of the Rollo books, by Jacob Abbott.</p>
+
+<p>But that was not all. I read every kind of printed rubbish that came
+into the house, by design or accident. A weekly story paper of a worse
+than worthless character, that circulated widely in our neighborhood
+because subscribers were rewarded with a premium of a diamond ring,
+warranted I don't know how many karats, occupied me for hours. The
+stories in this paper resembled, in breathlessness of plot, abundance
+of horrors, and improbability of characters, the things I used to read
+in Vitebsk. The text was illustrated by frequent pictures, in which
+the villain generally had his hands on the heroine's throat, while the
+hero was bursting in through a graceful drapery to the rescue of his
+beloved. If a bundle came into the house wrapped in a stained old
+newspaper, I laboriously smoothed out the paper and read it through. I
+enjoyed it all, and found fault with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>nothing that I read. And, as in
+the case of the Vitebsk readings, I cannot find that I suffered any
+harm. Of course, reading so many better books, there came a time when
+the diamond-ring story paper disgusted me; but in the beginning my
+appetite for print was so enormous that I could let nothing pass
+through my hands unread, while my taste was so crude that nothing
+printed could offend me.</p>
+
+<p>Good reading matter came into the house from one other source besides
+the library. The Yiddish newspapers of the day were excellent, and my
+father subscribed to the best of them. Since that time Yiddish
+journalism has sadly degenerated, through imitation of the vicious
+"yellow journals" of the American press.</p>
+
+<p>There was one book in the library over which I pored very often, and
+that was the encyclop&aelig;dia. I turned usually to the names of famous
+people, beginning, of course, with George Washington. Oftenest of all
+I read the biographical sketches of my favorite authors, and felt that
+the worthies must have been glad to die just to have their names and
+histories printed out in the book of fame. It seemed to me the
+apotheosis of glory to be even briefly mentioned in an encyclop&aelig;dia.
+And there grew in me an enormous ambition that devoured all my other
+ambitions, which was no less than this: that I should live to know
+that after my death my name would surely be printed in the
+encyclop&aelig;dia. It was such a prodigious thing to expect that I kept the
+idea a secret even from myself, just letting it lie where it sprouted,
+in an unexplored corner of my busy brain. But it grew on me in spite
+of myself, till finally I could not resist the temptation to study out
+the exact place in the encyclop&aelig;dia where my name would belong. I saw
+that it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>would come not far from "Alcott, Louisa M."; and I covered my
+face with my hands, to hide the silly, baseless joy in it. I practised
+saying my name in the encyclop&aelig;dic form, "Antin, Mary"; and I realized
+that it sounded chopped off, and wondered if I might not annex a
+middle initial. I wanted to ask my teacher about it, but I was afraid
+I might betray my reasons. For, infatuated though I was with the idea
+of the greatness I might live to attain, I knew very well that thus
+far my claims to posthumous fame were ridiculously unfounded, and I
+did not want to be laughed at for my vanity.</p>
+
+<p>Spirit of all childhood! Forgive me, forgive me, for so lightly
+betraying a child's dream-secrets. I that smile so scoffingly to-day
+at the unsophisticated child that was myself, have I found any nobler
+thing in life than my own longing to be noble? Would I not rather be
+consumed by ambitions that can never be realized than live in stupid
+acceptance of my neighbor's opinion of me? The statue in the public
+square is less a portrait of a mortal individual than a symbol of the
+immortal aspiration of humanity. So do not laugh at the little boy
+playing at soldiers, if he tells you he is going to hew the world into
+good behavior when he gets to be a man. And do, by all means, write my
+name in the book of fame, saying, She was one who aspired. For that,
+in condensed form, is the story of the lives of the great.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Summer days are long, and the evenings, we know, are as long as the
+lamp-wick. So, with all my reading, I had time to play; and, with all
+my studiousness, I had the will to play. My favorite playmates were
+boys. It was but mild fun to play theatre in Bessie Finklestein's
+back <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>yard, even if I had leading parts, which I made impressive by
+recitations in Russian, no word of which was intelligible to my
+audience. It was far better sport to play hide-and-seek with the boys,
+for I enjoyed the use of my limbs&mdash;what there was of them. I was so
+often reproached and teased for being little, that it gave me great
+satisfaction to beat a five-foot boy to the goal.</p>
+
+<p>Once a great, hulky colored boy, who was the torment of the
+neighborhood, treated me roughly while I was playing on the street. My
+father, determined to teach the rascal a lesson for once, had him
+arrested and brought to court. The boy was locked up overnight, and he
+emerged from his brief imprisonment with a respect for the rights and
+persons of his neighbors. But the moral of this incident lies not
+herein. What interested me more than my revenge on a bully was what I
+saw of the way in which justice was actually administered in the
+United States. Here we were gathered in the little courtroom, bearded
+Arlington Street against wool-headed Arlington Street; accused and
+accuser, witnesses, sympathizers, sight-seers, and all. Nobody
+cringed, nobody was bullied, nobody lied who didn't want to. We were
+all free, and all treated equally, just as it said in the
+Constitution! The evil-doer was actually punished, and not the victim,
+as might very easily happen in a similar case in Russia. "Liberty and
+justice for all." Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!</p>
+
+<p>There was one occasion in the week when I was ever willing to put away
+my book, no matter how entrancing were its pages. That was on Saturday
+night, when Bessie Finklestein called for me; and Bessie and I, with
+arms entwined, called for Sadie Rabinowitch; and Bessie and Sadie and
+I, still further entwined, called for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>Annie Reilly; and Bessie, etc.,
+etc., inextricably wound up, marched up Broadway, and took possession
+of all we saw, heard, guessed, or desired, from end to end of that
+main thoroughfare of Chelsea.</p>
+
+<p>Parading all abreast, as many as we were, only breaking ranks to let
+people pass; leaving the imprints of our noses and fingers on
+plate-glass windows ablaze with electric lights and alluring with
+display; inspecting tons of cheap candy, to find a few pennies' worth
+of the most enduring kind, the same to be sucked and chewed by the
+company, turn and turn about, as we continued our promenade; loitering
+wherever a crowd gathered, or running for a block or so to cheer on
+the fire-engine or police ambulance; getting into everybody's way, and
+just keeping clear of serious mischief,&mdash;we were only girls,&mdash;we
+enjoyed ourselves as only children can whose fathers keep a basement
+grocery store, whose mothers do their own washing, and whose sisters
+operate a machine for five dollars a week. Had we been boys, I suppose
+Bessie and Sadie and the rest of us would have been a "gang," and
+would have popped into the Chinese laundry to tease "Chinky Chinaman,"
+and been chased by the "cops" from comfortable doorsteps, and had a
+"bully" time of it. Being what we were, we called ourselves a "set,"
+and we had a "lovely" time, as people who passed us on Broadway could
+not fail to see. And hear. For we were at the giggling age, and
+Broadway on Saturday night was full of giggles for us. We stayed out
+till all hours, too; for Arlington Street had no strict domestic
+programme, not even in the nursery, the inmates of which were as
+likely to be found in the gutter as in their cots, at any time this
+side of one o'clock in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>There was an element in my enjoyment that was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>yielded neither by the
+sights, the adventures, nor the chewing-candy. I had a keen feeling
+for the sociability of the crowd. All plebeian Chelsea was abroad, and
+a bourgeois population is nowhere unneighborly. Women shapeless with
+bundles, their hats awry over thin, eager faces, gathered in knots on
+the edge of the curb, boasting of their bargains. Little girls in
+curlpapers and little boys in brimless hats clung to their skirts,
+whining for pennies, only to be silenced by absent-minded cuffs. A few
+disconsolate fathers strayed behind these family groups, the rest
+being distributed between the barber shops and the corner lamp-posts.
+I understood these people, being one of them, and I liked them, and I
+found it all delightfully sociable.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday night is the workman's wife's night, but that does not
+entirely prevent my lady from going abroad, if only to leave an order
+at the florist's. So it happened that Bellingham Hill and Washington
+Avenue, the aristocratic sections of Chelsea, mingled with Arlington
+Street on Broadway, to the further enhancement of my enjoyment of the
+occasion. For I always loved a mixed crowd. I loved the contrasts, the
+high lights and deep shadows, and the gradations that connect the two,
+and make all life one. I saw many, many things that I was not aware of
+seeing at the time. I only found out afterwards what treasures my
+brain had stored up, when, coming to the puzzling places in life,
+light and meaning would suddenly burst on me, the hidden fruit of some
+experience that had not impressed me at the time.</p>
+
+<p>How many times, I wonder, did I brush past my destiny on Broadway,
+foolishly staring after it, instead of going home to pray? I wonder
+did a stranger collide <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>with me, and put me patiently out of his way,
+wondering why such a mite was not at home and abed at ten o'clock in
+the evening, and never dreaming that one day he might have to reckon
+with me? Did some one smile down on my childish glee, I wonder,
+unwarned of a day when we should weep together? I wonder&mdash;I wonder. A
+million threads of life and love and sorrow was the common street; and
+whether we would or not, we entangled ourselves in a common maze,
+without paying the homage of a second glance to those who would some
+day master us; too dull to pick that face from out the crowd which one
+day would bend over us in love or pity or remorse. What company of
+skipping, laughing little girls is to be reproached for careless
+hours, when men and women on every side stepped heedlessly into the
+traps of fate? Small sin it was to annoy my neighbor by getting in his
+way, as I stared over my shoulder, if a grown man knew no better than
+to drop a word in passing that might turn the course of another's
+life, as a boulder rolled down from the mountain-side deflects the
+current of a brook.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>MANNA</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>So went the life in Chelsea for the space of a year or so. Then my
+father, finding a discrepancy between his assets and liabilities on
+the wrong side of the ledger, once more struck tent, collected his
+flock, and set out in search of richer pastures.</p>
+
+<p>There was a charming simplicity about these proceedings. Here to-day,
+apparently rooted; there to-morrow, and just as much at home. Another
+basement grocery, with a freshly painted sign over the door; the broom
+in the corner, the loaf on the table&mdash;these things made home for us.
+There were rather more Negroes on Wheeler Street, in the lower South
+End of Boston, than there had been on Arlington Street, which promised
+more numerous outstanding accounts; but they were a neighborly folk,
+and they took us strangers in&mdash;sometimes very badly. Then there was
+the school three blocks away, where "America" was sung to the same
+tune as in Chelsea, and geography was made as dark a mystery. It was
+impossible not to feel at home.</p>
+
+<p>And presently, lest anything be lacking to our domestic bliss, there
+was a new baby in a borrowed crib; and little Dora had only a few more
+turns to take with her battered doll carriage before a life-size
+vehicle with a more animated dolly was turned over to her constant
+care.</p>
+
+<p>The Wheeler Street neighborhood is not a place where a refined young
+lady would care to find herself alone, even in the cheery daylight. If
+she came at all, she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>would be attended by a trusty escort. She
+would not get too close to people on the doorsteps, and she would
+shrink away in disgust and fear from a blear-eyed creature careering
+down the sidewalk on many-jointed legs. The delicate damsel would
+hasten home to wash and purify and perfume herself till the foul
+contact of Wheeler Street was utterly eradicated, and her wonted
+purity restored. And I do not blame her. I only wish that she would
+bring a little soap and water and perfumery into Wheeler Street next
+time she comes; for some people there may be smothering in the filth
+which they abhor as much as she, but from which they cannot, like her,
+run away.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep264" id="imagep264"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep264.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep264.jpg" width="55%" alt="Wheeler Street, in the Lower South end of Boston" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">WHEELER STREET, IN THE LOWER SOUTH END OF BOSTON<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Many years after my escape from Wheeler Street I returned to see if
+the place was as bad as I remembered it. I found the narrow street
+grown even narrower, the sidewalk not broad enough for two to walk
+abreast, the gutter choked with dust and refuse, the dingy row of
+tenements on either side unspeakably gloomy. I discovered, what I had
+not realized before, that Wheeler Street was a crooked lane connecting
+a corner saloon on Shawmut Avenue with a block of houses of ill repute
+on Corning Street. It had been the same in my day, but I had not
+understood much, and I lived unharmed.</p>
+
+<p>On this later visit I walked slowly up one side of the street, and
+down the other, remembering many things. It was eleven o'clock in the
+evening, and sounds of squabbling coming through doors and windows
+informed my experienced ear that a part of Wheeler Street was going to
+bed. The grocery store in the basement of Number 11&mdash;my father's old
+store&mdash;was still open for business; and in the gutter in front of the
+store, to be sure, was a happy baby, just as there used to be.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>I was not alone on this tour of inspection. I was attended by a trusty
+escort. But I brought soap and water with me. I am applying them now.</p>
+
+<p>I found no fault with Wheeler Street when I was fourteen years old. On
+the contrary, I pronounced it good. We had never lived so near the car
+tracks before, and I delighted in the moonlike splendor of the arc
+lamp just in front of the saloon. The space illumined by this lamp and
+enlivened by the passage of many thirsty souls was the favorite
+playground for Wheeler Street youth. On our street there was not room
+to turn around; here the sidewalk spread out wider as it swung around
+to Shawmut Avenue.</p>
+
+<p>I played with the boys by preference, as in Chelsea. I learned to cut
+across the tracks in front of an oncoming car, and it was great fun to
+see the motorman's angry face turn scared, when he thought I was going
+to be shaved this time sure. It was amusing, too, to watch the side
+door of the saloon, which opened right opposite the grocery store, and
+see a drunken man put out by the bartender. The fellow would whine so
+comically, and cling to the doorpost so like a damp leaf to a twig,
+and blubber so like a red-faced baby, that it was really funny to see
+him.</p>
+
+<p>And there was Morgan Chapel. It was worth coming to Wheeler Street
+just for that. All the children of the neighborhood, except the most
+rowdyish, flocked to Morgan Chapel at least once a week. This was on
+Saturday evening, when a free entertainment was given, consisting of
+music, recitations, and other parlor accomplishments. The performances
+were exceedingly artistic, according to the impartial judgment of
+juvenile Wheeler Street. I can speak with authority for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>crowd of
+us from Number 11. We hung upon the lips of the beautiful ladies who
+read or sang to us; and they in turn did their best, recognizing the
+quality of our approval. We admired the miraculously clean gentlemen
+who sang or played, as heartily as we applauded their performance.
+Sometimes the beautiful ladies were accompanied by ravishing little
+girls who stood up in a glory of golden curls, frilled petticoats, and
+silk stockings, to recite pathetic or comic pieces, with trained
+expression and practised gestures that seemed to us the perfection of
+the elocutionary art. We were all a little bit stage-struck after
+these entertainments; but what was more, we were genuinely moved by
+the glimpses of a fairer world than ours which we caught through the
+music and poetry; the world in which the beautiful ladies dwelt with
+the fairy children and the clean gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>Brother Hotchkins, who managed these entertainments, knew what he was
+there for. His programmes were masterly. Classics of the lighter sort
+were judiciously interspersed with the favorite street songs of the
+day. Nothing that savored of the chapel was there: the hour was
+honestly devoted to entertainment. The total effect was an exquisitely
+balanced compound of pleasure, wonder, and longing. Knock-kneed men
+with purple noses, bristling chins, and no collars, who slouched in
+sceptically and sat tentatively on the edge of the rear settees at the
+beginning of the concert, moved nearer the front as the programme went
+on, and openly joined in the applause at the end. Scowling fellows who
+came in with defiant faces occasionally slunk out shamefaced; and both
+the knock-kneed and the defiant sometimes remained to hear Brother
+Tompkins pray and preach. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>And it was all due to Brother Hotchkins's
+masterly programme. The children behaved very well, for the most part;
+the few "toughs" who came in on purpose to make trouble were promptly
+expelled by Brother Hotchkins and his lieutenants.</p>
+
+<p>I could not help admiring Brother Hotchkins, he was so eminently
+efficient in every part of the hall, at every stage of the
+proceedings. I always believed that he was the author of the alluring
+notices that occupied the bulletin board every Saturday, though I
+never knew it for a fact. The way he handled the bad boys was
+masterly. The way he introduced the performers was inimitable. The way
+he did everything was the best way. And yet I did not like Brother
+Hotchkins. I could not. He was too slim, too pale, too fair. His voice
+was too encouraging, his smile was too restrained. The man was a
+missionary, and it stuck out all over him. I could not abide a
+missionary. That was the Jew in me, the European Jew, trained by the
+cruel centuries of his outcast existence to distrust any one who spoke
+of God by any other name than <i>Adonai</i>. But I should have resented the
+suggestion that inherited distrust was the cause of my dislike for
+good Brother Hotchkins; for I considered myself freed from racial
+prejudices, by the same triumph of my infallible judgment which had
+lifted from me the yoke of credulity. An uncompromising atheist, such
+as I was at the age of fourteen, was bound to scorn all those who
+sought to implant religion in their fellow men, and thereby prolong
+the reign of superstition. Of course that was the explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Brother Hotchkins, happily unconscious of my disapproval of his
+complexion, arose at intervals behind the railing, to announce, from a
+slip of paper, that "the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>next number on our programme will be a
+musical selection by," etc., etc.; until he arrived at "I am sure you
+will all join me in thanking the ladies and gentlemen who have
+entertained us this evening." And as I moved towards the door with my
+companions, I would hear his voice raised for the inevitable "You are
+all invited to remain to a short prayer service, after which&mdash;" a
+little louder&mdash;"refreshments will be served in the vestry. I will ask
+Brother Tompkins to&mdash;" The rest was lost in the shuffle of feet about
+the door and the roar of electric cars glancing past each other on
+opposite tracks. I always got out of the chapel before Brother
+Tompkins could do me any harm. As if there was anything he could steal
+from me, now that there was no God in my heart!</p>
+
+<p>If I were to go back to Morgan Chapel now, I should stay to hear
+Brother Tompkins, and as many other brethren as might have anything to
+say. I would sit very still in my corner seat and listen to the
+prayer, and silently join in the Amen. For I know now what Wheeler
+Street is, and I know what Morgan Chapel is there for, in the midst of
+those crooked alleys, those saloons, those pawnshops, those gloomy
+tenements. It is there to apply soap and water, and it is doing that
+all the time. I have learned, since my deliverance from Wheeler
+Street, that there is more than one road to any given goal. I should
+look with respect at Brother Hotchkins applying soap and water in his
+own way, convinced at last that my way is not the only way. Men must
+work with those tools to the use of which they are best fitted by
+nature. Brother Hotchkins must pray, and I must bear witness, and
+another must nurse a feeble infant. We are all honest workmen, and
+deserve standing-room <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>in the workshop of sweating humanity. It is
+only the idle scoffers who stand by and jeer at our efforts to cleanse
+our house that should be kicked out of the door, as Brother Hotchkins
+turned out the rowdies.</p>
+
+<p>It was characteristic of the looseness of our family discipline at
+this time that nobody was seriously interested in our visits to Morgan
+Chapel. Our time was our own, after school duties and household tasks
+were done. Joseph sold newspapers after school; I swept and washed
+dishes; Dora minded the baby. For the rest, we amused ourselves as
+best we could. Father and mother were preoccupied with the store day
+and night; and not so much with weighing and measuring and making
+change as with figuring out how long it would take the outstanding
+accounts to ruin the business entirely. If my mother had scruples
+against her children resorting to a building with a cross on it, she
+did not have time to formulate them. If my father heard us talking
+about Morgan Chapel, he dismissed the subject with a sarcastic
+characterization, and wanted to know if we were going to join the
+Salvation Army next; but he did not seriously care, and he was willing
+that the children should have a good time. And if my parents had
+objected to Morgan Chapel, was the sidewalk in front of the saloon a
+better place for us children to spend the evening? They could not have
+argued with us very long, so they hardly argued at all.</p>
+
+<p>In Polotzk we had been trained and watched, our days had been
+regulated, our conduct prescribed. In America, suddenly, we were let
+loose on the street. Why? Because my father having renounced his
+faith, and my mother being uncertain of hers, they had no particular
+creed to hold us to. The conception of a system of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>ethics independent
+of religion could not at once enter as an active principle in their
+life; so that they could give a child no reason why to be truthful or
+kind. And as with religion, so it fared with other branches of our
+domestic education. Chaos took the place of system; uncertainty,
+inconsistency undermined discipline. My parents knew only that they
+desired us to be like American children; and seeing how their
+neighbors gave their children boundless liberty, they turned us also
+loose, never doubting but that the American way was the best way. In
+public deportment, in etiquette, in all matters of social intercourse,
+they had no standards to go by, seeing that America was not Polotzk.
+In their bewilderment and uncertainty they needs must trust us
+children to learn from such models as the tenements afforded. More
+than this, they must step down from their throne of parental
+authority, and take the law from their children's mouths; for they had
+no other means of finding out what was good American form. The result
+was that laxity of domestic organization, that inversion of normal
+relations which makes for friction, and which sometimes ends in
+breaking up a family that was formerly united and happy.</p>
+
+<p>This sad process of disintegration of home life may be observed in
+almost any immigrant family of our class and with our traditions and
+aspirations. It is part of the process of Americanization; an upheaval
+preceding the state of repose. It is the cross that the first and
+second generations must bear, an involuntary sacrifice for the sake of
+the future generations. These are the pains of adjustment, as racking
+as the pains of birth. And as the mother forgets her agonies in the
+bliss of clasping her babe to her breast, so the bent and heart-sore
+immigrant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>forgets exile and homesickness and ridicule and loss and
+estrangement, when he beholds his sons and daughters moving as
+Americans among Americans.</p>
+
+<p>On Wheeler Street there were no real homes. There were miserable flats
+of three or four rooms, or fewer, in which families that did not
+practise race suicide cooked, washed, and ate; slept from two to four
+in a bed, in windowless bedrooms; quarrelled in the gray morning, and
+made up in the smoky evening; tormented each other, supported each
+other, saved each other, drove each other out of the house. But there
+was no common life in any form that means life. There was no room for
+it, for one thing. Beds and cribs took up most of the floor space,
+disorder packed the interspaces. The centre table in the "parlor" was
+not loaded with books. It held, invariably, a photograph album and an
+ornamental lamp with a paper shade; and the lamp was usually out of
+order. So there was as little motive for a common life as there was
+room. The yard was only big enough for the perennial rubbish heap. The
+narrow sidewalk was crowded. What were the people to do with
+themselves? There were the saloons, the missions, the libraries, the
+cheap amusement places, and the neighborhood houses. People selected
+their resorts according to their tastes. The children, let it be
+thankfully recorded, flocked mostly to the clubs; the little girls to
+sew, cook, dance, and play games; the little boys to hammer and paste,
+mend chairs, debate, and govern a toy republic. All these, of course,
+are forms of baptism by soap and water.</p>
+
+<p>Our neighborhood went in search of salvation to Morgan Memorial Hall,
+Barnard Memorial, Morgan Chapel aforementioned, and some other clean
+places <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>that lighted a candle in their window. My brother, my sister
+Dora, and I were introduced to some of the clubs by our young
+neighbors, and we were glad to go. For our home also gave us little
+besides meals in the kitchen and beds in the dark. What with the six
+of us, and the store, and the baby, and sometimes a "greener" or two
+from Polotzk, whom we lodged as a matter of course till they found a
+permanent home&mdash;what with such a company and the size of our tenement,
+we needed to get out almost as much as our neighbors' children. I say
+almost; for our parlor we managed to keep pretty clear, and the lamp
+on our centre table was always in order, and its light fell often on
+an open book. Still, it was part of the life of Wheeler Street to
+belong to clubs, so we belonged.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't care for sewing or cooking, so I joined a dancing-club; and
+even here I was a failure. I had been a very good dancer in Russia,
+but here I found all the steps different, and I did not have the
+courage to go out in the middle of the slippery floor and mince it and
+toe it in front of the teacher. When I retired to a corner and tried
+to play dominoes, I became suddenly shy of my partner; and I never
+could win a game of checkers, although formerly I used to beat my
+father at it. I tried to be friends with a little girl I had known in
+Chelsea, but she met my advances coldly. She lived on Appleton Street,
+which was too aristocratic to mix with Wheeler Street. Geraldine was
+studying elocution, and she wore a scarlet cape and hood, and she was
+going on the stage by and by. I acknowledged that her sense of
+superiority was well-founded, and retired farther into my corner, for
+the first time conscious of my shabbiness and lowliness.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>I looked on at the dancing until I could endure it no longer. Overcome
+by a sense of isolation and unfitness, I slipped out of the room,
+avoiding the teacher's eye, and went home to write melancholy poetry.</p>
+
+<p>What had come over me? Why was I, the confident, the ambitious,
+suddenly grown so shy and meek? Why was the candidate for encyclop&aelig;dic
+immortality overawed by a scarlet hood? Why did I, a very tomboy
+yesterday, suddenly find my playmates stupid, and hide-and-seek a
+bore? I did not know why. I only knew that I was lonely and troubled
+and sore; and I went home to write sad poetry.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget the pattern of the red carpet in our parlor,&mdash;we
+had achieved a carpet since Chelsea days,&mdash;because I lay for hours
+face down on the floor, writing poetry on a screechy slate. When I had
+perfected my verses, and copied them fair on the famous blue-lined
+note paper, and saw that I had made a very pathetic poem indeed, I
+felt better. And this happened over and over again. I gave up the
+dancing-club, I ceased to know the rowdy little boys, and I wrote
+melancholy poetry oftener, and felt better. The centre table became my
+study. I read much, and mooned between chapters, and wrote long
+letters to Miss Dillingham.</p>
+
+<p>For some time I wrote to her almost daily. That was when I found in my
+heart such depths of woe as I could not pack into rhyme. And finally
+there came a day when I could utter my trouble in neither verse nor
+prose, and I implored Miss Dillingham to come to me and hear my
+sorrowful revelations. But I did not want her to come to the house. In
+the house there was no privacy; I could not talk. Would she meet me on
+Boston Common at such and such a time?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>Would she? She was a devoted friend, and a wise woman. She met me on
+Boston Common. It was a gray autumn day&mdash;was it not actually
+drizzling?&mdash;and I was cold sitting on the bench; but I was thrilled
+through and through with the sense of the magnitude of my troubles,
+and of the romantic nature of the rendezvous. Who that was even half
+awake when he was growing up does not know what all these symptoms
+betokened? Miss Dillingham understood, and she wisely gave me no
+inkling of her diagnosis. She let me talk and kept a grave face. She
+did not belittle my troubles&mdash;I made specific charges against my home,
+members of my family, and life in general; she did not say that I
+would get over them, that every growing girl suffers from the blues;
+that I was, in brief, a little goose stretching my wings for flight.
+She told me rather that it would be noble to bear my sorrows bravely,
+to soothe those who irritated me, to live each day with all my might.
+She reminded me of great men and women who have suffered, and who
+overcame their troubles by living and working. And she sent me home
+amazingly comforted, my pettiness and self-consciousness routed by the
+quiet influence of her gray eyes searching mine. This, or something
+like this, had to be repeated many times, as anybody will know who was
+present at the slow birth of his manhood. From now on, for some years,
+of course, I must weep and laugh out of season, stand on tiptoe to
+pluck the stars in heaven, love and hate immoderately, propound
+theories of the destiny of man, and not know what is going on in my
+own heart.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>TARNISHED LAURELS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>In the intervals of harkening to my growing-pains I was, of course,
+still a little girl. As a little girl, in many ways immature for my
+age, I finished my course in the grammar school, and was graduated
+with honors, four years after my landing in Boston.</p>
+
+<p>Wheeler Street recognizes five great events in a girl's life: namely,
+christening, confirmation, graduation, marriage, and burial. These
+occasions all require full dress for the heroine, and full dress is
+forthcoming, no matter if the family goes into debt for it. There was
+not a girl who came to school in rags all the year round that did not
+burst forth in sudden glory on Graduation Day. Fine muslin frocks,
+lace-trimmed petticoats, patent-leather shoes, perishable hats,
+gloves, parasols, fans&mdash;every girl had them. A mother who had scrubbed
+floors for years to keep her girl in school was not going to have her
+shamed in the end for want of a pretty dress. So she cut off the
+children's supply of butter and worked nights and borrowed and fell
+into arrears with the rent; and on Graduation Day she felt
+magnificently rewarded, seeing her Mamie as fine as any girl in the
+school. And in order to preserve for posterity this triumphant
+spectacle, she took Mamie, after the exercises, to be photographed,
+with her diploma in one hand, a bouquet in the other, and the gloves,
+fan, parasol, and patent-leather shoes in full sight around a fancy
+table. Truly, the follies of the poor are worth studying.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>It did not strike me as folly, but as the fulfilment of the portent of
+my natal star, when I saw myself, on Graduation Day, arrayed like unto
+a princess. Frills, lace, patent-leather shoes&mdash;I had everything. I
+even had a sash with silk fringes.</p>
+
+<p>Did I speak of folly? Listen, and I will tell you quite another tale.
+Perhaps when you have heard it you will not be too hasty to run and
+teach The Poor. Perhaps you will admit that The Poor may have
+something to teach you.</p>
+
+<p>Before we had been two years in America, my sister Frieda was engaged
+to be married. This was under the old dispensation: Frieda came to
+America too late to avail herself of the gifts of an American
+girlhood. Had she been two years younger she might have dodged her
+circumstances, evaded her Old-World fate. She would have gone to
+school and imbibed American ideas. She might have clung to her
+girlhood longer instead of marrying at seventeen. I am so fond of the
+American way that it has always seemed to me a pitiful accident that
+my sister should have come so near and missed by so little the
+fulfilment of my country's promise to women. A long girlhood, a free
+choice in marriage, and a brimful womanhood are the precious rights of
+an American woman.</p>
+
+<p>My father was too recently from the Old World to be entirely free from
+the influence of its social traditions. He had put Frieda to work out
+of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when she had an offer of
+marriage, but my father would not stand in the way of what he
+considered her welfare. Let her escape from the workshop, if she had a
+chance, while the roses were still in her cheeks. If she remained for
+ten years more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>bent over the needle, what would she gain? Not even
+her personal comfort; for Frieda never called her earnings her own,
+but spent everything on the family, denying herself all but
+necessities. The young man who sued for her was a good workman,
+earning fair wages, of irreproachable character, and refined manners.
+My father had known him for years.</p>
+
+<p>So Frieda was to be released from the workshop. The act was really in
+the nature of a sacrifice on my father's part, for he was still in the
+woods financially, and would sorely miss Frieda's wages. The greater
+the pity, therefore, that there was no one to counsel him to give
+America more time with my sister. She attended the night school; she
+was fond of reading. In books, in a slowly ripening experience, she
+might have found a better answer to the riddle of a girl's life than a
+premature marriage.</p>
+
+<p>My sister's engagement pleased me very well. Our confidences were not
+interrupted, and I understood that she was happy. I was very fond of
+Moses Rifkin myself. He was the nicest young man of my acquaintance,
+not at all like other workmen. He was very kind to us children,
+bringing us presents and taking us out for excursions. He had a sense
+of humor, and he was going to marry our Frieda. How could I help being
+pleased?</p>
+
+<p>The marriage was not to take place for some time, and in the interval
+Frieda remained in the shop. She continued to bring home all her
+wages. If she was going to desert the family, she would not let them
+feel it sooner than she must.</p>
+
+<p>Then all of a sudden she turned spendthrift. She appropriated I do not
+know what fabulous sums, to spend just as she pleased, for once. She
+attended bargain sales, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>and brought away such finery as had never
+graced our flat before. Home from work in the evening, after a hurried
+supper, she shut herself up in the parlor, and cut and snipped and
+measured and basted and stitched as if there were nothing else in the
+world to do. It was early summer, and the air had a wooing touch, even
+on Wheeler Street. Moses Rifkin came, and I suppose he also had a
+wooing touch. But Frieda only smiled and shook her head; and as her
+mouth was full of pins, it was physically impossible for Moses to
+argue. She remained all evening in a white disorder of tucked
+breadths, curled ruffles, dismembered sleeves, and swirls of fresh
+lace; her needle glancing in the lamplight, and poor Moses picking up
+her spools.</p>
+
+<p>Her trousseau, was it not? No, not her trousseau. It was my graduation
+dress on which she was so intent. And when it was finished, and was
+pronounced a most beautiful dress, and she ought to have been
+satisfied, Frieda went to the shops once more and bought the sash with
+the silk fringes.</p>
+
+<p>The improvidence of the poor is a most distressing spectacle to all
+right-minded students of sociology. But please spare me your homily
+this time. It does not apply. The poor are the poor in spirit. Those
+who are rich in spiritual endowment will never be found bankrupt.</p>
+
+<p>Graduation Day was nothing less than a triumph for me. It was not only
+that I had two pieces to speak, one of them an original composition;
+it was more because I was known in my school district as the
+"smartest" girl in the class, and all eyes were turned on the prodigy,
+and I was aware of it. I was aware of everything. That is why I am
+able to tell you everything now.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>The assembly hall was crowded to bursting, but my friends had no
+trouble in finding seats. They were ushered up to the platform, which
+was reserved for guests of honor. I was very proud to see my friends
+treated with such distinction. My parents were there, and Frieda, of
+course; Miss Dillingham, and some others of my Chelsea teachers. A
+dozen or so of my humbler friends and acquaintances were scattered
+among the crowd on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>When I stepped up on the stage to read my composition I was seized
+with stage fright. The floor under my feet and the air around me were
+oppressively present to my senses, while my own hand I could not have
+located. I did not know where my body began or ended, I was so
+conscious of my gloves, my shoes, my flowing sash. My wonderful dress,
+in which I had taken so much satisfaction, gave me the most trouble. I
+was suddenly paralyzed by a conviction that it was too short, and it
+seemed to me I stood on absurdly long legs. And ten thousand people
+were looking up at me. It was horrible!</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I no more than cleared my throat before I began to read, but
+to me it seemed that I stood petrified for an age, an awful silence
+booming in my ears. My voice, when at last I began, sounded far away.
+I thought that nobody could hear me. But I kept on, mechanically; for
+I had rehearsed many times. And as I read I gradually forgot myself,
+forgot the place and the occasion. The people looking up at me heard
+the story of a beautiful little boy, my cousin, whom I had loved very
+dearly, and who died in far-distant Russia some years after I came to
+America. My composition was not a masterpiece; it was merely good for
+a girl of fifteen. But I had written that I still loved the little
+cousin, and I made a thousand strangers feel it. And before the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>applause there was a moment of stillness in the great hall.</p>
+
+<p>After the singing and reading by the class, there were the customary
+addresses by distinguished guests. We girls were reminded that we were
+going to be women, and happiness was promised to those of us who would
+aim to be noble women. A great many trite and obvious things, a great
+deal of the rhetoric appropriate to the occasion, compliments,
+applause, general satisfaction; so went the programme. Much of the
+rhetoric, many of the fine sentiments did not penetrate to the
+thoughts of us for whom they were intended, because we were in such a
+flutter about our ruffles and ribbons, and could hardly refrain from
+openly prinking. But we applauded very heartily every speaker and
+every would-be speaker, understanding that by a consensus of opinion
+on the platform we were very fine young ladies, and much was to be
+expected of us.</p>
+
+<p>One of the last speakers was introduced as a member of the School
+Board. He began like all the rest of them, but he ended differently.
+Abandoning generalities, he went on to tell the story of a particular
+schoolgirl, a pupil in a Boston school, whose phenomenal career might
+serve as an illustration of what the American system of free education
+and the European immigrant could make of each other. He had not got
+very far when I realized, to my great surprise and no small delight,
+that he was telling my story. I saw my friends on the platform beaming
+behind the speaker, and I heard my name whispered in the audience. I
+had been so much of a celebrity, in a small local way, that
+identification of the speaker's heroine was inevitable. My classmates,
+of course, guessed the name, and they turned to look at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>me, and
+nudged me, and all but pointed at me; their new muslins rustling and
+silk ribbons hissing.</p>
+
+<p>One or two nearest me forgot etiquette so far as to whisper to me.
+"Mary Antin," they said, as the speaker sat down, amid a burst of the
+most enthusiastic applause,&mdash;"Mary Antin, why don't you get up and
+thank him?"</p>
+
+<p>I was dazed with all that had happened. Bursting with pride I was, but
+I was moved, too, by nobler feelings. I realized, in a vague, far-off
+way, what it meant to my father and mother to be sitting there and
+seeing me held up as a paragon, my history made the theme of an
+eloquent discourse; what it meant to my father to see his ambitious
+hopes thus gloriously fulfilled, his judgment of me verified; what it
+meant to Frieda to hear me all but named with such honor. With all
+these things choking my heart to overflowing, my wits forsook me, if I
+had had any at all that day. The audience was stirring and whispering
+so that I could hear: "Who is it?" "Is that so?" And again they
+prompted me:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Antin, get up. Get up and thank him, Mary."</p>
+
+<p>And I rose where I sat, and in a voice that sounded thin as a fly's
+after the oratorical bass of the last speaker, I began:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I want to thank you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>That is as far as I got. Mr. Swan, the principal, waved his hand to
+silence me; and then, and only then, did I realize the enormity of
+what I had done.</p>
+
+<p>My eulogist had had the good taste not to mention names, and I had
+been brazenly forward, deliberately calling attention to myself when
+there was no need. Oh, it was sickening! I hated myself, I hated with
+all my heart the girls who had prompted me to such immodest conduct. I
+wished the ground would yawn and snap me <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>up. I was ashamed to look up
+at my friends on the platform. What was Miss Dillingham thinking of
+me? Oh, what a fool I had been! I had ruined my own triumph. I had
+disgraced myself, and my friends, and poor Mr. Swan, and the Winthrop
+School. The monster vanity had sucked out my wits, and left me a
+staring idiot.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to say that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill, a
+catastrophe out of a mere breach of good manners. It is easy to say
+that. But I know that I suffered agonies of shame. After the
+exercises, when the crowd pressed in all directions in search of
+friends, I tried in vain to get out of the hall. I was mobbed, I was
+lionized. Everybody wanted to shake hands with the prodigy of the day,
+and they knew who it was. I had made sure of that; I had exhibited
+myself. The people smiled on me, flattered me, passed me on from one
+to another. I smirked back, but I did not know what I said. I was wild
+to be clear of the building. I thought everybody mocked me. All my
+roses had turned to ashes, and all through my own brazen conduct.</p>
+
+<p>I would have given my diploma to have Miss Dillingham know how the
+thing had happened, but I could not bring myself to speak first. If
+she would ask me&mdash;But nobody asked. Nobody looked away from me.
+Everybody congratulated me, and my father and mother and my remotest
+relations. But the sting of shame smarted just the same; I could not
+be consoled. I had made a fool of myself: Mr. Swan had publicly put me
+down.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, so that was it! Vanity was the vital spot again. It was wounded
+vanity that writhed and squirmed. It was not because I had been bold,
+but because I had been pronounced bold, that I suffered so
+monstrously. If Mr. Swan, with an eloquent gesture, had not silenced
+me, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>I might have made my little speech&mdash;good heavens! what <i>did</i> I
+mean to say?&mdash;and probably called it another feather in my bonnet. But
+he had stopped me promptly, disgusted with my forwardness, and he had
+shown before all those hundreds what he thought of me. Therein lay the
+sting.</p>
+
+<p>With all my talent for self-analysis, it took me a long time to
+realize the essential pettiness of my trouble. For years&mdash;actually for
+years&mdash;after that eventful day of mingled triumph and disgrace, I
+could not think of the unhappy incident without inward squirming. I
+remember distinctly how the little scene would suddenly flash upon me
+at night, as I lay awake in bed, and I would turn over impatiently, as
+if to shake off a nightmare; and this so long after the occurrence
+that I was myself amazed at the persistence of the nightmare. I had
+never been reproached by any one for my conduct on Graduation Day. Why
+could I not forgive myself? I studied the matter deeply&mdash;it wearies me
+to remember how deeply&mdash;till at last I understood that it was wounded
+vanity that hurt so, and no nobler remorse. Then, and only then, was
+the ghost laid. If it ever tried to get up again, after that, I only
+had to call it names to see it scurry back to its grave and pull the
+sod down after it.</p>
+
+<p>Before I had laid my ghost, a friend told me of a similar experience
+of his boyhood. He was present at a small private entertainment, and a
+violinist who should have played being absent, the host asked for a
+volunteer to take his place. My friend, then a boy in his teens,
+offered himself, and actually stood up with the violin in his hands,
+as if to play. But he could not even hold the instrument properly&mdash;he
+had never been taught the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>violin. He told me he never knew what
+possessed him to get up and make a fool of himself before a roomful of
+people; but he was certain that ten thousand imps possessed him and
+tormented him for years and years after if only he remembered the
+incident.</p>
+
+<p>My friend's confession was such a consolation to me that I could not
+help thinking I might do some other poor wretch a world of good by
+offering him my company and that of my friend in his misery. For if it
+took me a long time to find out that I was a vain fool, the corollary
+did not escape me: there must be other vain fools.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>DOVER STREET</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>What happened next was Dover Street.</p>
+
+<p>And what was Dover Street?</p>
+
+<p>Ask rather, What was it not? Dover Street was my fairest garden of
+girlhood, a gate of paradise, a window facing on a broad avenue of
+life. Dover Street was a prison, a school of discipline, a battlefield
+of sordid strife. The air in Dover Street was heavy with evil odors of
+degradation, but a breath from the uppermost heavens rippled through,
+whispering of infinite things. In Dover Street the dragon poverty
+gripped me for a last fight, but I overthrew the hideous creature, and
+sat on his neck as on a throne. In Dover Street I was shackled with a
+hundred chains of disadvantage, but with one free hand I planted
+little seeds, right there in the mud of shame, that blossomed into the
+honeyed rose of widest freedom. In Dover Street there was often no
+loaf on the table, but the hand of some noble friend was ever in mine.
+The night in Dover Street was rent with the cries of wrong, but the
+thunders of truth crashed through the pitiful clamor and died out in
+prophetic silences.</p>
+
+<p>Outwardly, Dover Street is a noisy thoroughfare cut through a South
+End slum, in every essential the same as Wheeler Street. Turn down any
+street in the slums, at random, and call it by whatever name you
+please, you will observe there the same fashions of life, death, and
+endurance. Every one of those streets is a rubbish heap <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>of damaged
+humanity, and it will take a powerful broom and an ocean of soapsuds
+to clean it out.</p>
+
+<p>Dover Street is intersected, near its eastern end, where we lived, by
+Harrison Avenue. That street is to the South End what Salem Street is
+to the North End. It is the heart of the South End ghetto, for the
+greater part of its length; although its northern end belongs to the
+realm of Chinatown. Its multifarious business bursts through the
+narrow shop doors, and overruns the basements, the sidewalk, the
+street itself, in pushcarts and open-air stands. Its multitudinous
+population bursts through the greasy tenement doors, and floods the
+corridors, the doorsteps, the gutters, the side streets, pushing in
+and out among the pushcarts, all day long and half the night besides.</p>
+
+<p>Rarely as Harrison Avenue is caught asleep, even more rarely is it
+found clean. Nothing less than a fire or flood would cleanse this
+street. Even Passover cannot quite accomplish this feat. For although
+the tenements may be scrubbed to their remotest corners, on this one
+occasion, the cleansing stops at the curbstone. A great deal of the
+filthy rubbish accumulated in a year is pitched into the street, often
+through the windows; and what the ashman on his daily round does not
+remove is left to be trampled to powder, in which form it steals back
+into the houses from which it was so lately removed.</p>
+
+<p>The City Fathers provide soap and water for the slums, in the form of
+excellent schools, kindergartens, and branch libraries. And there they
+stop: at the curbstone of the people's life. They cleanse and
+discipline the children's minds, but their bodies they pitch into the
+gutter. For there are no parks and almost no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>playgrounds in the
+Harrison Avenue district,&mdash;in my day there were none,&mdash;and such as
+there are have been wrenched from the city by public-spirited citizens
+who have no offices in City Hall. No wonder the ashman is not more
+thorough: he learns from his masters.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pity to have it so, in a queen of enlightened cities like
+Boston. If we of the twentieth century do not believe in baseball as
+much as in philosophy, we have not learned the lesson of modern
+science, which teaches, among other things, that the body is the
+nursery of the soul; the instrument of our moral development; the
+secret chart of our devious progress from worm to man. The great
+achievement of recent science, of which we are so proud, has been the
+deciphering of the hieroglyphic of organic nature. To worship the
+facts and neglect the implications of the message of science is to
+applaud the drama without taking the moral to heart. And we certainly
+are not taking the moral to heart when we try to make a hero out of
+the boy by such foreign appliances as grammar and algebra, while
+utterly despising the fittest instrument for his uplifting&mdash;the boy's
+own body.</p>
+
+<p>We had no particular reason for coming to Dover Street. It might just
+as well have been Applepie Alley. For my father had sold, with the
+goods, fixtures, and good-will of the Wheeler Street store, all his
+hopes of ever making a living in the grocery trade; and I doubt if he
+got a silver dollar the more for them. We had to live somewhere, even
+if we were not making a living, so we came to Dover Street, where
+tenements were cheap; by which I mean that rent was low. The ultimate
+cost of life in those tenements, in terms of human happiness, is high
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>Our new home consisted of five small rooms up two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>flights of
+stairs, with the right of way through the dark corridors. In the
+"parlor" the dingy paper hung in rags and the plaster fell in chunks.
+One of the bedrooms was absolutely dark and air-tight. The kitchen
+windows looked out on a dirty court, at the back of which was the rear
+tenement of the estate. To us belonged, along with the five rooms and
+the right of way aforesaid, a block of upper space the length of a
+pulley line across this court, and the width of an arc described by a
+windy Monday's wash in its remotest wanderings.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep288" id="imagep288"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep288.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep288.jpg" width="55%" alt="Harrison Avenue is the Heart of the South End Ghetto" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">HARRISON AVENUE IS THE HEART OF THE SOUTH END GHETTO<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The little front bedroom was assigned to me, with only one partner, my
+sister Dora. A mouse could not have led a cat much of a chase across
+this room; still we found space for a narrow bed, a crazy bureau, and
+a small table. From the window there was an unobstructed view of a
+lumberyard, beyond which frowned the blackened walls of a factory. The
+fence of the lumberyard was gay with theatre posters and illustrated
+advertisements of tobacco, whiskey, and patent baby foods. When the
+window was open, there was a constant clang and whirr of electric
+cars, varied by the screech of machinery, the clatter of empty wagons,
+or the rumble of heavy trucks.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing worse in all this than we had had before since our
+exile from Crescent Beach; but I did not take the same delight in the
+propinquity of electric cars and arc lights that I had till now. I
+suppose the tenement began to pall on me.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be supposed that I enjoyed any degree of privacy, because
+I had half a room to myself. We were six in the five rooms; we were
+bound to be always in each other's way. And as it was within our flat,
+so it was in the house as a whole. All doors, beginning with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>the
+street door, stood open most of the time; or if they were closed, the
+tenants did not wear out their knuckles knocking for admittance. I
+could stand at any time in the unswept entrance hall and tell, from an
+analysis of the medley of sounds and smells that issued from doors
+ajar, what was going on in the several flats from below up. That
+guttural, scolding voice, unremittent as the hissing of a steam pipe,
+is Mrs. Rasnosky. I make a guess that she is chastising the infant
+Isaac for taking a second lump of sugar in his tea. <i>Spam! Bam!</i> Yes,
+and she is rubbing in her objections with the flat of her hand. That
+blubbering and moaning, accompanying an elephantine tread, is fat Mrs.
+Casey, second floor, home drunk from an afternoon out, in fear of the
+vengeance of Mr. Casey; to propitiate whom she is burning a pan of
+bacon, as the choking fumes and outrageous sizzling testify. I hear a
+feeble whining, interrupted by long silences. It is that scabby baby
+on the third floor, fallen out of bed again, with nobody home to pick
+him up.</p>
+
+<p>To escape from these various horrors I ascend to the roof, where bacon
+and babies and child-beating are not. But there I find two figures in
+calico wrappers, with bare red arms akimbo, a basket of wet clothes in
+front of each, and only one empty clothes-line between them. I do not
+want to be dragged in as a witness in a case of assault and battery,
+so I descend to the street again, grateful to note, as I pass, that
+the third-floor baby is still.</p>
+
+<p>In front of the door I squeeze through a group of children. They are
+going to play tag, and are counting to see who should be "it":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My-mother-and-your-mother-went-out-to-hang-clothes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My-mother-gave-your-mother-a-punch-in-the-nose."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">If the children's couplet does not give a vivid picture of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>the life,
+manners, and customs of Dover Street, no description of mine can ever
+do so.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda was married before we came to Dover Street, and went to live in
+East Boston. This left me the eldest of the children at home. Whether
+on this account, or because I was outgrowing my childish carelessness,
+or because I began to believe, on the cumulative evidence of the
+Crescent Beach, Chelsea, and Wheeler Street adventures, that America,
+after all, was not going to provide for my father's family,&mdash;whether
+for any or all of these reasons, I began at this time to take
+bread-and-butter matters more to heart, and to ponder ways and means
+of getting rich. My father sought employment wherever work was going
+on. His health was poor; he aged very fast. Nevertheless he offered
+himself for every kind of labor; he offered himself for a boy's wages.
+Here he was found too weak, here too old; here his imperfect English
+was in the way, here his Jewish appearance. He had a few short terms
+of work at this or that; I do not know the name of the form of
+drudgery that my father did not practise. But all told, he did not
+earn enough to pay the rent in full and buy a bone for the soup. The
+only steady source of income, for I do not know what years, was my
+brother's earnings from his newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>Surely this was the time for me to take my sister's place in the
+workshop. I had had every fair chance until now: school, my time to
+myself, liberty to run and play and make friends. I had graduated from
+grammar school; I was of legal age to go to work. What was I doing,
+sitting at home and dreaming?</p>
+
+<p>I was minding my business, of course; with all my might I was minding
+my business. As I understood it, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>my business was to go to school, to
+learn everything there was to know, to write poetry, become famous,
+and make the family rich. Surely it was not shirking to lay out such a
+programme for myself. I had boundless faith in my future. I was
+certainly going to be a great poet; I was certainly going to take care
+of the family.</p>
+
+<p>Thus mused I, in my arrogance. And my family? They were as bad as I.
+My father had not lost a whit of his ambition for me. Since Graduation
+Day, and the school-committeeman's speech, and half a column about me
+in the paper, his ambition had soared even higher. He was going to
+keep me at school till I was prepared for college. By that time, he
+was sure, I would more than take care of myself. It never for a moment
+entered his head to doubt the wisdom or justice of this course. And my
+mother was just as loyal to my cause, and my brother, and my sister.</p>
+
+<p>It is no wonder if I got along rapidly: I was helped, encouraged, and
+upheld by every one. Even the baby cheered me on. When I asked her
+whether she believed in higher education, she answered, without a
+moment's hesitation, "Ducka-ducka-da!" Against her I remember only
+that one day, when I read her a verse out of a most pathetic piece I
+was composing, she laughed right out, a most disrespectful laugh; for
+which I revenged myself by washing her face at the faucet, and rubbing
+it red on the roller towel.</p>
+
+<p>It was just like me, when it was debated whether I would be best
+fitted for college at the High or the Latin School, to go in person to
+Mr. Tetlow, who was principal of both schools, and so get the most
+expert opinion on the subject. I never send a messenger, you may
+remember, where I can go myself. It was vacation time, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>and I had to
+find Mr. Tetlow at his home. Away out to the wilds of Roxbury I found
+my way&mdash;perhaps half an hour's ride on the electric car from Dover
+Street. I grew an inch taller and broader between the corner of Cedar
+Street and Mr. Tetlow's house, such was the charm of the clean, green
+suburb on a cramped waif from the slums. My faded calico dress, my
+rusty straw sailor hat, the color of my skin and all bespoke the waif.
+But never a bit daunted was I. I went up the steps to the porch, rang
+the bell, and asked for the great man with as much assurance as if I
+were a daily visitor on Cedar Street. I calmly awaited the appearance
+of Mr. Tetlow in the reception room, and stated my errand without
+trepidation.</p>
+
+<p>And why not? I was a solemn little person for the moment, earnestly
+seeking advice on a matter of great importance. That is what Mr.
+Tetlow saw, to judge by the gravity with which he discussed my
+business with me, and the courtesy with which he showed me to the
+door. He saw, too, I fancy, that I was not the least bit conscious of
+my shabby dress; and I am sure he did not smile at my appearance, even
+when my back was turned.</p>
+
+<p>A new life began for me when I entered the Latin School in September.
+Until then I had gone to school with my equals, and as a matter of
+course. Now it was distinctly a feat for me to keep in school, and my
+schoolmates were socially so far superior to me that my poverty became
+conspicuous. The pupils of the Latin School, from the nature of the
+institution, are an aristocratic set. They come from refined homes,
+dress well, and spend the recess hour talking about parties, beaux,
+and the matin&eacute;e. As students they are either very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>quick or very
+hard-working; for the course of study, in the lingo of the school
+world, is considered "stiff." The girl with half her brain asleep, or
+with too many beaux, drops out by the end of the first year; or a one
+and only beau may be the fatal element. At the end of the course the
+weeding process has reduced the once numerous tribe of academic
+candidates to a cosey little family.</p>
+
+<p>By all these tokens I should have had serious business on my hands as
+a pupil in the Latin School, but I did not find it hard. To make
+myself letter-perfect in my lessons required long hours of study, but
+that was my delight. To make myself at home in an alien world was also
+within my talents; I had been practising it day and night for the past
+four years. To remain unconscious of my shabby and ill-fitting clothes
+when the rustle of silk petticoats in the schoolroom protested against
+them was a matter still within my moral reach. Half a dress a year had
+been my allowance for many seasons; even less, for as I did not grow
+much I could wear my dresses as long as they lasted. And I had stood
+before editors, and exchanged polite calls with school-teachers,
+untroubled by the detestable colors and archaic design of my garments.
+To stand up and recite Latin declensions without trembling from hunger
+was something more of a feat, because I sometimes went to school with
+little or no breakfast; but even that required no special heroism,&mdash;at
+most it was a matter of self-control. I had the advantage of a poor
+appetite, too; I really did not need much breakfast. Or if I was
+hungry it would hardly show; I coughed so much that my unsteadiness
+was self-explained.</p>
+
+<p>Everything helped, you see. My schoolmates helped. Aristocrats though
+they were, they did not hold <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>themselves aloof from me. Some of the
+girls who came to school in carriages were especially cordial. They
+rated me by my scholarship, and not by my father's occupation. They
+teased and admired me by turns for learning the footnotes in the Latin
+grammar by heart; they never reproached me for my ignorance of the
+latest comic opera. And it was more than good breeding that made them
+seem unaware of the incongruity of my presence. It was a generous
+appreciation of what it meant for a girl from the slums to be in the
+Latin School, on the way to college. If our intimacy ended on the
+steps of the school-house, it was more my fault than theirs. Most of
+the girls were democratic enough to have invited me to their homes,
+although to some, of course, I was "impossible." But I had no time for
+visiting; school work and reading and family affairs occupied all the
+daytime, and much of the night time. I did not "go with" any of the
+girls, in the school-girl sense of the phrase. I admired some of them,
+either for good looks, or beautiful manners, or more subtle
+attributes; but always at a distance. I discovered something
+inimitable in the way the Back Bay girls carried themselves; and I
+should have been the first to perceive the incongruity of Commonwealth
+Avenue entwining arms with Dover Street. Some day, perhaps, when I
+should be famous and rich; but not just then. So my companions and I
+parted on the steps of the school-house, in mutual respect; they
+guiltless of snobbishness, I innocent of envy. It was a graciously
+American relation, and I am happy to this day to recall it.</p>
+
+<p>The one exception to this rule of friendly distance was my chum,
+Florence Connolly. But I should hardly have said "chum." Florence and
+I occupied adjacent seats <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>for three years, but we did not walk arm in
+arm, nor call each other nicknames, nor share our lunch, nor
+correspond in vacation time. Florence was quiet as a mouse, and I was
+reserved as an oyster; and perhaps we two had no more in common
+fundamentally than those two creatures in their natural state. Still,
+as we were both very studious, and never strayed far from our desks at
+recess, we practised a sort of intimacy of propinquity. Although
+Florence was of my social order, her father presiding over a cheap
+lunch room, I did not on that account feel especially drawn to her. I
+spent more time studying Florence than loving her, I suppose. And yet
+I ought to have loved her; she was such a good girl. Always perfect in
+her lessons, she was so modest that she recited in a noticeable
+tremor, and had to be told frequently to raise her voice. Florence
+wore her light brown hair brushed flatly back and braided in a single
+plait, at a time when pompadours were six inches high and braids hung
+in pairs. Florence had a pocket in her dress for her handkerchief, in
+a day when pockets were repugnant to fashion. All these things ought
+to have made me feel the kinship of humble circumstances, the
+comradeship of intellectual earnestness; but they did not.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is that my relation to persons and things depended neither
+on social distinctions nor on intellectual or moral affinities. My
+attitude, at this time, was determined by my consciousness of the
+unique elements in my character and history. It seemed to me that I
+had been pursuing a single adventure since the beginning of the world.
+Through highways and byways, underground, overground, by land, by sea,
+ever the same star had guided me, I thought, ever the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>purpose
+had divided my affairs from other men's. What that purpose was, where
+was the fixed horizon beyond which my star would not recede, was an
+absorbing mystery to me. But the current moment never puzzled me. What
+I chose instinctively to do I knew to be right and in accordance with
+my destiny. I never hesitated over great things, but answered promptly
+to the call of my genius. So what was it to me whether my neighbors
+spurned or embraced me, if my way was no man's way? Nor should any one
+ever reject me whom I chose to be my friend, because I would make sure
+of a kindred spirit by the coincidence of our guiding stars.</p>
+
+<p>When, where in the harum-scarum life of Dover Street was there time or
+place for such self-communing? In the night, when everybody slept; on
+a solitary walk, as far from home as I dared to go.</p>
+
+<p>I was not unhappy on Dover Street; quite the contrary. Everything of
+consequence was well with me. Poverty was a superficial, temporary
+matter; it vanished at the touch of money. Money in America was
+plentiful; it was only a matter of getting some of it, and I was on my
+way to the mint. If Dover Street was not a pleasant place to abide in,
+it was only a wayside house. And I was really happy, actively happy,
+in the exercise of my mind in Latin, mathematics, history, and the
+rest; the things that suffice a studious girl in the middle teens.</p>
+
+<p>Still I had moments of depression, when my whole being protested
+against the life of the slum. I resented the familiarity of my vulgar
+neighbors. I felt myself defiled by the indecencies I was compelled to
+witness. Then it was I took to running away from home. I went out in
+the twilight and walked for hours, my blind feet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>leading me. I did
+not care where I went. If I lost my way, so much the better; I never
+wanted to see Dover Street again.</p>
+
+<p>But behold, as I left the crowds behind, and the broader avenues were
+spanned by the open sky, my grievances melted away, and I fell to
+dreaming of things that neither hurt nor pleased. A fringe of trees
+against the sunset became suddenly the symbol of the whole world, and
+I stood and gazed and asked questions of it. The sunset faded; the
+trees withdrew. The wind went by, but dropped no hint in my ear. The
+evening star leaped out between the clouds, and sealed the secret with
+a seal of splendor.</p>
+
+<p>A favorite resort of mine, after dark, was the South Boston Bridge,
+across South Bay and the Old Colony Railroad. This was so near home
+that I could go there at any time when the confusion in the house
+drove me out, or I felt the need of fresh air. I liked to stand
+leaning on the bridge railing, and look down on the dim tangle of
+railroad tracks below. I could barely see them branching out,
+elbowing, winding, and sliding out into the night in pairs. I was
+fascinated by the dotted lights, the significant red and green of
+signal lamps. These simple things stood for a complexity that it made
+me dizzy to think of. Then the blackness below me was split by the
+fiery eye of a monster engine, his breath enveloped me in blinding
+clouds, his long body shot by, rattling a hundred claws of steel; and
+he was gone, with an imperative shriek that shook me where I stood.</p>
+
+<p>So would I be, swift on my rightful business, picking out my proper
+track from the million that cross it, pausing for no obstacles, sure
+of my goal.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep298" id="imagep298"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep298.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep298.jpg" width="95%" alt="I Liked to Stand and Look Down on the Dim Tangle of Railroad Tracks Below" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">I LIKED TO STAND AND LOOK DOWN ON THE DIM TANGLE OF RAILROAD TRACKS BELOW<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>After my watches on the bridge I often stayed up to write or study. It
+is late before Dover Street begins to go to bed. It is past midnight
+before I feel that I am alone. Seated in my stiff little chair before
+my narrow table, I gather in the night sounds through the open window,
+curious to assort and define them. As, little by little, the city
+settles down to sleep, the volume of sound diminishes, and the
+qualities of particular sounds stand out. The electric car lurches by
+with silent gong, taking the empty track by leaps, humming to itself
+in the invisible distance. A benighted team swings recklessly around
+the corner, sharp under my rattling window panes, the staccato pelting
+of hoofs on the cobblestones changed suddenly to an even pounding on
+the bridge. A few pedestrians hurry by, their heavy boots all out of
+step. The distant thoroughfares have long ago ceased their murmur, and
+I know that a million lamps shine idly in the idle streets.</p>
+
+<p>My sister sleeps quietly in the little bed. The rhythmic dripping of a
+faucet is audible through the flat. It is so still that I can hear the
+paper crackling on the wall. Silence upon silence is added to the
+night; only the kitchen clock is the voice of my brooding
+thoughts,&mdash;ticking, ticking, ticking.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the distant whistle of a locomotive breaks the stillness with
+a long-drawn wail. Like a threatened trouble, the sound comes nearer,
+piercingly near; then it dies out in a mangled silence, complaining to
+the last.</p>
+
+<p>The sleepers stir in their beds. Somebody sighs, and the burden of all
+his trouble falls upon my heart. A homeless cat cries in the alley, in
+the voice of a human child. And the ticking of the kitchen clock is
+the voice of my troubled thoughts.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>Many things are revealed to me as I sit and watch the world asleep.
+But the silence asks me many questions that I cannot answer; and I am
+glad when the tide of sound begins to return, by little and little,
+and I welcome the clatter of tin cans that announces the milkman. I
+cannot see him in the dusk, but I know his wholesome face has no
+problem in it.</p>
+
+<p>It is one flight up to the roof; it is a leap of the soul to the
+sunrise. The morning mist rests lightly on chimneys and roofs and
+walls, wreathes the lamp-posts, and floats in gauzy streamers down the
+streets. Distant buildings are massed like palace walls, with turrets
+and spires lost in the rosy clouds. I love my beautiful city spreading
+all about me. I love the world. I love my place in the world.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE LANDLADY</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>From sunrise to sunset the day was long enough for many things besides
+school, which occupied five hours. There was time for me to try to
+earn my living; or at least the rent of our tenement. Rent was a
+standing trouble. We were always behind, and the landlady was very
+angry; so I was particularly ambitious to earn the rent. I had had one
+or two poems published since the celebrated eulogy of George
+Washington, but nobody had paid for my poems&mdash;yet. I was coming to
+that, of course, but in the mean time I could not pay the rent with my
+writing. To be sure, my acquaintance with men of letters gave me an
+opening. A friend of mine introduced me to a slightly literary lady
+who introduced me to the editor of the "Boston Searchlight," who
+offered me a generous commission for subscriptions to his paper.</p>
+
+<p>If our rent was three and one-half dollars per week, payable on strong
+demand, and the annual subscription to the "Searchlight" was one
+dollar, and my commission was fifty per cent, how many subscribers did
+I need? How easy! Seven subscribers a week&mdash;one a day! Anybody could
+do that. Mr. James, the editor, said so. He said I could get two or
+three any afternoon between the end of school and supper. If I worked
+all Saturday&mdash;my head went dizzy computing the amount of my
+commissions. It would be rent and shoes and bonnets and everything for
+everybody.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>Bright and early one Saturday morning in the fall I started out
+canvassing, in my hand a neatly folded copy of the "Searchlight," in
+my heart, faith in my lucky star and good-will towards all the world.
+I began with one of the great office buildings on Tremont Street, as
+Mr. James had advised. The first half-hour I lost, wandering through
+the corridors, reading the names on the doors. There were so many
+people in the same office, how should I know, when I entered, which
+was Wilson &amp; Reed, Solicitors, and which C. Jenkins Smith, Mortgages
+and Bonds? I decided that it did not matter: I would call them all
+"Sir."</p>
+
+<p>I selected a door and knocked. After waiting some time, I knocked a
+little louder. The building buzzed with noise,&mdash;swift footsteps echoed
+on the stone floors, snappy talk broke out with the opening of every
+door, bells tinkled, elevators hummed,&mdash;no wonder they did not hear me
+knock. But I noticed that other people went in without knocking, so
+after a while I did the same.</p>
+
+<p>There were several men and two women in the small, brightly lighted
+room. They were all busy. It was very confusing. Should I say "Sir" to
+the roomful?</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, sir," I began. That was a very good beginning, I felt
+sure, but I must speak louder. Lately my voice had been poor in
+school&mdash;gave out, sometimes, in the middle of a recitation. I cleared
+my throat, but I did not repeat myself. The back of the bald head that
+I had addressed revolved and presented its complement, a bald front.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you&mdash;would you like&mdash;I'd like&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I stared in dismay at the bald gentleman, unable to recall a word of
+what I meant to say; and he stared in impatience at me.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>"Well, well!" he snapped, "What is it? What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>That reminded me.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the 'Boston Searchlight,' sir. I take sub&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Take it away&mdash;take it away. We're busy here." He waved me away over
+his shoulder, the back of his head once more presented to me.</p>
+
+<p>I stole out of the room in great confusion. Was that the way I was
+going to be received? Why, Mr. James had said nobody would hesitate to
+subscribe. It was the best paper in Boston, the "Searchlight," and no
+business man could afford to be without it. I must have made some
+blunder. <i>Was</i> "Mortgages and Bonds" a business? I'd never heard of
+it, and very likely I had spoken to C. Jenkins Smith. I must try
+again&mdash;of course I must try again.</p>
+
+<p>I selected a real estate office next. A real estate broker, I knew for
+certain, was a business man. Mr. George A. Hooker must be just waiting
+for the "Boston Searchlight."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hooker was indeed waiting, and he was telling "Central" about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Central; waiting, waiting&mdash;What?&mdash;Yes, yes; ring <i>four</i>&mdash;What's
+that?&mdash;Since when?&mdash;Why didn't you say so at first, then, instead of
+keeping me on the line&mdash;What?&mdash;Oh, is that so? Well, never mind this
+time, Central.&mdash;I see, I see.&mdash;All right."</p>
+
+<p>I had become so absorbed in this monologue that when Mr. Hooker swung
+around on me in his revolving chair I was startled, feeling that I had
+been caught eavesdropping. I thought he was going to rebuke me, but he
+only said, "What can I do for you, Miss?"</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by his forbearance, I said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>"Would you like to subscribe to the 'Boston Searchlight,' sir?"&mdash;"Sir"
+was safer, after all.&mdash;"It's a dollar a year."</p>
+
+<p>I was supposed to say that it was the best paper in Boston, etc., but
+Mr. Hooker did not look interested, though he was not cross.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you, Miss; no new papers for me. Excuse me, I am very
+busy." And he began to dictate to a stenographer.</p>
+
+<p>Well, that was not so bad. Mr. Hooker was at least polite. I must try
+to make a better speech next time. I stuck to real estate now. O'Lair
+&amp; Kennedy were both in, in my next office, and both apparently
+enjoying a minute of relaxation, tilted back in their chairs behind a
+low railing. Said I, determined to be businesslike at last, and
+addressing myself to the whole firm:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to subscribe to the 'Boston Searchlight?' It's a very
+good paper. No business man can afford it&mdash;afford to be without it, I
+mean. It's only a dollar a year."</p>
+
+<p>Both men smiled at my break, and I smiled, too. I wondered would they
+subscribe separately, or would they take one copy for the firm.</p>
+
+<p>"The 'Boston Searchlight,'" repeated one of the partners. "Never heard
+of it. Is that the paper you have there?"</p>
+
+<p>He unfolded the paper I gave him, looked over it, and handed it to his
+partner.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever heard of the 'Searchlight,' O'Lair? What do you think&mdash;can we
+afford to be without it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess we'll make out somehow," replied Mr. O'Lair, handing me back
+my paper. "But I'll buy this copy of you, Miss," he added, from second
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>"And I'll go partner on the bargain," said Mr. Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>But I objected.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a sample," I said; "I don't sell single papers. I take
+subscriptions for the year. It's one dollar."</p>
+
+<p>"And no business man can afford it, you know." Mr. Kennedy winked as
+he said it, and we all smiled again. It would have been stupid not to
+see the joke.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry I can't sell my sample," I said, with my hand on the
+doorknob.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, my dear," said Mr. Kennedy, with a gracious wave of
+the hand. And his partner called after me, "Better luck next door!"</p>
+
+<p>Well, I was getting on! The people grew friendlier all the time. But I
+skipped "next door"; it was "Mortgages and Bonds." I tried
+"Insurance."</p>
+
+<p>"The best paper in Boston, is it?" remarked Mr. Thomas F. Dix, turning
+over my sample. "And who told you that, young lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. James," was my prompt reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Mr. James?&mdash;The <i>editor</i>! Oh, I see. And do you also think the
+'Searchlight' the best paper in Boston?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, sir. I like the 'Herald' much better, and the
+'Transcript.'"</p>
+
+<p>At that Mr. Dix laughed. "That's right," he said. "Business is
+business, but you tell the truth. One dollar, is it? Here you are. My
+name is on the door. Good-day."</p>
+
+<p>I think I spent twenty minutes copying the name and room number from
+the door. I did not trust myself to read plain English. What if I made
+a mistake, and the "Searchlight" went astray, and good Mr. Dix
+remained <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>unilluminated? He had paid for the year&mdash;it would be
+dreadful to make a mistake.</p>
+
+<p>Emboldened by my one success, I went into the next office without
+considering the kind of business announced on the door. I tried
+brokers, lawyers, contractors, and all, just as they came around the
+corridor; but I copied no more addresses. Most of the people were
+polite. Some men waved me away, like C. Jenkins Smith. Some looked
+impatient at first, but excused themselves politely in the end. Almost
+everybody said, "We're busy here," as if they suspected I wanted them
+to read a whole year's issue of the "Searchlight" at once. At last one
+man told me he did not think it was a nice business for a girl, going
+through the offices like that.</p>
+
+<p>This took me aback. I had not thought anything about the nature of the
+business. I only wanted the money to pay the rent. I wandered through
+miles of stone corridors, unable to see why it was not a nice
+business, and yet reluctant to go on with it, with the doubt in my
+mind. Intent on my new problem, I walked into a messenger boy; and
+looking back to apologize to him, I collided softly with a
+cushion-shaped gentleman getting out of an elevator. I was making up
+my mind to leave the building forever, when I saw an office door
+standing open. It was the first open door I had come across since
+morning&mdash;it was past noon now&mdash;and it was a sign to me to keep on. I
+must not give up so easily.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Frederick A. Strong was alone in the office, surreptitiously
+picking his teeth. He had been to lunch. He heard me out
+good-naturedly.</p>
+
+<p>"How much is your commission, if I may ask?" It was the first thing he
+had said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>"Fifty cents, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you what I will do. I don't care to subscribe, but
+here's a quarter for you."</p>
+
+<p>If I did not blush, it was because it is not my habit, but all of a
+sudden I choked. A lump jumped into my throat; almost the tears were
+in my eyes. That man was right who said it was not nice to go through
+the offices. I was taken for a beggar: a stranger offered me money for
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>I could not say a word. I started to go out. But Mr. Strong jumped up
+and prevented me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't go like that!" he cried. "I didn't mean to offend you; upon
+my word, I didn't. I beg your pardon. I didn't know&mdash;you see&mdash;Won't
+you sit down a minute to rest? That's kind of you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Strong was so genuinely repentant that I could not refuse him.
+Besides, I felt a little weak. I had been on my feet since morning,
+and had had no lunch. I sat down, and Mr. Strong talked. He showed me
+a picture of his wife and little girl, and said I must go and see them
+some time. Pretty soon I was chatting, too, and I told Mr. Strong
+about the Latin School; and of course he asked me if I was French, the
+way people always did when they wanted to say that I had a foreign
+accent. So we got started on Russia, and had such an interesting time
+that we both jumped up, surprised, when a fine young lady in a
+beautiful hat came in to take possession of the idle typewriter.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Strong introduced me very formally, thanked me for an interesting
+hour, and shook hands with me at the door. I did not add his name to
+my short subscription list, but I counted it a greater triumph that I
+had made a friend.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>It would have been seeking an anticlimax to solicit any more in the
+building. I went out, into the roar of Tremont Street, and across the
+Common, still green and leafy. I rested a while on a bench, debating
+where to go next. It was past two by the clock on Park Street Church.
+I had had a long day already, but it was too early to quit work, with
+only one half dollar of my own in my pocket. It was Saturday&mdash;in the
+evening the landlady would come. I must try a little longer.</p>
+
+<p>I went out along Columbus Avenue, a popular route for bicyclists at
+that time. The bicycle stores all along the way looked promising to
+me. The people did not look so busy as in the office building: they
+would at least be polite.</p>
+
+<p>They were not particularly rude, but they did not subscribe. Nobody
+wanted the "Searchlight." They had never heard of it&mdash;they made jokes
+about it&mdash;they did not want it at any price.</p>
+
+<p>I began to lose faith in the paper myself. I got tired of its name. I
+began to feel dizzy. I stopped going into the stores. I walked
+straight along, looking at nothing. I wanted to go back, go home, but
+I wouldn't. I felt like doing myself spite. I walked right along,
+straight as the avenue ran. I did not know where it would lead me. I
+did not care. Everything was horrid. I would go right on until night.
+I would get lost. I would fall in a faint on a strange doorstep, and
+be found dead in the morning, and be pitied.</p>
+
+<p>Wouldn't that be interesting! The adventure might even end happily. I
+might faint at the door of a rich old man's house, who would take me
+in, and order his housekeeper to nurse me, just like in the story
+books. In my delirium&mdash;of course I would have a fever&mdash;I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>would talk
+about the landlady, and how I had tried to earn the rent; and the old
+gentleman would wipe his spectacles for pity. Then I would wake up,
+and ask plaintively, "Where am I?" And when I got strong, after a
+delightfully long convalescence, the old gentleman would take me to
+Dover Street&mdash;in a carriage!&mdash;and we would all be reunited, and laugh
+and cry together. The old gentleman, of course, would engage my father
+as his steward, on the spot, and we would all go to live in one of his
+houses, with a garden around it.</p>
+
+<p>I walked on and on, gleefully aware that I had not eaten since
+morning. Wasn't I beginning to feel shaky? Yes; I should certainly
+faint before long. But I didn't like the houses I passed. They did not
+look fit for my adventure. I must keep up till I reached a better
+neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Anybody who knows Boston knows how cheaply my adventure ended.
+Columbus Avenue leads out to Roxbury Crossing. When I saw that the
+houses were getting shabbier, instead of finer, my heart sank. When I
+came out on the noisy, thrice-commonplace street-car centre, my spirit
+collapsed utterly.</p>
+
+<p>I did not swoon. I woke up from my foolish, childish dream with a
+shock. I was disgusted with myself, and frightened besides. It was
+evening now, and I was faint and sick in good earnest, and I did not
+know where I was. I asked a starter at the transfer station the way to
+Dover Street, and he told me to get on a car that was just coming in.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll walk," I said, "if you will please tell me the shortest way."
+How could I spend five cents out of the little I had made?</p>
+
+<p>But the starter discouraged me.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>"You can't walk it before midnight&mdash;the way you look, my girl. Better
+hop on that car before it goes."</p>
+
+<p>I could not resist the temptation. I rode home in the car, and felt
+like a thief when I paid the fare. Five cents gone to pay for my
+folly!</p>
+
+<p>I was grateful for a cold supper; thrice grateful to hear that Mrs.
+Hutch, the landlady, had been and gone, content with two dollars that
+my father had brought home.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hutch seldom succeeded in collecting the full amount of the rents
+from her tenants. I suppose that made the bookkeeping complicated,
+which must have been wearing on her nerves; and hence her temper. We
+lived, on Dover Street, in fear of her temper. Saturday had a distinct
+quality about it, derived from the imminence of Mrs. Hutch's visit. Of
+course I awoke on Saturday morning with the no-school feeling; but the
+grim thing that leaped to its feet and glowered down on me, while the
+rest of my consciousness was still yawning on its back, was the
+Mrs.-Hutch-is-coming-and-there's-no-rent feeling.</p>
+
+<p>It is hard, if you are a young girl, full of life and inclined to be
+glad, to go to sleep in anxiety and awake in fear. It is apt to
+interfere with the circulation of the vital ether of happiness in the
+young, which is damaging to the complexion of the soul. It is bitter,
+when you are middle-aged and unsuccessful, to go to sleep in
+self-reproach and awake unexonerated. It is likely to cause
+fermentation in the sweetest nature; it is certain to breed gray hairs
+and a premature longing for death. It is pitiful, if you are the
+home-keeping mother of an impoverished family, to drop in your traces
+helpless at night, and awake unstrengthened in the early morning. The
+haunting consciousness of rooted poverty is an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>improper bedfellow for
+a woman who still bears. It has been known to induce physical and
+spiritual malformations in the babies she nurses.</p>
+
+<p>It did require strength to lift the burden of life, in the gray
+morning, on Dover Street; especially on Saturday morning. Perhaps my
+mother's pack was the heaviest to lift. To the man of the house,
+poverty is a bulky dragon with gripping talons and a poisonous breath;
+but he bellows in the open, and it is possible to give him knightly
+battle, with the full swing of the angry arm that cuts to the enemy's
+vitals. To the housewife, want is an insidious myriapod creature that
+crawls in the dark, mates with its own offspring, breeds all the year
+round, persists like leprosy. The woman has an endless, inglorious
+struggle with the pest; her triumphs are too petty for applause, her
+failures too mean for notice. Care, to the man, is a hound to be kept
+in leash and mastered. To the woman, care is a secret parasite that
+infects the blood.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hutch, of course, was only one symptom of the disease of poverty,
+but there were times when she seemed to me the sharpest tooth of the
+gnawing canker. Surely as sorrow trails behind sin, Saturday evening
+brought Mrs. Hutch. The landlady did not trail. Her movements were
+anything but impassive. She climbed the stairs with determination and
+landed at the top with emphasis. Her knock on the door was clear
+sharp, unfaltering; it was impossible to pretend not to hear it. Her
+"Good-evening" announced business; her manner of taking a chair
+suggested the throwing-down of the gauntlet. Invariably she asked for
+my father, calling him Mr. Anton, and refusing to be corrected; almost
+invariably he was not at home&mdash;was out looking for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>work. Had he left
+her the rent? My mother's gentle "No, ma'am" was the signal for the
+storm. I do not want to repeat what Mrs. Hutch said. It would be hard
+on her, and hard on me. She grew red in the face; her voice grew
+shriller with every word. My poor mother hung her head where she
+stood; the children stared from their corners; the frightened baby
+cried. The angry landlady rehearsed our sins like a prophet
+foretelling doom. We owed so many weeks' rent; we were too lazy to
+work; we never intended to pay; we lived on others; we deserved to be
+put out without warning. She reproached my mother for having too many
+children; she blamed us all for coming to America. She enumerated her
+losses through nonpayment of her rents; told us that she did not
+collect the amount of her taxes; showed us how our irregularities were
+driving a poor widow to ruin.</p>
+
+<p>My mother did not attempt to excuse herself, but when Mrs. Hutch began
+to rail against my absent father, she tried to put in a word in his
+defence. The landlady grew all the shriller at that, and silenced my
+mother impatiently. Sometimes she addressed herself to me. I always
+stood by, if I was at home, to give my mother the moral support of my
+dumb sympathy. I understood that Mrs. Hutch had a special grudge
+against me, because I did not go to work as a cash girl and earn three
+dollars a week. I wanted to explain to her how I was preparing myself
+for a great career, and I was ready to promise her the payment of the
+arrears as soon as I began to get rich. But the landlady would not let
+me put in a word. And I was sorry for her, because she seemed to be
+having such a bad time.</p>
+
+<p>At last Mrs. Hutch got up to leave, marching out as determinedly as
+she had marched in. At the door she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>turned, in undiminished wrath, to
+shoot her parting dart:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And if Mr. Anton does not bring me the rent on Monday, I will serve
+notice of eviction on Tuesday, without fail."</p>
+
+<p>We breathed when she was gone. My mother wiped away a few tears, and
+went to the baby, crying in the windowless, air-tight room.</p>
+
+<p>I was the first to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she queer, mamma!" I said. "She never remembers how to say our
+name. She insists on saying <i>Anton&mdash;Anton</i>. Celia, say <i>Anton</i>." And I
+made the baby laugh by imitating the landlady, who had made her cry.</p>
+
+<p>But when I went to my little room I did not mock Mrs. Hutch. I thought
+about her, thought long and hard, and to a purpose. I decided that she
+must hear me out once. She must understand about my plans, my future,
+my good intentions. It was too irrational to go on like this, we
+living in fear of her, she in distrust of us. If Mrs. Hutch would only
+trust me, and the tax collectors would trust her, we could all live
+happily forever.</p>
+
+<p>I was the more certain that my argument would prevail with the
+landlady, if only I could make her listen, because I understood her
+point of view. I even sympathized with her. What she said about the
+babies, for instance, was not all unreasonable to me. There was this
+last baby, my mother's sixth, born on Mrs. Hutch's premises&mdash;yes, in
+the windowless, air-tight bedroom. Was there any need of this baby?
+When May was born, two years earlier, on Wheeler Street, I had
+accepted her; after a while I even welcomed her. She was born an
+American, and it was something to me to have one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>genuine American
+relative. I had to sit up with her the whole of her first night on
+earth, and I questioned her about the place she came from, and so we
+got acquainted. As my mother was so ill that my sister Frieda, who was
+nurse, and the doctor from the dispensary had all they could do to
+take care of her, the baby remained in my charge a good deal, and so I
+got used to her. But when Celia came I was two years older, and my
+outlook was broader; I could see around a baby's charms, and discern
+the disadvantages of possessing the baby. I was supplied with all
+kinds of relatives now&mdash;I had a brother-in-law, and an American-born
+nephew, who might become a President. Moreover, I knew there was not
+enough to eat before the baby's advent, and she did not bring any
+supplies with her that I could see. The baby was one too many. There
+was no need of her. I resented her existence. I recorded my resentment
+in my journal.</p>
+
+<p>I was pleased with my broad-mindedness, that enabled me to see all
+sides of the baby question. I could regard even the rent question
+disinterestedly, like a philosopher reviewing natural phenomena. It
+seemed not unreasonable that Mrs. Hutch should have a craving for the
+rent as such. A school-girl dotes on her books, a baby cries for its
+rattle, and a landlady yearns for her rents. I could easily believe
+that it was doing Mrs. Hutch spiritual violence to withhold the rent
+from her; and hence the vehemence with which she pursued the arrears.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I could analyze the landlady very nicely. I was certainly
+qualified to act as peacemaker between her and my family. But I must
+go to her own house, and <i>not</i> on a rent day. Saturday evening, when
+she was embittered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>by many disappointments, was no time to approach
+her with diplomatic negotiations. I must go to her house on a day of
+good omen.</p>
+
+<p>And I went, as soon as my father could give me a week's rent to take
+along. I found Mrs. Hutch in the gloom of a long, faded parlor.
+Divested of the ample black coat and widow's bonnet in which I had
+always seen her, her presence would have been less formidable had I
+not been conscious that I was a mere rumpled sparrow fallen into the
+lion's den. When I had delivered the money, I should have begun my
+speech; but I did not know what came first of all there was to say.
+While I hesitated, Mrs. Hutch observed me. She noticed my books, and
+asked about them. I thought this was my opening, and I showed her
+eagerly my Latin grammar, my geometry, my Virgil. I began to tell her
+how I was to go to college, to fit myself to write poetry, and get
+rich, and pay the arrears. But Mrs. Hutch cut me short at the mention
+of college. She broke out with her old reproaches, and worked herself
+into a worse fury than I had ever witnessed before. I was all alone in
+the tempest, and a very old lady was sitting on a sofa, drinking tea;
+and the tidy on the back of the sofa was sliding down.</p>
+
+<p>I was so bewildered by the suddenness of the onslaught, I felt so
+helpless to defend myself, that I could only stand and stare at Mrs.
+Hutch. She kept on railing without stopping for breath, repeating
+herself over and over. At last I ceased to hear what she said; I
+became hypnotized by the rapid motions of her mouth. Then the moving
+tidy caught my eye and the spell was broken. I went over to the sofa
+with a decided step and carefully replaced the tidy.</p>
+
+<p>It was now the landlady's turn to stare, and I stared <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>back, surprised
+at my own action. The old lady also stared, her teacup suspended under
+her nose. The whole thing was so ridiculous! I had come on such a
+grand mission, ready to dictate the terms of a noble peace. I was met
+with anger and contumely; the dignity of the ambassador of peace
+rubbed off at a touch, like the golden dust from the butterfly's wing.
+I took my scolding like a meek child; and then, when she was in the
+middle of a trenchant phrase, her eye fixed daggerlike on mine, I
+calmly went to put the enemy's house in order! It was ridiculous, and
+I laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately I was sorry. I wanted to apologize, but Mrs. Hutch didn't
+give me a chance. If she had been harsh before, she was terrific now.
+Did I come there to insult her?&mdash;she wanted to know. Wasn't it enough
+that I and my family lived on her, that I must come to her on purpose
+to rile her with my talk about college&mdash;<i>college!</i> these beggars!&mdash;and
+laugh in her face? "What did you come for? Who sent you? Why do you
+stand there staring? Say something! <i>College!</i> these beggars! And do
+you think I'll keep you till you go to college? <i>You</i>, learning
+geometry! Did you ever figure out how much rent your father owes me?
+You are all too lazy&mdash;Don't say a word! Don't speak to me! Coming here
+to laugh in my face! I don't believe you can say one sensible word.
+<i>Latin</i>&mdash;and <i>French</i>! Oh, these beggars! You ought to go to work, if
+you know enough to do one sensible thing. <i>College!</i> Go home and tell
+your father never to send you again. Laughing in my face&mdash;and staring!
+Why don't you say something? How old are you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hutch actually stopped, and I jumped into the pause.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>"I'm seventeen," I said quickly, "and I feel like seventy."</p>
+
+<p>This was too much, even for me who had spoken. I had not meant to say
+the last. It broke out, like my wicked laugh. I was afraid, if I
+stayed any longer, Mrs. Hutch would have the apoplexy; and I felt that
+I was going to cry. I moved towards the door, but the landlady got in
+another speech before I had escaped.</p>
+
+<p>"Seventeen&mdash;seventy! And looks like twelve! The child is silly. Can't
+even tell her own age. No wonder, with her Latin, and French, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I did cry when I got outside, and I didn't care if I was noticed. What
+was the use of anything? Everything I did was wrong. Everything I
+tried to do for Mrs. Hutch turned out bad. I tried to sell papers, for
+the sake of the rent, and nobody wanted the "Searchlight," and I was
+told it was not a nice business. I wanted to take her into my
+confidence, and she wouldn't hear a word, but scolded and called me
+names. She was an unreasonable, ungrateful landlady. I wished she
+<i>would</i> put us out, then we should be rid of her.&mdash;But wasn't it funny
+about that tidy? What made me do that? I never meant to. Curious, the
+way we sometimes do things we don't want to at all.&mdash;The old lady must
+be deaf; she didn't say anything all that time.&mdash;Oh, I have a whole
+book of the "&AElig;neid" to review, and it's getting late. I must hurry
+home.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to remain despondent long. The landlady came only
+once a week, I reflected, as I walked, and the rest of the time I was
+surrounded by friends. Everybody was good to me, at home, of course,
+and at school; and there was Miss Dillingham, and her friend who took
+me out in the country to see the autumn <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>leaves, and her friend's
+friend who lent me books, and Mr. Hurd, who put my poems in the
+"Transcript," and gave me books almost every time I came, and a dozen
+others who did something good for me all the time, besides the several
+dozen who wrote me such nice letters. Friends? If I named one for
+every block I passed I should not get through before I reached home.
+There was Mr. Strong, too, and he wanted me to meet his wife and
+little girl. And Mr. Pastor! I had almost forgotten Mr. Pastor. I
+arrived at the corner of Washington and Dover Streets, on my way home,
+and looked into Mr. Pastor's showy drug store as I passed, and that
+reminded me of the history of my latest friendship.</p>
+
+<p>My cough had been pretty bad&mdash;kept me awake nights. My voice gave out
+frequently. The teachers had spoken to me several times, suggesting
+that I ought to see a doctor. Of course the teachers did not know that
+I could not afford a doctor, but I could go to the free dispensary,
+and I did. They told me to come again, and again, and I lost precious
+hours sitting in the waiting-room, watching for my turn. I was
+examined, thumped, studied, and sent out with prescriptions and
+innumerable directions. All that was said about food, fresh air, sunny
+rooms, etc., was, of course, impossible; but I would try the medicine.
+A bottle of medicine was a definite thing with a fixed price. You
+either could or could not afford it, on a given day. Once you began
+with milk and eggs and such things, there was no end of it. You were
+always going around the corner for more, till the grocer said he could
+give no more credit. No; the medicine bottle was the only safe thing.</p>
+
+<p>I had taken several bottles, and was told that I was looking better,
+when I went, one day, to have my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>prescription renewed. It was just
+after a hard rain, and the pools on the broken pavements were full of
+blue sky. I was delighted with the beautiful reflections; there were
+even the white clouds moving across the blue, there, at my feet, on
+the pavement! I walked with my head down all the way to the drug
+store, which was all right; but I should not have done it going back,
+with the new bottle of medicine in my hand.</p>
+
+<p>In front of a cigar store, halfway between Washington Street and
+Harrison Avenue, stood a wooden Indian with a package of wooden cigars
+in his hand. My eyes on the shining rain pools, I walked plump into
+the Indian, and the bottle was knocked out of my hand and broke with a
+crash.</p>
+
+<p>I was horrified at the catastrophe. The medicine cost fifty cents. My
+mother had given me the last money in the house. I must not be without
+my medicine; the dispensary doctor was very emphatic about that. It
+would be dreadful to get sick and have to stay out of school. What was
+to be done?</p>
+
+<p>I made up my mind in less than five minutes. I went back to the drug
+store and asked for Mr. Pastor himself. He knew me; he often sold me
+postage stamps, and joked about my large correspondence, and heard a
+good deal about my friends. He came out, on this occasion, from his
+little office in the back of the store; and I told him of my accident,
+and that there was no more money at home, and asked him to give me
+another bottle, to be paid for as soon as possible. My father had a
+job as night watchman in a store. I should be able to pay very soon.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, my dear, certainly," said Mr. Pastor; "very glad to oblige
+you. It's doing you good, isn't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>it?&mdash;That's right. You're such a
+studious young lady, with all those books, and so many letters to
+write&mdash;you need something to build you up. There you are.&mdash;Oh, don't
+mention it! Any time at all. And lookout for wild Indians!"</p>
+
+<p>Of course we were great friends after that, and this is the way my
+troubles often ended on Dover Street. To bump into a wooden Indian was
+to bump into good luck, a hundred times a week. No wonder I was happy
+most of the time.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE BURNING BUSH</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Just when Mrs. Hutch was most worried about the error of my ways, I
+entered on a new chapter of adventures, even more remote from the cash
+girl's career than Latin and geometry. But I ought not to name such
+harsh things as landladies at the opening of the fairy story of my
+girlhood. I have reached what was the second transformation of my
+life, as truly as my coming to America was the first great
+transformation.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his delightful essays, credits the
+lover with a feeling of remorse and shame at the contemplation of that
+part of his life which he lived without his beloved, content with his
+barren existence. It is with just such a feeling of remorse that I
+look back to my bookworm days, before I began the study of natural
+history outdoors; and with a feeling of shame akin to the lover's I
+confess how late in my life nature took the first place in my
+affections.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of nature study is better developed in the public schools
+to-day than it was in my time. I remember my teacher in the Chelsea
+grammar school who encouraged us to look for different kinds of
+grasses in the empty lots near home, and to bring to school samples of
+the cereals we found in our mothers' pantries. I brought the grasses
+and cereals, as I did everything the teacher ordered, but I was
+content when nature study was over and the arithmetic lesson began. I
+was not interested, and the teacher did not make it interesting.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>In the boys' books I was fond of reading I came across all sorts of
+heroes, and I sympathized with them all. The boy who ran away to sea;
+the boy who delighted in the society of ranchmen and cowboys; the
+stage-struck boy, whose ambition was to drive a pasteboard chariot in
+a circus; the boy who gave up his holidays in order to earn money for
+books; the bad boy who played tricks on people; the clever boy who
+invented amusing toys for his blind little sister&mdash;all these boys I
+admired. I could put myself in the place of any one of these heroes,
+and delight in their delights. But there was one sort of hero I never
+could understand, and that was the boy whose favorite reading was
+natural history, who kept an aquarium, collected beetles, and knew all
+about a man by the name of Agassiz. This style of boy always had a
+seafaring uncle, or a missionary aunt, who sent him all sorts of queer
+things from China and the South Sea Islands; and the conversation
+between this boy and the seafaring uncle home on a visit, I was
+perfectly willing to skip. The impossible hero usually kept snakes in
+a box in the barn, where his little sister was fond of playing with
+her little friends. The snakes escaped at least once before the end of
+the story; and the things the boy said to the frightened little girls,
+about the harmless and fascinating qualities of snakes, was something
+I had no patience to read.</p>
+
+<p>No, I did not care for natural history. I would read about travels,
+about deserts, and nameless islands, and strange peoples; but snakes
+and birds and minerals and butterflies did not interest me in the
+least. I visited the Natural History Museum once or twice, because it
+was my way to enter every open door, so as to miss nothing that was
+free to the public; but the curious monsters <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>that filled the glass
+cases and adorned the walls and ceilings failed to stir my
+imagination, and the slimy things that floated in glass vessels were
+too horrid for a second glance.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the horrid things that ever passed under my eyes when I lifted
+my nose from my book, spiders were the worst. Mice were bad enough,
+and so were flies and worms and June bugs; but spiders were absolutely
+the most loathsome creatures I knew. And yet it was the spider that
+opened my eyes to the wonders of nature, and touched my girlish
+happiness with the hues of the infinite.</p>
+
+<p>And it happened at Hale House.</p>
+
+<p>It was not Dr. Hale, though it might have been, who showed me the way
+to the settlement house on Garland Street which bears his name. Hale
+House is situated in the midst of the labyrinth of narrow streets and
+alleys that constitutes the slum of which Harrison Avenue is the
+backbone, and of which Dover Street is a member.</p>
+
+<p>Bearing in mind the fact that there are almost no playgrounds in all
+this congested district, you will understand that Hale House has
+plenty of work on its hands to carry a little sunshine into the grimy
+tenement homes. The beautiful story of how that is done cannot be told
+here, but what Hale House did for me I may not omit to mention.</p>
+
+<p>It was my brother Joseph who discovered Hale House. He started a
+debating club, and invited his chums to help him settle the problems
+of the Republic on Sunday afternoon. The club held its first session
+in our empty parlor on Dover Street, and the United States Government
+was in a fair way to be put on a sound basis at last, when the
+numerous babies belonging to our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>establishment broke up the meeting,
+leaving the Administration in suspense as to its future course.</p>
+
+<p>The next meeting was held in Isaac Maslinsky's parlor, and the orators
+were beginning to jump to their feet and shake their fists at each
+other, in excellent parliamentary form, when Mrs. Maslinsky sallied
+in, to smile at the boys' excitement. But at the sight of seven pairs
+of boys' boots scuffling on her cherished parlor carpet, the fringed
+cover of the centre table hanging by one corner, and the plush
+photograph album unceremoniously laid aside, indignation took the
+place of good humor in Mrs. Maslinsky's ample bosom, and she ordered
+the boys to clear out, threatening "Ike" with dire vengeance if ever
+again he ventured to enter the parlor with ungentle purpose.</p>
+
+<p>On the following Sunday Harry Rubinstein offered the club the
+hospitality of <i>his</i> parlor, and the meeting began satisfactorily. The
+subject on the table was the Tariff, and the pros and antis were about
+evenly divided. Congress might safely have taken a nap, with the Hub
+Debating Club to handle its affairs, if Harry Rubinstein's big brother
+Jake had not interfered. He came out of the kitchen, where he had been
+stuffing the baby with peanuts, and stood in the doorway of the parlor
+and winked at the dignified chairman. The chairman turned his back on
+him, whereupon Jake pelted him with peanut shells. He mocked the
+speakers, and called them "kids," and wanted to know how they could
+tell the Tariff from a sunstroke, anyhow. "We've got to have free
+trade," he mocked. "Pa, listen to the kids! 'In the interests of the
+American laborer.' Hoo-ray! Listen to the kids, pa!"</p>
+
+<p>Flesh and blood could not bear this. The political <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>reformers
+adjourned indefinitely, and the club was in danger of extinction for
+want of a sheltering roof, when one of the members discovered that
+Hale House, on Garland Street, was waiting to welcome the club.</p>
+
+<p>How the debating-club prospered in the genial atmosphere of the
+settlement house; how from a little club it grew to be a big club, as
+the little boys became young men; how Joseph and Isaac and Harry and
+the rest won prizes in public debates; how they came to be a part of
+the multiple influence for good that issues from Garland Street&mdash;all
+this is a piece of the history of Hale House, whose business in the
+slums is to mould the restless children on the street corners into
+noble men and women. I brought the debating-club into my story just to
+show how naturally the children of the slums drift toward their
+salvation, if only some island of safety lies in the course of their
+innocent activities. Not a child in the slums is born to be lost. They
+are all born to be saved, and the raft that carries them unharmed
+through the perilous torrent of tenement life is the child's
+unconscious aspiration for the best. But there must be lighthouses to
+guide him midstream.</p>
+
+<p>Dora followed Joseph to Hale House, joining a club for little girls
+which has since become famous in the Hale House district. The leader
+of this club, under pretence of teaching the little girls the proper
+way to sweep and make beds, artfully teaches them how to beautify a
+tenement home by means of noble living.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph and Dora were so enthusiastic about Hale House that I had to go
+over and see what it was all about. And I found the Natural History
+Club.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know how Mrs. Black, who was then the resident, persuaded me
+to try the Natural History <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>Club, in spite of my aversion for bugs. I
+suppose she tried me in various girls' clubs, and found that I did not
+fit, any more than I fitted in the dancing-club that I attempted years
+before. I dare say she decided that I was an old maid, and urged me to
+come to the meetings of the Natural History Club, which was composed
+of adults. The members of this club were not people from the
+neighborhood, I understood, but workers at Hale House and their
+friends; and they often had eminent naturalists, travellers, and other
+notables lecture before them. My curiosity to see a real live
+naturalist probably induced me to accept Mrs. Black's invitation in
+the end; for up to that time I had never met any one who enjoyed the
+creepy society of snakes and worms, except in books.</p>
+
+<p>The Natural History Club sat in a ring around the reception room,
+facing the broad doorway of the adjoining room. Mrs. Black introduced
+me, and I said "Glad to meet you" all around the circle, and sat down
+in a kindergarten chair beside the piano. It was Friday evening, and I
+had the sense of leisure which pervades the school-girl's
+consciousness when there is to be no school on the morrow. I liked the
+pleasant room, pleasanter than any at home. I liked the faces of the
+company I was in. I was prepared to have an agreeable evening, even if
+I was a little bored.</p>
+
+<p>The tall, lean gentleman with the frank blue eyes got up to read the
+minutes of the last meeting. I did not understand what he read, but I
+noticed that it gave him great satisfaction. This man had greeted me
+as if he had been waiting for my coming all his life. What did Mrs.
+Black call him? He looked and spoke as if he was happy to be alive. I
+liked him. Oh, yes! this was Mr. Winthrop.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>I let my thoughts wander, with my eyes, all around the circle, trying
+to read the characters of my new friends in their faces. But suddenly
+my attention was arrested by a word. Mr. Winthrop had finished reading
+the minutes, and was introducing the speaker of the evening. "We are
+very fortunate in having with us Mr. Emerson, whom we all know as an
+authority on spiders."</p>
+
+<p><i>Spiders!</i> What hard luck! Mr. Winthrop pronounced the word "spiders"
+with unmistakable relish, as if he doted on the horrid creatures; but
+I&mdash;My nerves contracted into a tight knot. I gripped the arms of my
+little chair, determined <i>not</i> to run, with all those strangers
+looking on. I watched Mr. Emerson, to see when he would open a box of
+spiders. I recalled a hideous experience of long ago, when, putting on
+a dress that had hung on the wall for weeks, I felt a thing with a
+hundred legs crawling down my bare arm, and shook a spider out of my
+sleeve. I watched the lecturer, but I was <i>not</i> going to run. It was
+too bad that Mrs. Black had not warned me.</p>
+
+<p>After a while I realized that the lecturer had no menagerie in his
+pockets. He talked, in a familiar way, about different kinds of
+spiders and their ways; and as he talked, he wove across the doorway,
+where he stood, a gigantic spider's web, unwinding a ball of twine in
+his hand, and looping various lengths on invisible tacks he had ready
+in the door frame.</p>
+
+<p>I was fascinated by the progress of the web. I forgot my terrors; I
+began to follow Mr. Emerson's discourse. I was surprised to hear how
+much there was to know about a dusty little spider, besides that he
+could spin his webs as fast as my broom could sweep them away. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>The
+drama of the spider's daily life became very real to me as the
+lecturer went on. His struggle for existence; his wars with his
+enemies; his wiles, his traps, his patient labors; the intricate
+safeguards of his simple existence; the fitness of his body for his
+surroundings, of his instincts for his vital needs&mdash;the whole picture
+of the spider's pursuit of life under the direction of definite laws
+filled me with a great wonder and left no room in my mind for
+repugnance or fear. It was the first time the natural history of a
+living creature had been presented to me under such circumstances that
+I could not avoid hearing and seeing, and I was surprised at my
+dulness in the past when I had rejected books on natural history.</p>
+
+<p>I did not become an enthusiastic amateur naturalist at once; I did not
+at once begin to collect worms and bugs. But on the next sweeping-day
+I stood on a chair, craning my neck, to study the spider webs I
+discovered in the corners of the ceiling; and one or two webs of more
+than ordinary perfection I suffered to remain undisturbed for weeks,
+although it was my duty, as a house-cleaner, to sweep the ceiling
+clean. I began to watch for the mice that were wont to scurry across
+the floor when the house slept and I alone waked. I even placed a
+crust for them on the threshold of my room, and cultivated a
+breathless intimacy with them, when the little gray beasts
+acknowledged my hospitality by nibbling my crust in full sight. And so
+by degrees I came to a better understanding of my animal neighbors on
+all sides, and I began to look forward to the meetings of the Natural
+History Club.</p>
+
+<p>The club had frequent field excursions, in addition to the regular
+meetings. At the seashore, in the woods, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>the fields; at high
+tide and low tide, in summer and winter, by sunlight and by moonlight,
+the marvellous story of orderly nature was revealed to me, in
+fragments that allured the imagination and made me beg for more. Some
+of the members of the club were school-teachers, accustomed to
+answering questions. All of them were patient; some of them took
+special pains with me. But nobody took me seriously as a member of the
+club. They called me the club mascot, and appointed me curator of the
+club museum, which was not in existence, at a salary of ten cents a
+year, which was never paid. And I was well pleased with my unique
+position in the club, delighted with my new friends, enraptured with
+my new study.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep328" id="imagep328"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep328.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep328.jpg" width="95%" alt="The Natural History Club had Frequent Field Excursions" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">THE NATURAL HISTORY CLUB HAD FREQUENT FIELD EXCURSIONS<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>More and more, as the seasons rolled by, and page after page of the
+book of nature was turned before my eager eyes, did I feel the wonder
+and thrill of the revelations of science, till all my thoughts became
+colored with the tints of infinite truths. My days arranged themselves
+around the meetings of the club as a centre. The whole structure of my
+life was transfigured by my novel experiences outdoors. I realized,
+with a shock at first, but afterwards with complacency, that books
+were taking a secondary place in my life, my irregular studies in
+natural history holding the first place. I began to enjoy the Natural
+History rooms; and I was obliged to admit to myself that my heart hung
+with a more thrilling suspense over the fate of some beans I had
+planted in a window box than over the fortunes of the classic hero
+about whom we were reading at school.</p>
+
+<p>But for all my enthusiasm about animals, plants, and rocks,&mdash;for all
+my devotion to the Natural History Club,&mdash;I did not become a thorough
+naturalist. My <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>scientific friends were right not to take me
+seriously. Mr. Winthrop, in his delightfully frank way, called me a
+fraud; and I did not resent it. I dipped into zo&ouml;logy, botany,
+geology, ornithology, and an infinite number of other ologies, as the
+activities of the club or of particular members of it gave me
+opportunity, but I made no systematic study of any branch of science;
+at least not until I went to college. For what enthralled my
+imagination in the whole subject of natural history was not the
+orderly array of facts, but the glimpse I caught, through this or that
+fragment of science, of the grand principles underlying the facts. By
+asking questions, by listening when my wise friends talked, by
+reading, by pondering and dreaming, I slowly gathered together the
+kaleidoscopic bits of the stupendous panorama which is painted in the
+literature of Darwinism. Everything I had ever learned at school was
+illumined by this new knowledge; the world lay newly made under my
+eyes. Vastly as my mind had stretched to embrace the idea of a great
+country, when I exchanged Polotzk for America, it was no such
+enlargement as I now experienced, when in place of the measurable
+earth, with its paltry tale of historic centuries, I was given the
+illimitable universe to contemplate, with the numberless &aelig;ons of
+infinite time.</p>
+
+<p>As the meaning of nature was deepened for me, so was its aspect
+beautified. Hitherto I had loved in nature the spectacular,&mdash;the
+blazing sunset, the whirling tempest, the flush of summer, the
+snow-wonder of winter. Now, for the first time, my heart was satisfied
+with the microscopic perfection of a solitary blossom. The harmonious
+murmur of autumn woods broke up into a hundred separate melodies, as
+the pelting acorn, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>scurrying squirrel, the infrequent chirp of
+the lingering cricket, and the soft speed of ripe pine cones through
+dense-grown branches, each struck its discriminate chord in the
+scented air. The outdoor world was magnified in every dimension;
+inanimate things were vivified; living things were dignified.</p>
+
+<p>No two persons set the same value on any given thing, and so it may
+very well be that I am boasting of the enrichment of my life through
+the study of natural history to ears that hear not. I need only recall
+my own obtuseness to the subject, before the story of the spider
+sharpened my senses, to realize that these confessions of a nature
+lover may bore every other person who reads them. But I do not pretend
+to be concerned about the reader at this point. I never hope to
+explain to my neighbor the exact value of a winter sunrise in my
+spiritual economy, but I know that my life has grown better since I
+learned to distinguish between a butterfly and a moth; that my faith
+in man is the greater because I have watched for the coming of the
+song sparrow in the spring; and my thoughts of immortality are the
+less wavering because I have cherished the winter duckweed on my lawn.</p>
+
+<p>Those who find their greatest intellectual and emotional satisfaction
+in the study of nature are apt to refer their spiritual problems also
+to science. That is how it went with me. Long before my introduction
+to natural history I had realized, with an uneasy sense of the
+breaking of peace, that the questions which I thought to have been
+settled years before were beginning to tease me anew. In Russia I had
+practised a prescribed religion, with little faith in what I
+professed, and a restless questioning of the universe. When I came to
+America I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>lightly dropped the religious forms that I had half mocked
+before, and contented myself with a few novel phrases employed by my
+father in his attempt to explain the riddle of existence. The busy
+years flew by, when from morning till night I was preoccupied with the
+process of becoming an American; and no question arose in my mind that
+my books or my teachers could not fully answer. Then came a time when
+the ordinary business of my girl's life discharged itself
+automatically, and I had leisure once more to look over and around
+things. This period coinciding with my moody adolescence, I rapidly
+entangled myself in a net of doubts and questions, after the
+well-known manner of a growing girl. I asked once more, How did I come
+to be?&mdash;and I found that I was no whit wiser than poor Reb' Lebe, whom
+I had despised for his ignorance. For all my years of America and
+schooling, I could give no better answer to my clamoring questions
+than the teacher of my childhood. Whence came the fair world? Was
+there a God, after all? And if so, what did He intend when He made me?</p>
+
+<p>It was always my way, if I wanted anything, to turn my daily life into
+a pursuit of that thing. "Have you seen the treasure I seek?" I asked
+of every man I met. And if it was God that I desired, I made all my
+friends search their hearts for evidence of His being. I asked all the
+wise people I knew what they were going to do with themselves after
+death; and if the wise failed to satisfy me, I questioned the simple,
+and listened to the babies talking in their sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Still the imperative clamor of my mind remained unallayed. Was all my
+life to be a hunger and a questioning? I complained of my teachers,
+who stuffed my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>head with facts and gave my soul no crumb to feed on.
+I blamed the stars for their silence. I sat up nights brooding over
+the emptiness of knowledge, and praying for revelations.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I lived for days in a chimera of doubts, feeling that it was
+hardly worth while living at all if I was never to know why I was born
+and why I could not live forever. It was in one of these prolonged
+moods that I heard that a friend of mine, a distinguished man of
+letters whom I greatly admired, was coming to Boston for a short
+visit. A terrific New England blizzard arrived some hours in advance
+of my friend's train, but so intent was I on questioning him that I
+disregarded the weather, and struggled through towering snowdrifts, in
+the teeth of the wild wind, to the railroad station. There I nearly
+perished of weariness while waiting for the train, which was delayed
+by the storm. But when my friend emerged from one of the snow-crusted
+cars I was rewarded; for the blizzard had kept the reporters away, and
+the great man could give me his undivided attention.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt he understood the pressing importance of the matter to me,
+from the trouble I had taken to secure an early interview with him. He
+heard me out very soberly, and answered my questions as honestly as a
+thinking man could. Not a word of what he said remains in my mind, but
+I remember going away with the impression that it was possible to live
+without knowing everything, after all, and that I might even try to be
+happy in a world full of riddles.</p>
+
+<p>In such ways as this I sought peace of mind, but I never achieved more
+than a brief truce. I was coming to believe that only the stupid could
+be happy, and that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>life was pretty hard on the philosophical, when
+the great new interest of science came into my life, and scattered my
+blue devils as the sun scatters the night damps.</p>
+
+<p>Some of my friends in the Natural History Club were deeply versed in
+the principles of evolutionary science, and were able to guide me in
+my impetuous rush to learn everything in a day. I was in a hurry to
+deduce, from the conglomeration of isolated facts that I picked up in
+the lectures, the final solution of all my problems. It took both
+patience and wisdom to check me and at the same time satisfy me, I
+have no doubt; but then I was always fortunate in my friends. Wisdom
+and patience in plenty were spent on me, and I was instructed and
+inspired and comforted. Of course my wisest teacher was not able to
+tell me how the original spark of life was kindled, nor to point out,
+on the starry map of heaven, my future abode. The bread of absolute
+knowledge I do not hope to taste in this life. But all creation was
+remodelled on a grander scale by the utterances of my teachers; and my
+problems, though they deepened with the expansion of all nameable
+phenomena, were carried up to the heights of the impersonal, and
+ceased to torment me. Seeing how life and death, beginning and end,
+were all parts of the process of being, it mattered less in what
+particular ripple of the flux of existence I found myself. If past
+time was a trooping of similar yesterdays, back over the unbroken
+millenniums, to the first moment, it was simple to think of future
+time as a trooping of knowable to-days, on and on, to infinity.
+Possibly, also, the spark of life that had persisted through the
+geological ages, under a million million disguises, was vital enough
+to continue for another earth-age, in some shape as potent as the
+first or last. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>Thinking in &aelig;ons and in races, instead of in years and
+individuals, somehow lightened the burden of intelligence, and filled
+me anew with a sense of youth and well-being, that I had almost lost
+in the pit of my narrow personal doubts.</p>
+
+<p>No one who understands the nature of youth will be misled, by this
+summary of my intellectual history, into thinking that I actually
+arranged my newly acquired scientific knowledge into any such orderly
+philosophy as, for the sake of clearness, I have outlined above. I had
+long passed my teens, and had seen something of life that is not
+revealed to poetizing girls, before I could give any logical account
+of what I read in the book of cosmogony. But the high peaks of the
+promised land of evolution did flash on my vision in the earlier days,
+and with these to guide me I rebuilt the world, and found it much
+nobler than it had ever been before, and took great comfort in it.</p>
+
+<p>I did not become a finished philosopher from hearing a couple of
+hundred lectures on scientific subjects. I did not even become a
+finished woman. If anything, I grew rather more girlish. I remember
+myself as very merry in the midst of my serious scientific friends,
+and I can think of no time when I was more inclined to play the tomboy
+than when off for a day in the woods, in quest of botanical and
+zoological specimens. The freedom of outdoors, the society of
+congenial friends, the delight of my occupation&mdash;all acted as a strong
+wine on my mood, and sent my spirits soaring to immoderate heights I
+am very much afraid I made myself a nuisance, at times, to some of the
+more sedate of my grown-up companions. I wish they could know that I
+have truly repented. I wish they had known at the time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>that it was
+the exuberance of my happiness that played tricks, and no wicked
+desire to annoy kind friends. But I am sure that those who were
+offended have long since forgotten or forgiven, and I need remember
+nothing of those wonderful days other than that a new sun rose above a
+new earth for me, and that my happiness was like unto the iridescent
+dews.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>I did not always wait for the Natural History Club to guide me to
+delectable lands. Some of the happiest days of that happy time I spent
+with my sister in East Boston. We had a merry time at supper, Moses
+making clever jokes, without cracking a smile himself; and the baby
+romping in his high chair, eating what wasn't good for him. But the
+best of the evening came later, when father and baby had gone to bed,
+and the dishes were put away, and there was not a crumb left on the
+red-and-white checked tablecloth. Frieda took out her sewing, and I
+took a book; and the lamp was between us, shining on the table, on the
+large brown roses on the wall, on the green and brown diamonds of the
+oil cloth on the floor, on the baby's rattle on a shelf, and on the
+shining stove in the corner. It was such a pleasant kitchen&mdash;such a
+cosey, friendly room&mdash;that when Frieda and I were left alone I was
+perfectly happy just to sit there. Frieda had a beautiful parlor, with
+plush chairs and a velvet carpet and gilt picture frames; but we
+preferred the homely, homelike kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>I read aloud from Longfellow, or Whittier, or Tennyson; and it was as
+great a treat to me as it was to Frieda. Her attention alone was
+inspiring. Her delight, her eager questions doubled the meaning of the
+lines I read. Poor Frieda had little enough time for reading, unless
+she stole it from the sewing or the baking or the mending. But she was
+hungry for books, and so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>grateful when I came to read to her that it
+made me ashamed to remember all the beautiful things I had and did not
+share with her.</p>
+
+<p>It is true I shared what could be shared. I brought my friends to her.
+At her wedding were some of the friends of whom I was most proud. Miss
+Dillingham came, and Mr. Hurd; and the humbler guests stared in
+admiration at our school-teachers and editors. But I had so many
+delightful things that I could not bring to Frieda&mdash;my walks, my
+dreams, my adventures of all sorts. And yet when I told her about
+them, I found that she partook of everything. For she had her talent
+for vicarious enjoyment, by means of which she entered as an actor
+into my adventures, was present as a witness at the frolic of my
+younger life. Or if I narrated things that were beyond her, on account
+of her narrower experience, she listened with an eager longing to
+understand that was better than some people's easy comprehension. My
+world ever rang with good tidings, and she was grateful if I brought
+her the echo of them, to ring again within the four walls of the
+kitchen that bounded her life. And I, who lived on the heights, and
+walked with the learned, and bathed in the crystal fountains of youth,
+sometimes climbed the sublimest peak in my sister's humble kitchen,
+there caught the unfaltering accents of inspiration, and rejoiced in
+silver pools of untried happiness.</p>
+
+<p>The way she reached out for everything fine was shown by her interest
+in the incomprehensible Latin and French books that I brought. She
+liked to hear me read my Cicero, pleased by the movement of the
+sonorous periods. I translated Ovid and Virgil for her; and her
+pleasure illumined the difficult passages, so that I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>seldom needed to
+have recourse to the dictionary. I shall never forget the evening I
+read to her, from the "&AElig;neid," the passage in the fourth book
+describing the death of Dido. I read the Latin first, and then my own
+version in English hexameters, that I had prepared for a recitation at
+school. Frieda forgot her sewing in her lap, and leaned forward in
+rapt attention. When I was through, there were tears of delight in her
+eyes; and I was surprised myself at the beauty of the words I had just
+pronounced.</p>
+
+<p>I do not dare to confess how much of my Latin I have forgotten, lest
+any of the devoted teachers who taught me should learn the sad truth;
+but I shall always boast of some acquaintance with Virgil, through
+that scrap of the "&AElig;neid" made memorable by my sister's enjoyment of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Truly my education was not entirely in the hands of persons who had
+licenses to teach. My sister's fat baby taught me things about the
+origin and ultimate destiny of dimples that were not in any of my
+school-books. Mr. Casey, of the second floor, who was drunk whenever
+his wife was sober, gave me an insight into the psychology of the beer
+mug that would have added to the mental furniture of my most scholarly
+teacher. The bold-faced girls who passed the evening on the corner, in
+promiscuous flirtation with the cock-eyed youths of the neighborhood,
+unconsciously revealed to me the eternal secrets of adolescence. My
+neighbor of the third floor, who sat on the curbstone with the scabby
+baby in her bedraggled lap, had things to say about the fine ladies
+who came in carriages to inspect the public bathhouse across the
+street that ought to be repeated in the lecture halls of every school
+of philanthropy. Instruction <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>poured into my brain at such a rate that
+I could not digest it all at the time; but in later years, when my
+destiny had led me far from Dover Street, the emphatic moral of those
+lessons became clear. The memory of my experience on Dover Street
+became the strength of my convictions, the illumined index of my
+purpose, the aureola of my happiness. And if I paid for those lessons
+with days of privation and dread, with nights of tormenting anxiety, I
+count the price cheap. Who would not go to a little trouble to find
+out what life is made of? Life in the slums spins busily as a
+schoolboy's top, and one who has heard its humming never forgets. I
+look forward to telling, when I get to be a master of language, what I
+read in the crooked cobblestones when I revisited Dover Street the
+other day.</p>
+
+<p>Dover Street was never really my residence&mdash;at least, not the whole of
+it. It happened to be the nook where my bed was made, but I inhabited
+the City of Boston. In the pearl-misty morning, in the ruby-red
+evening, I was empress of all I surveyed from the roof of the tenement
+house. I could point in any direction and name a friend who would
+welcome me there. Off towards the northwest, in the direction of
+Harvard Bridge, which some day I should cross on my way to Radcliffe
+College, was one of my favorite palaces, whither I resorted every day
+after school.</p>
+
+<p>A low, wide-spreading building with a dignified granite front it was,
+flanked on all sides by noble old churches, museums, and
+school-houses, harmoniously disposed around a spacious triangle,
+called Copley Square. Two thoroughfares that came straight from the
+green suburbs swept by my palace, one on either side, converged at the
+apex of the triangle, and pointed off, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>past the Public Garden, across
+the historic Common, to the domed State House sitting on a height.</p>
+
+<p>It was my habit to go very slowly up the low, broad steps to the
+palace entrance, pleasing my eyes with the majestic lines of the
+building, and lingering to read again the carved inscriptions: <i>Public
+Library</i>&mdash;<i>Built by the People</i>&mdash;<i>Free to All</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Did I not say it was my palace? Mine, because I was a citizen; mine,
+though I was born an alien; mine, though I lived on Dover Street. My
+palace&mdash;<i>mine</i>!</p>
+
+<p>I loved to lean against a pillar in the entrance hall, watching the
+people go in and out. Groups of children hushed their chatter at the
+entrance, and skipped, whispering and giggling in their fists, up the
+grand stairway, patting the great stone lions at the top, with an eye
+on the aged policemen down below. Spectacled scholars came slowly down
+the stairs, loaded with books, heedless of the lofty arches that
+echoed their steps. Visitors from out of town lingered long in the
+entrance hall, studying the inscriptions and symbols on the marble
+floor. And I loved to stand in the midst of all this, and remind
+myself that I was there, that I had a right to be there, that I was at
+home there. All these eager children, all these fine-browed women, all
+these scholars going home to write learned books&mdash;I and they had this
+glorious thing in common, this noble treasure house of learning. It
+was wonderful to say, <i>This is mine</i>; it was thrilling to say, <i>This
+is ours</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I visited every part of the building that was open to the public. I
+spent rapt hours studying the Abbey pictures. I repeated to myself
+lines from Tennyson's poem before the glowing scenes of the Holy
+Grail. Before the "Prophets" in the gallery above I was mute, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>but
+echoes of the Hebrew Psalms I had long forgotten throbbed somewhere in
+the depths of my consciousness. The Chavannes series around the main
+staircase I did not enjoy for years. I thought the pictures looked
+faded, and their symbolism somehow failed to move me at first.</p>
+
+<p>Bates Hall was the place where I spent my longest hours in the
+library. I chose a seat far at one end, so that looking up from my
+books I would get the full effect of the vast reading-room. I felt the
+grand spaces under the soaring arches as a personal attribute of my
+being.</p>
+
+<p>The courtyard was my sky-roofed chamber of dreams. Slowly strolling
+past the endless pillars of the colonnade, the fountain murmured in my
+ear of all the beautiful things in all the beautiful world. I imagined
+that I was a Greek of the classic days, treading on sandalled feet
+through the glistening marble porticoes of Athens. I expected to see,
+if I looked over my shoulder, a bearded philosopher in a drooping
+mantle, surrounded by beautiful youths with wreathed locks. Everything
+I read in school, in Latin or Greek, everything in my history books,
+was real to me here, in this courtyard set about with stately columns.</p>
+
+<p>Here is where I liked to remind myself of Polotzk, the better to bring
+out the wonder of my life. That I who was born in the prison of the
+Pale should roam at will in the land of freedom was a marvel that it
+did me good to realize. That I who was brought up to my teens almost
+without a book should be set down in the midst of all the books that
+ever were written was a miracle as great as any on record. That an
+outcast should become a privileged citizen, that a beggar should dwell
+in a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>palace&mdash;this was a romance more thrilling than poet ever sung.
+Surely I was rocked in an enchanted cradle.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep342" id="imagep342"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep342.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep342.jpg" width="95%" alt="Bates Hall, Where I Spent my Longest Hours in the Library" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">BATES HALL, WHERE I SPENT MY LONGEST HOURS IN THE LIBRARY<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>From the Public Library to the State House is only a step, and I found
+my way there without a guide. The State House was one of the places I
+could point to and say that I had a friend there to welcome me. I do
+not mean the representative of my district, though I hope he was a
+worthy man. My friend was no less a man than the Honorable Senator
+Roe, from Worcester, whose letters to me, written under the embossed
+letter head of the Senate Chamber, I could not help exhibiting to
+Florence Connolly.</p>
+
+<p>How did I come by a Senator? Through being a citizen of Boston, of
+course. To be a citizen of the smallest village in the United States
+which maintains a free school and a public library is to stand in the
+path of the splendid processions of opportunity. And as Boston has
+rather better schools and a rather finer library than some other
+villages, it comes natural there for children in the slums to summon
+gentlemen from the State House to be their personal friends.</p>
+
+<p>It is so simple, in Boston! You are a school-girl, and your teacher
+gives you a ticket for the annual historical lecture in the Old South
+Church, on Washington's Birthday. You hear a stirring discourse on
+some subject in your country's history, and you go home with a heart
+bursting with patriotism. You sit down and write a letter to the
+speaker who so moved you, telling him how glad you are to be an
+American, explaining to him, if you happen to be a recently made
+American, why you love your adopted country so much better than your
+native land. Perhaps the patriotic lecturer happens to be a Senator,
+and he reads your letter under the vast <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>dome of the State House; and
+it occurs to him that he and his eminent colleagues and the stately
+capitol and the glorious flag that floats above it, all gathered on
+the hill above the Common, do his country no greater honor than the
+outspoken admiration of an ardent young alien. The Senator replies to
+your letter, inviting you to visit him at the State House; and in the
+renowned chamber where the august business of the State is conducted,
+you, an obscure child from the slums, and he, a chosen leader of the
+people, seal a democratic friendship based on the love of a common
+flag.</p>
+
+<p>Even simpler than to meet a Senator was it to become acquainted with a
+man like Edward Everett Hale. "The Grand Old Man of Boston," the
+people called him, from the manner of his life among them. He kept
+open house in every public building in the city. Wherever two citizens
+met to devise a measure for the public weal, he was a third. Wherever
+a worthy cause needed a champion, Dr. Hale lifted his mighty voice. At
+some time or another his colossal figure towered above an eager
+multitude from every pulpit in the city, from every lecture platform.
+And where is the map of Boston that gives the names of the lost alleys
+and back ways where the great man went in search of the lame in body,
+who could not join the public assembly, in quest of the maimed in
+spirit, who feared to show their faces in the open? If all the little
+children who have sat on Dr. Hale's knee were started in a procession
+on the State House steps, standing four abreast, there would be a lane
+of merry faces across the Common, out to the Public Library, over
+Harvard Bridge, and away beyond to remoter landmarks.</p>
+
+<p>That I met Dr. Hale is no wonder. It was as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span>inevitable as that I
+should be a year older every twelvemonth. He was a part of Boston, as
+the salt wave is a part of the sea. I can hardly say whether he came
+to me or I came to him. We met, and my adopted country took me closer
+to her breast.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two after our first meeting I called on Dr. Hale, at his
+invitation. It was only eight o'clock in the morning, you may be sure,
+because he had risen early to attend to a hundred great affairs, and I
+had risen early so as to talk with a great man before I went to
+school. I think we liked each other a little the more for the fact
+that when so many people were still asleep, we were already busy in
+the interests of citizenship and friendship. We certainly liked each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>I am sure I did not stay more than fifteen minutes, and all that I
+recall of our conversation was that Dr. Hale asked me a great many
+questions about Russia, in a manner that made me feel that I was an
+authority on the subject; and with his great hand in good-bye he gave
+me a bit of homely advice, namely, that I should never study before
+breakfast!</p>
+
+<p>That was all, but for the rest of the day I moved against a background
+of grandeur. There was a noble ring to Virgil that day that even my
+teacher's firm translation had never brought out before. Obscure
+points in the history lesson were clear to me alone, of the thirty
+girls in the class. And it happened that the tulips in Copley Square
+opened that day, and shone in the sun like lighted lamps.</p>
+
+<p>Any one could be happy a year on Dover Street, after spending half an
+hour on Highland Street. I enjoyed so many half-hours in the great
+man's house that I do not know how to convey the sense of my
+remembered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>happiness. My friend used to keep me in conversation a few
+minutes, in the famous study that was fit to have been preserved as a
+shrine; after which he sent me to roam about the house, and explore
+his library, and take away what books I pleased. Who would feel
+cramped in a tenement, with such royal privileges as these?</p>
+
+<p>Once I brought Dr. Hale a present, a copy of a story of mine that had
+been printed in a journal; and from his manner of accepting it you
+might have thought that I was a princess dispensing gifts from a
+throne. I wish I had asked him, that last time I talked with him, how
+it was that he who was so modest made those who walked with him so
+great.</p>
+
+<p>Modest as the man was the house in which he lived. A gray old house of
+a style that New England no longer builds, with a pillared porch
+curtained by vines, set back in the yard behind the old trees.
+Whatever cherished flowers glowed in the garden behind the house, the
+common daisy was encouraged to bloom in front. And was there sun or
+snow on the ground, the most timid hand could open the gate, the most
+humble visitor was sure of a welcome. Out of that modest house the
+troubled came comforted, the fallen came uplifted, the noble came
+inspired.</p>
+
+<p>My explorations of Dr. Hale's house might not have brought me to the
+gables, but for my friend's daughter, the artist, who had a studio at
+the top of the house. She asked me one day if I would sit for a
+portrait, and I consented with the greatest alacrity. It would be an
+interesting experience, and interesting experiences were the bread of
+life to me. I agreed to come every Saturday morning, and felt that
+something was going to happen to Dover Street.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep346" id="imagep346"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep346.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep346.jpg" width="95%" alt="The Famous Study, That Was Fit To Have Been Preserved as a Shrine" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">THE FAMOUS STUDY, THAT WAS FIT TO HAVE BEEN PRESERVED AS A SHRINE<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>When I came home from my talk with Miss Hale, I studied myself long in
+my blotched looking-glass. I saw just what I expected. My face was too
+thin, my nose too large, my complexion too dull. My hair, which was
+curly enough, was too short to be described as luxurious tresses; and
+the color was neither brown nor black. My hands were neither white nor
+velvety; the fingers ended decidedly, instead of tapering off like
+rosy dreams. I was disgusted with my wrists; they showed too far below
+the tight sleeves of my dress of the year before last, and they looked
+consumptive.</p>
+
+<p>No, it was not for my beauty that Miss Hale wanted to paint me. It was
+because I was a girl, a person, a piece of creation. I understood
+perfectly. If I could write an interesting composition about a broom,
+why should not an artist be able to make an interesting picture of me?
+I had done it with the broom, and the milk wagon, and the rain spout.
+It was not what a thing was that made it interesting, but what I was
+able to draw out of it. It was exciting to speculate as to what Miss
+Hale was going to draw out of me.</p>
+
+<p>The first sitting was indeed exciting. There was hardly any sitting to
+it. We did nothing but move around the studio, and move the easel
+around, and try on ever so many backgrounds, and ever so many poses.
+In the end, of course, we left everything just as it had been at the
+start, because Miss Hale had had the right idea from the beginning;
+but I understood that a preliminary tempest in the studio was the
+proper way to test that idea.</p>
+
+<p>I was surprised to find that I should not be obliged to hold my
+breath, and should be allowed to wink all I wanted. Posing was just
+sitting with my hands in my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>lap, and enjoying the most interesting
+conversation with the artist. We hit upon such out-of-the-way
+topics&mdash;once, I remember, we talked about the marriage laws of
+different states! I had a glorious time, and I believe Miss Hale did
+too. I watched the progress of the portrait with utter lack of
+comprehension, and with perfect faith in the ultimate result. The
+morning flew so fast that I could have sat right on into the afternoon
+without tiring.</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice I stayed to lunch, and sat opposite the artist's mother
+at table. It was like sitting face to face with Martha Washington, I
+thought. Everything was wonderful in that wonderful old house.</p>
+
+<p>One thing disturbed my enjoyment of those Saturday mornings. It was a
+small thing, hardly as big as a pen-wiper. It was a silver coin which
+Miss Hale gave me regularly when I was going. I knew that models were
+paid for sitting, but I was not a professional model. When people sat
+for their portraits they usually paid the artist, instead of the
+artist paying them. Of course I had not ordered this portrait, but I
+had such a good time sitting that it did not seem to me I could be
+earning money. But what troubled me was not the suspicion that I did
+not earn the money, but that I did not know what was in my friend's
+mind when she gave it to me. Was it possible that Miss Hale had asked
+me to sit on purpose to be able to pay me, so that I could help pay
+the rent? Everybody knew about the rent sooner or later, because I was
+always asking my friends what a girl could do to make the landlady
+happy. Very possibly Miss Hale had my landlady in mind when she asked
+me to pose. I might have asked her&mdash;I dearly loved explanations, which
+cleared up hidden motives&mdash;but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span>her answer would not have made any
+real difference. I should have accepted the money just the same. Miss
+Hale was not a stranger, like Mr. Strong when he offered me a quarter.
+She knew me, she believed in my cause, and she wanted to contribute to
+it. Thus I, in my hair-splitting analyses of persons and motives;
+while the portrait went steadily on.</p>
+
+<p>It was Miss Hale who first found a use for our superfluous baby. She
+came to Dover Street several times to study our tiny Celia, in
+swaddling clothes improvised by my mother, after the fashion of the
+old country. Miss Hale wanted a baby for a picture of the Nativity
+which she was doing for her father's church; and of all the babies in
+Boston, our Celia, our little Jewish Celia, was posing for the Christ
+Child! It does not matter in this connection that the Infant that lies
+in the lantern light, brooded over by the Mother's divine sorrow of
+love, in the beautiful altar piece in Dr. Hale's church, was not
+actually painted from my mother's baby, in the end. The point is that
+my mother, in less than half a dozen years of America, had so far
+shaken off her ancient superstitions that she feared no evil
+consequence from letting her child pose for a Christian picture.</p>
+
+<p>A busy life I led, on Dover Street; a happy, busy life. When I was not
+reciting lessons, nor writing midnight poetry, nor selling papers, nor
+posing, nor studying sociology, nor pickling bugs, nor interviewing
+statesmen, nor running away from home, I made long entries in nay
+journal, or wrote forty-page letters to my friends. It was a happy
+thing that poor Mrs. Hutch did not know what sums I spent for
+stationery and postage stamps. She would have gone into consumption, I
+do believe, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span>from inexpressible indignation; and she would have been
+in the right&mdash;to be indignant, not to go into consumption. I admit it;
+she would have been justified&mdash;from her point of view. From my point
+of view I was also in the right; of course I was. To make friends
+among the great was an important part of my education, and was not to
+be accomplished without a liberal expenditure of paper and postage
+stamps. If Mrs. Hutch had not repulsed my offer of confidences, I
+could have shown her long letters written to me by people whose mere
+signature was prized by autograph hunters. It is true that I could not
+turn those letters directly into rent-money,&mdash;or if I could, I would
+not,&mdash;but indirectly my interesting letters did pay a week's rent now
+and then. Through the influence of my friends my father sometimes
+found work that he could not have got in any other way. These
+practical results of my costly pursuit of friendships might have given
+Mrs. Hutch confidence in my ultimate solvency, had she not remained
+obstinately deaf to my plea for time, her heart being set on direct,
+immediate, convertible cash payment.</p>
+
+<p>That was very narrow-minded, even though I say it who should not. The
+grocer on Harrison Avenue who supplied our table could have taught her
+to take a more liberal view. We were all anxious to teach her, if she
+only would have listened. Here was this poor grocer, conducting his
+business on the same perilous credit system which had driven my father
+out of Chelsea and Wheeler Street, supplying us with tea and sugar and
+strong butter, milk freely splashed from rusty cans, potent yeast, and
+bananas done to a turn,&mdash;with everything, in short, that keeps a poor
+man's family hearty in spite of what they eat,&mdash;and all this for the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span>consideration of part payment, with the faintest prospect of a future
+settlement in full. Mr. Rosenblum had an intimate knowledge of the
+financial situation of every family that traded with him, from the
+gossip of his customers around his herring barrel. He knew without
+asking that my father had no regular employment, and that,
+consequently, it was risky to give us credit. Nevertheless he gave us
+credit by the week, by the month, accepted partial payment with
+thanks, and let the balance stand by the year.</p>
+
+<p>We owed him as much as the landlady, I suppose, every time he balanced
+our account. But he never complained; nay, he even insisted on my
+mother's taking almonds and raisins for a cake for the holidays. He
+knew, as well as Mrs. Hutch, that my father kept a daughter at school
+who was of age to be put to work; but so far was he from reproaching
+him for it that he detained my father by the half-hour, inquiring
+about my progress and discussing my future. He knew very well, did the
+poor grocer, who it was that burned so much oil in my family; but when
+I came in to have my kerosene can filled, he did not fall upon me with
+harsh words of blame. Instead, he wanted to hear about my latest
+triumph at school, and about the great people who wrote me letters and
+even came to see me; and he called his wife from the kitchen behind
+the store to come and hear of these grand doings. Mrs. Rosenblum, who
+could not sign her name, came out in her faded calico wrapper, and
+stood with her hands folded under her apron, shy and respectful before
+the embryo scholar; and she nodded her head sideways in approval,
+drinking in with envious pleasure her husband's Yiddish version of my
+tale. If her black-eyed Goldie happened to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>playing jackstones on
+the curb, Mrs. Rosenblum pulled her into the store, to hear what
+distinction Mr. Antin's daughter had won at school, bidding her take
+example from Mary, if she would also go far in education.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear you, Goldie? She has the best marks, in everything, Goldie, all
+the time. She is only five years in the country, and she'll be in
+college soon. She beats them all in school, Goldie&mdash;her father says
+she beats them all. She studies all the time&mdash;all night&mdash;and she
+writes, it is a pleasure to hear. She writes in the paper, Goldie. You
+ought to hear Mr. Antin read what she writes in the paper. Long
+pieces&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand what he reads, ma," Goldie interrupts
+mischievously; and I want to laugh, but I refrain. Mr. Rosenblum does
+not fill my can; I am forced to stand and hear myself eulogized.</p>
+
+<p>"Not understand? Of course I don't understand. How should I
+understand? I was not sent to school to learn. Of course I don't
+understand. But <i>you</i> don't understand, Goldie, and that's a shame. If
+you would put your mind on it, and study hard, like Mary Antin, you
+would also stand high, and you would go to high school, and be
+somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you send me to high school, pa?" Goldie asks, to test her
+mother's promises. "Would you really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure as I am a Jew," Mr. Rosenblum promptly replies, a look of
+aspiration in his deep eyes. "Only show yourself worthy, Goldie, and
+I'll keep you in school till you get to something. In America
+everybody can get to something, if he only wants to. I would even send
+you farther than high school&mdash;to be a teacher, maybe. Why not? In
+America everything is possible. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>But you have to work hard, Goldie,
+like Mary Antin&mdash;study hard, put your mind on it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know it, pa!" Goldie exclaims, her momentary enthusiasm
+extinguished at the thought of long lessons indefinitely prolonged.
+Goldie was a restless little thing who could not sit long over her
+geography book. She wriggled out of her mother's grasp now, and made
+for the door, throwing a "back-hand" as she went, without losing a
+single jackstone. "I hate long lessons," she said. "When I graduate
+grammar school next year I'm going to work in Jordan-Marsh's big
+store, and get three dollars a week, and have lots of fun with the
+girls. I can't write pieces in the paper, anyhow.&mdash;Beckie! Beckie
+Hurvich! Where you going? Wait a minute, I'll go along." And she was
+off, leaving her ambitious parents to shake their heads over her
+flightiness.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rosenblum gave me my oil. If he had had postage stamps in stock,
+he would have given me all I needed, and felt proud to think that he
+was assisting in my important correspondences. And he was a poor man,
+and had a large family, and many customers who paid as irregularly as
+we. He ran the risk of ruin, of course, but he did not scold&mdash;not us,
+at any rate. For he <i>understood</i>. He was himself an immigrant Jew of
+the type that values education, and sets a great price on the higher
+development of the child. He would have done in my father's place just
+what my father was doing: borrow, beg, go without, run in
+debt&mdash;anything to secure for a promising child the fulfilment of the
+promise. That is what America was for. The land of opportunity it was,
+but opportunities must be used, must be grasped, held, squeezed dry.
+To keep a child of working age in school was to invest the meagre
+present for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span>the sake of the opulent future. If there was but one
+child in a family of twelve who promised to achieve an intellectual
+career, the other eleven, and father, and mother, and neighbors must
+devote themselves to that one child's welfare, and feed and clothe and
+cheer it on, and be rewarded in the end by hearing its name mentioned
+with the names of the great.</p>
+
+<p>So the poor grocer helped to keep me in school for I do not know how
+many years. And this is one of the things that is done on Harrison
+Avenue, by the people who pitch rubbish through their windows. Let the
+City Fathers strike the balance.</p>
+
+<p>Of course this is wretched economics. If I had a son who wanted to go
+into the grocery business, I should take care that he was well
+grounded in the principles of sound bookkeeping and prudence. But I
+should not fail to tell him the story of the Harrison Avenue grocer,
+hoping that he would puzzle out the moral.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rosenblum himself would be astonished to hear that any one was
+drawing morals from his manner of conducting his little store, and yet
+it is from men like him that I learn the true values of things. The
+grocer weighed me out a quarter of a pound of butter, and when the
+scales were even he threw in another scrap. "<i>Na!</i>" he said, smiling
+across the counter, "you can carry that much around the corner!"
+Plainly he was showing me that if I have not as many houses as my
+neighbor, that should not prevent me from cultivating as many graces.
+If I made some shame-faced reference to the unpaid balance, Mr.
+Rosenblum replied, "I guess you're not thinking of running away from
+Boston yet. You haven't finished turning the libraries inside out,
+have you?" In this way he reminded me <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>that there were things more
+important than conventional respectability. The world belongs to those
+who can use it to the best advantage, the grocer seemed to argue; and
+I found that I had the courage to test this philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>From my little room on Dover Street I reached out for the world, and
+the world came to me. Through books, through the conversation of noble
+men and women, through communion with the stars in the depth of night,
+I entered into every noble chamber of the palace of life. I employed
+no charm to win admittance. The doors opened to me because I had a
+right to be within. My patent of nobility was the longing for the
+abundance of life with which I was endowed at birth; and from the time
+I could toddle unaided I had been gathering into my hand everything
+that was fine in the world around me. Given health and standing-room,
+I should have worked out my salvation even on a desert island. Being
+set down in the garden of America, where opportunity waits on
+ambition, I was bound to make my days a triumphal march toward my
+goal. The most unfriendly witness of my life will not venture to deny
+that I have been successful. For aside from subordinate desires for
+greatness or wealth or specific achievement, my chief ambition in life
+has been <i>to live</i>, and I have lived. A glowing life has been mine,
+and the fires that blazed highest in all my days were kindled on Dover
+Street.</p>
+
+<p>I have never had a dull hour in my life; I have never had a livelier
+time than in the slums. In all my troubles I was thrilled through and
+through with a prophetic sense of how they were to end. A halo of
+romance floated before every to-morrow; the wings of future
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>adventures rustled in the dead of night. Nothing could be quite common
+that touched my life, because I had a power for attracting uncommon
+things. And when my noblest dreams shall have been realized I shall
+meet with nothing finer, nothing more remote from the commonplace,
+than some of the things that came into my life on Dover Street.</p>
+
+<p>Friends came to me bearing noble gifts of service, inspiration, and
+love. There came one, to talk with whom was to double the volume of
+life. She left roses on my pillow when I lay ill, and in my heart she
+planted a longing for greatness that I have yet to satisfy. Another
+came whose soul was steeped in sunshine, whose eyes saw through every
+pretence, whose lips mocked nothing holy. And one came who carried the
+golden key that unlocked the last secret chamber of life for me.
+Friends came trooping from everywhere, and some were poor, and some
+were rich, but all were devoted and true; and they left no niche in my
+heart unfilled, and no want unsatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>To be alive in America, I found out long ago, is to ride on the
+central current of the river of modern life; and to have a conscious
+purpose is to hold the rudder that steers the ship of fate. I was
+alive to my finger tips, back there on Dover Street, and all my
+girlish purposes served one main purpose. It would have been amazing
+if I had stuck in the mire of the slum. By every law of my nature I
+was bound to soar above it, to attain the fairer places that wait for
+every emancipated immigrant.</p>
+
+<p>A characteristic thing about the aspiring immigrant is the fact that
+he is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect
+success in his eyes. He must take his family with him as he rises. So
+when I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span>refused to be adopted by a rich old man, and clung to my
+family in the slums, I was only following the rule; and I can tell it
+without boasting, because it is no more to my credit than that I wake
+refreshed after a night's sleep.</p>
+
+<p>This suggests to me a summary of my virtues, through the exercise of
+which I may be said to have attracted my good fortune. I find that I
+have always given nature a chance, I have used my opportunities, and
+have practised self-expression. So much my enemies will grant me; more
+than this my friends cannot claim for me.</p>
+
+<p>In the Dover Street days I did not philosophize about my private
+character, nor about the immigrant and his ways. I lived the life, and
+the moral took care of itself. And after Dover Street came Applepie
+Alley, Letterbox Lane, and other evil corners of the slums of Boston,
+till it must have looked to our neighbors as if we meant to go on
+forever exploring the underworld. But we found a short-cut&mdash;we found a
+short-cut! And the route we took from the tenements of the stifling
+alleys to a darling cottage of our own, where the sun shines in at
+every window, and the green grass runs up to our very doorstep, was
+surveyed by the Pilgrim Fathers, who trans-scribed their field notes
+on a very fine parchment and called it the Constitution of the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>It was good to get out of Dover Street&mdash;it was better for the growing
+children, better for my weary parents, better for all of us, as the
+clean grass is better than the dusty pavement. But I must never forget
+that I came away from Dover Street with my hands full of riches. I
+must not fail to testify that in America a child of the slums owns the
+land and all that is good in it. All the beautiful things I saw
+belonged to me, if I wanted to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>use them; all the beautiful things I
+desired approached me. I did not need to seek my kingdom. I had only
+to be worthy, and it came to me, even on Dover Street. Everything that
+was ever to happen to me in the future had its germ or impulse in the
+conditions of my life on Dover Street. My friendships, my advantages
+and disadvantages, my gifts, my habits, my ambitions&mdash;these were the
+materials out of which I built my after life, in the open workshop of
+America. My days in the slums were pregnant with possibilities; it
+only needed the ripeness of events to make them fruit forth in
+realities. Steadily as I worked to win America, America advanced to
+lie at my feet. I was an heir, on Dover Street, awaiting maturity. I
+was a princess waiting to be led to the throne.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE HERITAGE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>One of the inherent disadvantages of premature biography is that it
+cannot go to the natural end of the story. This difficulty threatened
+me in the beginning, but now I find I do not need to tax my judgment
+to fix the proper stopping-place. Sudden qualms of reluctance warn me
+where the past and present meet. I have reached a point where my
+yesterdays lie in a quick heap, and I cannot bear to prod and turn
+them and set them up to be looked at. For that matter, I am not sure
+that I should add anything really new, even if I could force myself to
+cross the line of discretion. I have already shown what a real thing
+is this American freedom that we talk about, and in what manner a
+certain class of aliens make use of it. Anything that I might add of
+my later adventures would be a repetition, in substance, of what I
+have already described. Having traced the way an immigrant child may
+take from the ship through the public schools, passed on from hand to
+hand by the ready teachers; through free libraries and lecture halls,
+inspired by every occasion of civic consciousness; dragging through
+the slums the weight of private disadvantage, but heartened for the
+effort by public opportunity; welcomed at a hundred open doors of
+instruction, initiated with pomp and splendor and flags unfurled
+seeking, in American minds, the American way, and finding it in the
+thoughts of the noble,&mdash;striving against the odds of foreign birth and
+poverty, and winning, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>through the use of abundant opportunity, a
+place as enviable as that of any native child,&mdash;having traced the
+footsteps of the young immigrant almost to the college gate, the rest
+of the course may be left to the imagination. Let us say that from the
+Latin School on I lived very much as my American schoolmates lived,
+having overcome my foreign idiosyncrasies, and the rest of my outward
+adventures you may read in any volume of American feminine statistics.</p>
+
+<p>But lest I be reproached for a sudden affectation of reserve, after
+having trained my reader to expect the fullest particulars, I am
+willing to add a few details. I went to college, as I proposed, though
+not to Radcliffe. Receiving an invitation to live in New York that I
+did not like to refuse, I went to Barnard College instead. There I
+took all the honors that I deserved; and if I did not learn to write
+poetry, as I once supposed I should, I learned at least to think in
+English without an accent. Did I get rich? you may want to know,
+remembering my ambition to provide for the family. I can reply that I
+have earned enough to pay Mrs. Hutch the arrears, and satisfy all my
+wants. And where have I lived since I left the slums? My favorite
+abode is a tent in the wilderness, where I shall be happy to serve you
+a cup of tea out of a tin kettle, and answer further questions.</p>
+
+<p>And is this really to be the last word? Yes, though a long chapter of
+the romance of Dover Street is left untold. I could fill another book
+with anecdotes, telling how I took possession of Beacon Street, and
+learned to distinguish the lord of the manor from the butler in full
+dress. I might trace my steps from my bare room overlooking the
+lumber-yard to the satin drawing-rooms of the Back Bay, where I drank
+afternoon tea with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>gentle ladies whose hands were as delicate as
+their porcelain cups. My journal of those days is full of comments on
+the contrasts of life, that I copied from my busy thoughts in the
+evening, after a visit to my aristocratic friends. Coming straight
+from the cushioned refinement of Beacon Street, where the maid who
+brought my hostess her slippers spoke in softer accents than the
+finest people on Dover Street, I sometimes stumbled over poor Mr.
+Casey lying asleep in the corridor; and the shock of the contrast was
+like a searchlight turned suddenly on my life, and I pondered over the
+revelation, and wrote touching poems, in which I figured as a heroine
+of two worlds.</p>
+
+<p>I might quote from my journals and poems, and build up the picture of
+that double life. I might rehearse the names of the gracious friends
+who admitted me to their tables, although I came direct from the
+reeking slums. I might enumerate the priceless gifts they showered on
+me; gifts bought not with gold but with love. It would be a pleasant
+task to recall the high things that passed in the gilded drawing-rooms
+over the afternoon tea. It would add a splendor to my simple narrative
+to weave in the portraits of the distinguished men and women who
+busied themselves with the humble fortunes of a school-girl. And
+finally, it would relieve my heart of a burden of gratitude to
+publish, once for all, the amount of my indebtedness to the devoted
+friends who took me by the hand when I walked in the paths of
+obscurity, and led me, by a pleasanter lane than I could have found by
+myself, to the open fields where obstacles thinned and opportunities
+crowded to meet me. Outside America I should hardly be believed if I
+told how simply, in my experience, Dover Street merged into the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span>Back
+Bay. These are matters to which I long to testify, but I must wait
+till they recede into the past.</p>
+
+<p>I can conjure up no better symbol of the genuine, practical equality
+of all our citizens than the Hale House Natural History Club, which
+played an important part in my final emancipation from the slums. For
+all I was regarded as a plaything by the serious members of the club,
+the attention and kindness they lavished on me had a deep
+significance. Every one of those earnest men and women unconsciously
+taught me my place in the Commonwealth, as the potential equal of the
+best of them. Few of my friends in the club, it is true, could have
+rightly defined their benevolence toward me. Perhaps some of them
+thought they befriended me for charity's sake, because I was a starved
+waif from the slums. Some of them imagined they enjoyed my society,
+because I had much to say for myself, and a gay manner of meeting
+life. But all these were only secondary motives. I myself, in my
+unclouded perception of the true relation of things that concerned me,
+could have told them all why they spent their friendship on me. They
+made way for me because I was their foster sister. They opened their
+homes to me that I might learn how good Americans lived. In the least
+of their attentions to me, they cherished the citizen in the making.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>The Natural History Club had spent the day at Nahant, studying marine
+life in the tide pools, scrambling up and down the cliffs with no
+thought for decorum, bent only on securing the starfish, limpets,
+sea-urchins, and other trophies of the chase. There had been a merry
+luncheon on the rocks, with talk and laughter between sandwiches, and
+strange jokes, intelligible only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span>to the practising naturalist. The
+tide had rushed in at its proper time, stealing away our seaweed
+cushions, drowning our transparent pools, spouting in the crevices,
+booming and hissing, and tossing high the snowy foam.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep362" id="imagep362"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep362.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep362.jpg" width="95%" alt="The Tide had Rushed in, Stealing away our Seaweed Cushions" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">THE TIDE HAD RUSHED IN, STEALING AWAY OUR SEAWEED CUSHIONS<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>From the deck of the jolly excursion steamer which was carrying us
+home, we had watched the rosy sun dip down below the sea. The members
+of the club, grouped in twos and threes, discussed the day's
+successes, compared specimens, exchanged field notes, or watched the
+western horizon in sympathetic silence.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a great day for me. I had seen a dozen new forms of life,
+had caught a hundred fragments of the song of nature by the sea; and
+my mind was seething with meanings that crowded in. I do not remember
+to which of my learned friends I addressed my questions on this
+occasion, but he surely was one of the most learned. For he took up
+all my fragments of dawning knowledge in his discourse, and welded
+them into a solid structure of wisdom, with windows looking far down
+the past and a tower overlooking the future. I was so absorbed in my
+private review of creation that I hardly realized when we landed, or
+how we got into the electric cars, till we were a good way into the
+city.</p>
+
+<p>At the Public Library I parted from my friends, and stood on the broad
+stone steps, my jar of specimens in my hand, watching the car that
+carried them glide out of sight. My heart was full of a stirring
+wonder. I was hardly conscious of the place where I stood, or of the
+day, or the hour. I was in a dream, and the familiar world around me
+was transfigured. My hair was damp with sea spray; the roar of the
+tide was still in my ears. Mighty thoughts surged through my dreams,
+and I trembled with understanding.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span>I sank down on the granite ledge beside the entrance to the Library,
+and for a mere moment I covered my eyes with my hand. In that moment I
+had a vision of myself, the human creature, emerging from the dim
+places where the torch of history has never been, creeping slowly into
+the light of civilized existence, pushing more steadily forward to the
+broad plateau of modern life, and leaping, at last, strong and glad,
+to the intellectual summit of the latest century.</p>
+
+<p>What an awful stretch of years to contemplate! What a weighty past to
+carry in memory! How shall I number the days of my life, except by the
+stars of the night, except by the salt drops of the sea?</p>
+
+<p>But hark to the clamor of the city all about! This is my latest home,
+and it invites me to a glad new life. The endless ages have indeed
+throbbed through my blood, but a new rhythm dances in my veins. My
+spirit is not tied to the monumental past, any more than my feet were
+bound to my grandfather's house below the hill. The past was only my
+cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am grown too big; just as
+the little house in Polotzk, once my home, has now become a toy of
+memory, as I move about at will in the wide spaces of this splendid
+palace, whose shadow covers acres. No! it is not I that belong to the
+past, but the past that belongs to me. America is the youngest of the
+nations, and inherits all that went before in history. And I am the
+youngest of America's children, and into my hands is given all her
+priceless heritage, to the last white star espied through the
+telescope, to the last great thought of the philosopher. Mine is the
+whole majestic past, and mine is the shining future.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS" id="ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+
+<div style="margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;">
+<p class="noin"><i>To my mother who bore me; to my father who endowed me; to my
+brothers and sisters who believed in me; to my friends who loved
+me; to my teachers who inspired me; to my neighbors who
+befriended me; to my daughter who enlarged me; to my husband who
+opened the door of the greater life for me;&mdash;to all these who
+helped to make this book, I give my thanks.</i></p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span><br />
+<a name="GLOSSARY" id="GLOSSARY"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>GLOSSARY<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>KEY TO PRONUNCIATION</h4>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="Key">
+  <tr>
+  <td width="40%" class="tdr">a</td>
+  <td width="60%" class="tdl"> as in man</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&auml;</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in far</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">e</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in met</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><span class="uni" title="e with a macron above">&#275;</span></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span title="e with a macron above">as in meet</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&euml;</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as long e in German Leder</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">i</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in pin</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><span class="uni" title="i with a macron above">&#299;</span></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span title="i with a macron above">as in file</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">o</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in not</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><span class="uni" title="o with a macron above">&#333;</span></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span title="o with a macron above">as in note</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&ouml;</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in German K&ouml;nig</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">u</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in circus</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><span class="uni" title="u with a macron above">&#363;</span></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span title="u with a macron above">as in mute</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span title="u with a dot above">as in pull</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">ai</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in aisle</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">oi</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in joint</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">ch</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in German ach, Scotch loch</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span title="h with a dot below">as in German ach, Scotch loch</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">l</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in failure</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&ntilde;</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as in ca&ntilde;on</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">zh</td>
+  <td class="tdl">as z in seizure.</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tr2"><p class="noin" style="font-size: 90%;">Glossary characters that may not show in all browsers are marked with <span class="uni" title="like this">hover popups</span>, hold mouse over for description.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block">
+<p class="cen"><i>Explanations</i></p>
+
+<p>The abbreviations <i>Germ.</i> (=&nbsp;&nbsp;German), <i>Hebr.</i> (=&nbsp;&nbsp;Hebrew), <i>Russ.</i> (=&nbsp;&nbsp;Russian),
+and <i>Yid.</i> (=&nbsp;&nbsp;Yiddish) indicate the origin of a word. Most
+of the names marked <i>Yiddish</i> are such in form only, the roots being
+for the most part Hebrew.</p>
+
+<p>Prop. n = proper name.</p>
+
+<p>The endings <i>ke</i> and <i>le</i> of Yiddish proper names (Mashke, Perele)
+have a diminutive or endearing value, like the German <i>chen</i>
+(Helenchen).</p>
+
+<p>Double names are given under the first name.</p>
+
+<p>The religious customs described prevail among the Orthodox Jews of
+European countries. In the United States they have been considerably
+modified, especially among the Reformed Jews.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2">
+<p class="hang"><b>Ab</b> (&auml;b) <i>Hebr.</i> The fifth month of the Hebrew calendar. The
+ninth of Ab is a day of fasting and mourning, in commemoration
+of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Adonai</b> (&auml;-do-nai&acute;), <i>Hebr.</i> An appellation of God.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Aleph</b> (&auml;'-lef), <i>Hebr.</i> The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Atonement, Day of</b> (Hebrew, <i>Yom Kippur</i>). The most solemn of the
+Hebrew festivals, observed by fasting and an elaborate
+ceremonial.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Bahur</b> (b&auml;&acute;-hur), <i>Hebr.</i> A young unmarried man, particularly a
+student of the Talmud. (See <i>Yeshibah bahur</i>.)</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Berl</b> (berl). <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Cabala</b> (k&auml;b-&auml;&acute;-l&auml;), <i>Hebr.</i> A system of Hebrew mystic philosophy
+which flourished in the Middle Ages.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Candle Prayer</b> (Yiddish, <i>licht bentschen</i>). Prayer pronounced
+over lighted candles by the women and older girls of the
+household at the commencement of the Sabbath.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Canopy, wedding</b> (Hebrew <i>huppah</i>). A portable canopy under which
+the marriage ceremony is performed, usually outdoors.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span><b>Cossaks</b> (kos&acute;-aks), <i>Russ.</i> A name given to certain Russian
+tribes, formerly distinguished for their freebooting habits, now
+best known for their position in the army.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Dayyan</b> (dai&acute;-an), <i>Hebr.</i> A judge to whom are submitted civil
+disputes, as distinguished from purely religious questions,
+which are decided by the Rav.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Dinke</b> (din&acute;-ke), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Dvina</b> (dv<span class="uni" title="e with a macron above">&#275;</span>&acute;-n&auml;), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a river.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Dvornik</b> (dvor&acute;-nik), <i>Russ.</i> An outdoor man; a choreman.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Dvoshe</b> (dvo&acute;-she), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Earlocks</b> (Hebrew <i>peath</i>). Two locks of hair allowed to grow
+long and hang in front of the ears. Among the fanatical Hasidim,
+a mark of piety.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Eidtkuhnen</b> (eit-koo&acute;-&ntilde;en), <i>Germ.</i> Name of a Russo-German
+frontier town.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Fetchke</b> (f&euml;tch&acute;-ke), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Fringes, sacred</b> (Hebrew <i>zizit</i>). Specially prepared fringes
+fastened to the four corners of the <i>arba kanfot</i> (literally,
+"four-corners"), a garment worn by all pious males underneath
+the jacket or frock coat, usually with the fringes showing. The
+latter play a part in the daily ritual.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Goluth</b> (gol&acute;-ut), <i>Hebr.</i> Banishment; exile.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Good Jew</b> (Yiddish <i>guter id</i>). Among the Hasidim, a title
+popularly accorded to more or less learned individuals
+distinguished for their piety, and credited with supernatural
+powers of healing, divination, etc. Pilgrimages to some renowned
+"Good Jew" were often undertaken by the very pious, on occasions
+of perplexity or trouble, for the purpose of obtaining his
+advice or help.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Groschen</b> (gro&acute;-shen), <i>Germ.</i> A popular name for various coins
+of small denomination, especially the half-kopeck.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Gutke</b> (gut&acute;-ke), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Hannah Hayye</b> (<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>&auml;n&acute;-a <span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>ai&acute;-e), <i>Hebr.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Hasid</b>, pl. <b>Hasidim</b> (<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>&auml;s&acute;-id, <span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>as-id&acute;-im), <i>Hebr.</i> A
+numerous sect of Jews distinguished for their enthusiasm in
+religious observance, a fanatical worship of their rabbis and
+many superstitious practices.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Haven Mirel</b> (<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>a&acute;-ve mirl), <i>Hebr.</i> and <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Hayye Dvoshe</b> (<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>ai&acute;-e dvo&acute;-she), <i>Hebr.</i> and <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Hayyim</b> (<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>ai&acute;-im), <i>Hebr.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Hazzan</b> (<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>&auml;z-an), <i>Hebr.</i> Cantor in a synagogue.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span><b>Heder</b> (<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>&euml;&acute;-der), <i>Hebr.</i> Elementary Hebrew school, usually
+held at the teacher's residence.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Henne R&ouml;sel</b> (he&acute;-&ntilde;e r&ouml;zl), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Hirshel</b> (hir&acute;-shl), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Hode</b> (ho&acute;-de), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Horn, ram's</b> (Hebrew <i>shofar</i>). Ritual horn, used in the
+synagogue during the great festivals.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Hossen</b> (<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>o&acute;-ssn), <i>Hebr.</i> Bridegroom; prospective bridegroom;
+betrothed.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Humesh</b> (<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span><span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>&acute;-mesh), <i>Hebr.</i> The Pentateuch.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Icon</b> (<span class="uni" title="i with a macron above">&#299;</span>&acute;-kon) <i>Russ.</i> A representation of Christ or
+some saint, usually in an elaborate frame, found in every
+orthodox Russian house.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Itke</b> (it&acute;-ke), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Jew, Good.</b> See under <b>Good</b>.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Kibart</b> (ki-b&auml;rt&acute;), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a town.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Kiddush</b> (kid&acute;-ush), <i>Hebr.</i> Benediction pronounced over a cup of
+wine before the Sabbath evening meal.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Kimanye</b> (ki-m&auml;&acute;-&ntilde;e), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a village.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Kimanyer</b> (ki-m&auml;&acute;-&ntilde;er), <i>Yid.</i> Belonging to or hailing from the
+village of Kimanye.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Knupf</b> (knupf), <i>Yid.</i> A sort of turban.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Kopeck</b> (ko&acute;-pek), <i>Russ.</i> A copper coin, the 1/100 part of a
+ruble, worth about half a cent.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Kopistch</b> (ko&acute;-pistch), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a town.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Kosher</b> (ko&acute;-sher), <i>Hebr.</i> Clean, according to Jewish ritual
+law; opposed to <b>tref</b>, unclean. Applied chiefly to articles of
+diet and cooking and eating vessels.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Lamden</b> (l&auml;m&acute;-den), <i>Hebr.</i> Scholar; one versed in Hebrew
+learning.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Law, the</b> (specifically used). The Mosaic Law; the Torah.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Lebe</b> (l&euml;&acute;-be), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Loaf, Sabbath.</b> See under Sabbath.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Lozhe</b> (lo&acute;-zhe), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Lubavitch</b> (l<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>-b&auml;v&acute;-itch), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a town.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Maryashe</b> (m&auml;r-y&auml;&acute;-she), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Mashinke</b> (m&auml;&acute;-shin-ke), <i>Yid.</i> A diminutive of Mashke.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Mashke</b> (m&auml;sh&acute;-ke), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Mendele</b> (men&acute;-del-e), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Mezuzah</b> (me-zu&acute;-z&auml;), <i>Hebr.</i> A piece of parchment inscribed with
+a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>passage of Scripture, rolled in a case and tacked to the
+doorpost. The pious touch or kiss this when leaving or entering
+a house.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Mikweh</b> (mik&acute;-we), <i>Hebr.</i> Ritual bath, constructed and used
+according to minute directions.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Mirele</b> (mir&acute;-e-le), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Mishka</b> (mish&acute;-k&auml;), <i>Russ.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Moon, blessing of.</b> Benediction pronounced at the appearance of
+the new moon.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Moshe</b> (mo&acute;-she), <i>Yid.</i> Prop, n., a form of Moses.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>M&ouml;shele</b> (mo&acute;-she-le), <i>Yid.</i> Prop, n., diminutive of Moshe.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Mulke</b> (m<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span><span class="uni" title="l with a circumflex above">l&#770;</span>&acute;-ke), <i>Yid.</i> Prop, n., diminutive of Mulye.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Mulye</b> (m<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span><span class="uni" title="l with a circumflex above">l&#770;</span>&acute;-e), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Na!</b> (n&auml;), <i>Yid.</i> Here you are! Take it!</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Nohem</b> (no&acute;-<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>em), <i>Hebr.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Nu, nu!</b> (n<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>, n<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>), <i>Yid.</i> Well, well.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Oi, weh!</b> (oi, v&euml;), <i>Yid.</i> Woe is me!</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Oven, sealing of.</b> As no fire is kindled on the Sabbath, the
+Sabbath dinner is cooked on Friday afternoon and left in the
+brick oven overnight. The oven is tightly closed with a board or
+sheet of metal, wet rags being stuffed into the interstices.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Passover</b> (Hebrew, <i>pesech</i>). The feast of Unleavened Bread,
+commemorating the escape of the Israelites from Egypt.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Passport, foreign.</b> A special passport required of any Russian
+subject wishing to go to a foreign country. To avoid the
+necessity of procuring such a passport, travellers often cross
+the border by stealth.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Perele</b> (per&acute;-e-le), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Phylacteries</b> (fi-lak&acute;-ter-is; Hebrew <i>tefillin</i>). Two small
+leathern boxes containing parchments inscribed with certain
+passages of Scripture, worn during morning prayer, one on the
+forehead and one on the left arm, where they are fastened by
+means of straps, in a manner carefully prescribed. The wearing
+of the <i>tefillin</i> is obligatory on all males over thirteen years
+of age (the age of confirmation).</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Pinchus</b> (pin&acute;-chus), <i>Hebr.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Pogrom</b> (po-grom&acute;), <i>Russ.</i> An organized massacre of Jews.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Poll</b> (pol), <i>Yid.</i> A series of steps in the bathing-room, where
+cupping, etc., is done under a high temperature.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Polota</b> (Po-lo-t&auml;&acute;), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a river.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Polotzk</b> (po&acute;-lotzk), <i>Russ.</i>, also spelled Polotsk. A town in
+the government of Vitebsk, Russia, since early times a
+stronghold of Jewish orthodoxy. <i>N.B.</i> Polotzk must not be
+confused with Plotzk (also <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span>spelled Plock), the capital of the
+government of Plotzk, in Russian Poland, about 400 miles
+southwest of Polotzk.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Praying Shawl</b> (Hebrew, <i>tallit</i>). A fine white woollen shawl
+with sacred fringes (<i>zizit</i>), in the four corners, worn by
+males after marriage, during certain devotional exercises.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Purim</b> (p<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>&acute;-rim), <i>Hebr.</i> A feast in commemoration of the
+deliverance of the Persian Jews, through the intervention of
+Esther, from the massacre planned by Haman. Masquerading,
+feasting, exchange of presents, and general license make this
+celebration the jolliest of the Jewish year.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Questions, the Four.</b> At the Passover feast, the youngest son
+(or, in the absence of a son of suitable age, a daughter) asks
+four questions as to the significance of various symbolic
+articles used in the ceremonial, in reply to which the family
+read the story of Exodus.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Rabbi</b> (rab&acute;-<span class="uni" title="i with a macron above">&#299;</span>), <i>Hebr.</i> A title accorded to men distinguished
+for learning and authorized to teach the Law. As used in the
+present work, <i>rabbi</i> is identical with the official title of
+<i>rav</i>, which see.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Rabbonim</b> (r&auml;b-on&acute;-im), <i>Hebr.</i> Plural of <i>rabbi</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Rav</b> (r&auml;v), <i>Hebr.</i> The spiritual head of a Jewish community,
+whose duties include the settlement of ritualistic questions.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Reb'</b> (reb), <i>Yid.</i> An abbreviation of <i>rebbe</i>, used as a title
+of respect, equivalent to the old-fashioned English "master."</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Rebbe</b> (reb&acute;-e), <i>Yid.</i> Colloquial form of <i>rabbi</i>. A Hebrew
+teacher. Applied usually to teachers of lesser rank; also used
+as a title for a "Good Jew"; as, the Rebbe of Kopistch.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Rebbetzin</b> (reb&acute;-e-tzin), <i>Yid.</i> Female Hebrew teacher.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Riga</b> (ri&acute;-g&auml;), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a city.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Ruble</b> (r<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>&acute;-bl), <i>Russ.</i> The monetary unit of Russia. A silver
+coin (or, more commonly, a paper bill) worth a little over fifty
+cents.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Sabbath Loaf</b> (Hebrew, <i>hallah</i>). A wheaten loaf of peculiar
+shape used in the Sabbath ceremonial.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Sacred Fringes.</b> See under <b>Fringes</b>.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Shadchan</b> (sh&auml;d&acute;-chan), <i>Hebr.</i> Professional match-maker;
+marriage broker.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Shawl, Praying.</b> See under <b>Praying</b>.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Shema</b> (shm&auml;), <i>Hebr.</i> The verse recited as the Jewish confession
+of faith ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One");
+so called from the initial word. The "Shema" recurs constantly
+in the daily ritual, and is informally repeated on every
+occasion of distress, or as a charm to ward off evil
+influences.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span><b>Shohat</b> (sho&acute;-<span class="uni" title="h with a dot below">&#7717;</span>at), <i>Hebr.</i> Slaughterer of cattle according to
+ritual law.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Succoth</b> (s<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>&acute;-kot), <i>Hebr.</i> The feast of Tabernacles,
+celebrated with many symbolic rites, among these being the
+eating of the festive meals outdoors, in a booth or bower of
+lattice work covered with evergreens.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Talakno</b> (t&auml;l-&auml;k-no&acute;), <i>Russ.</i> Meal made of ground oats, often
+mixed with other grains or with weeds. An important article of
+diet among the peasants, generally moistened with cold water and
+eaten raw.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Talmudists</b> (tal&acute;-m<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>d-ists; from Hebrew <i>talmud</i>). The
+compilers of the Talmud (the body of Jewish traditional lore);
+scholars versed in the teachings of the Talmud.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Tav</b> (t&auml;v), <i>Hebr.</i> The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Torah</b> (t<span class="uni" title="o with a macron above">&#333;</span>&acute;-r&auml;), <i>Hebr.</i> The Mosaic Law; the book or scroll of
+the Law; sacred learning.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Trefah</b> (tr&euml;f&acute;-a), <i>Hebr.</i> Unclean, according to ritual law;
+opposed to kosher, clean. Chiefly applied to articles of food
+and eating and cooking vessels.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Versbolovo</b> (vers-bo-lo&acute;-v&auml;), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a town.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Verst</b> (vyerst), <i>Russ.</i> A measure of length, about two-thirds of
+an English mile.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Vilna</b> (vil&acute;-n&auml;), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a city.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Vitebsk</b> (vi&acute;-tebsk), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a city.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Vodka</b> (vod&acute;-k&auml;), <i>Russ.</i> A kind of whiskey distilled from barley
+or from potatoes, constantly indulged in by the lower classes in
+Russia, especially by the peasants.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Wedding Canopy.</b> See under <b>Canopy</b>.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Yachne</b> (Y&auml;ch&acute;-ne), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Yakub</b> (y&auml;-k<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>b&acute;), <i>Russ.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Yankel</b> (y&auml;n&acute;-kl), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Yeshibah</b> (ye-shib&acute;-&auml;), <i>Hebr.</i> Rabbinical school or seminary.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Yeshibah Bachur</b>, a student in a <i>yeshibah</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Yiddish</b> (yid&acute;-ish), <i>Yid.</i> Judeo-German, the language of the
+Jews of Eastern Europe. The basis is an archaic form of German,
+on which are grafted many words of Hebrew origin, and words from
+the vernacular of the country.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Yochem</b> (yo&acute;-chem), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Yuchovitch</b> (y<span class="uni" title="u with a dot above">&#367;</span>-chov-itch&acute;), <i>Russ.</i> Name of a village.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p class="hang"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span><b>Zaddik</b> (tz&auml;&acute;-dik), <i>Hebr.</i> A man of piety; a holy man.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Zalmen</b> (z&auml;l&acute;-men), <i>Yid.</i> Prop. n.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>Zimbler</b> (tzim&acute;-bler), <i>Yid.</i> A performer on the <i>zimble</i>, an
+instrument constructed like a wooden tray, with several wires
+stretched across lengthwise, and played by means of two short
+rods.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>The Riverside Press<br />
+CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS<br />
+U.S.A.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p>
+<br />
+Page 168: &nbsp;Moshele replaced with M&ouml;shele<br />
+Page 334: &nbsp;namable replaced with nameable<br />
+Page 344: &nbsp;Whereever replaced with Wherever<br />
+Page 368: &nbsp;expecially replaced with especially<br />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promised Land, by Mary Antin
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,11697 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promised Land, by Mary Antin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Promised Land
+
+Author: Mary Antin
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2007 [EBook #20885]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROMISED LAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original     |
+    | document have been preserved.                             |
+    |                                                           |
+    | The Glossary at the end of the document includes an       |
+    | explanatory note on special characters and diacritics.    |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this  |
+    | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this     |
+    | document.                                                 |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+   [Illustration: MASHKE AND FETCHKE]
+
+
+
+
+                             THE
+                        PROMISED LAND
+
+                        BY MARY ANTIN
+
+
+                      WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+                       FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
+
+
+                        [Illustration]
+
+
+                     BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+                   HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+                The Riverside Press Cambridge
+                             1912
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1911 AND 1912, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
+         COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+                    _Published April 1912_
+
+
+
+
+                       To the Memory of
+                      JOSEPHINE LAZARUS
+                 Who lives in the fulfilment
+                      of her prophecies
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       INTRODUCTION                                       xi
+
+    I. WITHIN THE PALE                                     1
+
+   II. CHILDREN OF THE LAW                                29
+
+  III. BOTH THEIR HOUSES                                  42
+
+   IV. DAILY BREAD                                        60
+
+    V. I REMEMBER                                         79
+
+   VI. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE                             111
+
+  VII. THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH                            137
+
+ VIII. THE EXODUS                                        163
+
+   IX. THE PROMISED LAND                                 180
+
+    X. INITIATION                                        206
+
+   XI. "MY COUNTRY"                                      222
+
+  XII. MIRACLES                                          241
+
+ XIII. A CHILD'S PARADISE                                252
+
+  XIV. MANNA                                             264
+
+   XV. TARNISHED LAURELS                                 276
+
+  XVI. DOVER STREET                                      286
+
+ XVII. THE LANDLADY                                      301
+
+XVIII. THE BURNING BUSH                                  321
+
+  XIX. A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS                            337
+
+   XX. THE HERITAGE                                      359
+
+       ACKNOWLEDGMENTS                                   365
+
+       GLOSSARY                                          367
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+MASHKE AND FETCHKE                                 _Frontispiece_
+
+THE GRAVE-DIGGER OF POLOTZK                                    24
+
+HEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL) FOR BOYS IN POLOTZK                      34
+
+THE WOOD MARKET, POLOTZK                                       52
+
+MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT                                           70
+
+MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, WHERE I WAS BORN                       80
+
+THE MEAT MARKET, POLOTZK                                       98
+
+SABBATH LOAVES FOR SALE (BREAD MARKET, POLOTZK)               124
+
+WINTER SCENE ON THE DVINA                                     144
+
+UNION PLACE (BOSTON) WHERE MY NEW HOME WAITED FOR ME          184
+
+TWOSCORE OF MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--PUBLIC SCHOOL, CHELSEA        230
+
+WHEELER STREET, IN THE LOWER SOUTH END OF BOSTON              264
+
+HARRISON AVENUE IS THE HEART OF THE SOUTH END GHETTO          288
+
+I LIKED TO STAND AND LOOK DOWN ON THE DIM TANGLE OF
+  RAILROAD TRACKS BELOW                                       298
+
+THE NATURAL HISTORY CLUB HAD FREQUENT FIELD EXCURSIONS        328
+
+BATES HALL, WHERE I SPENT MY LONGEST HOURS IN THE
+  LIBRARY                                                     342
+
+THE FAMOUS STUDY, THAT WAS FIT TO HAVE BEEN PRESERVED AS A
+  SHRINE                                                      346
+
+THE TIDE HAD RUSHED IN, STEALING AWAY OUR SEAWEED
+  CUSHIONS                                                    362
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I was born, I have lived, and I have been made over. Is it not time to
+write my life's story? I am just as much out of the way as if I were
+dead, for I am absolutely other than the person whose story I have to
+tell. Physical continuity with my earlier self is no disadvantage. I
+could speak in the third person and not feel that I was masquerading.
+I can analyze my subject, I can reveal everything; for _she_, and not
+_I_, is my real heroine. My life I have still to live; her life ended
+when mine began.
+
+A generation is sometimes a more satisfactory unit for the study of
+humanity than a lifetime; and spiritual generations are as easy to
+demark as physical ones. Now I am the spiritual offspring of the
+marriage within my conscious experience of the Past and the Present.
+My second birth was no less a birth because there was no distinct
+incarnation. Surely it has happened before that one body served more
+than one spiritual organization. Nor am I disowning my father and
+mother of the flesh, for they were also partners in the generation of
+my second self; copartners with my entire line of ancestors. They gave
+me body, so that I have eyes like my father's and hair like my
+mother's. The spirit also they gave me, so that I reason like my
+father and endure like my mother. But did they set me down in a
+sheltered garden, where the sun should warm me, and no winter should
+hurt, while they fed me from their hands? No; they early let me run in
+the fields--perhaps because I would not be held--and eat of the wild
+fruits and drink of the dew. Did they teach me from books, and tell me
+what to believe? I soon chose my own books, and built me a world of my
+own.
+
+In these discriminations _I_ emerged, a new being, something that had
+not been before. And when I discovered my own friends, and ran home
+with them to convert my parents to a belief in their excellence, did I
+not begin to make my father and mother, as truly as they had ever made
+me? Did I not become the parent and they the children, in those
+relations of teacher and learner? And so I can say that there has been
+more than one birth of myself, and I can regard my earlier self as a
+separate being, and make it a subject of study.
+
+A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so
+much work to do that he has no time to contemplate his yesterdays; for
+to-day and to-morrow are here, with their impatient tasks. The world
+is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man's unfinished
+work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs
+masterpieces. Still there are circumstances by which a man is
+justified in pausing in the middle of his life to contemplate the
+years already passed. One who has completed early in life a distinct
+task may stop to give an account of it. One who has encountered
+unusual adventures under vanishing conditions may pause to describe
+them before passing into the stable world. And perhaps he also might
+be given an early hearing, who, without having ventured out of the
+familiar paths, without having achieved any signal triumph, has lived
+his simple life so intensely, so thoughtfully, as to have discovered
+in his own experience an interpretation of the universal life.
+
+I am not yet thirty, counting in years, and I am writing my life
+history. Under which of the above categories do I find my
+justification? I have not accomplished anything, I have not discovered
+anything, not even by accident, as Columbus discovered America. My
+life has been unusual, but by no means unique. And this is the very
+core of the matter. It is because I understand my history, in its
+larger outlines, to be typical of many, that I consider it worth
+recording. My life is a concrete illustration of a multitude of
+statistical facts. Although I have written a genuine personal memoir,
+I believe that its chief interest lies in the fact that it is
+illustrative of scores of unwritten lives. I am only one of many whose
+fate it has been to live a page of modern history. We are the strands
+of the cable that binds the Old World to the New. As the ships that
+brought us link the shores of Europe and America, so our lives span
+the bitter sea of racial differences and misunderstandings. Before we
+came, the New World knew not the Old; but since we have begun to come,
+the Young World has taken the Old by the hand, and the two are
+learning to march side by side, seeking a common destiny.
+
+Perhaps I have taken needless trouble to furnish an excuse for my
+autobiography. My age alone, my true age, would be reason enough for
+my writing. I began life in the Middle Ages, as I shall prove, and
+here am I still, your contemporary in the twentieth century, thrilling
+with your latest thought.
+
+Had I no better excuse for writing, I still might be driven to it by
+my private needs. It is in one sense a matter of my personal
+salvation. I was at a most impressionable age when I was transplanted
+to the new soil. I was in that period when even normal children,
+undisturbed in their customary environment, begin to explore their own
+hearts, and endeavor to account for themselves and their world. And my
+zest for self-exploration seems not to have been distracted by the
+necessity of exploring a new outer universe. I embarked on a double
+voyage of discovery, and an exciting life it was! I took note of
+everything. I could no more keep my mind from the shifting, changing
+landscape than an infant can keep his eyes from the shining candle
+moved across his field of vision. Thus everything impressed itself on
+my memory, and with double associations; for I was constantly
+referring my new world to the old for comparison, and the old to the
+new for elucidation. I became a student and philosopher by force of
+circumstances.
+
+Had I been brought to America a few years earlier, I might have
+written that in such and such a year my father emigrated, just as I
+would state what he did for a living, as a matter of family history.
+Happening when it did, the emigration became of the most vital
+importance to me personally. All the processes of uprooting,
+transportation, replanting, acclimatization, and development took
+place in my own soul. I felt the pang, the fear, the wonder, and the
+joy of it. I can never forget, for I bear the scars. But I want to
+forget--sometimes I long to forget. I think I have thoroughly
+assimilated my past--I have done its bidding--I want now to be of
+to-day. It is painful to be consciously of two worlds. The Wandering
+Jew in me seeks forgetfulness. I am not afraid to live on and on, if
+only I do not have to remember too much. A long past vividly
+remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you
+would run. And I have thought of a charm that should release me from
+the folds of my clinging past. I take the hint from the Ancient
+Mariner, who told his tale in order to be rid of it. I, too, will tell
+my tale, for once, and never hark back any more. I will write a bold
+"Finis" at the end, and shut the book with a bang!
+
+
+
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WITHIN THE PALE
+
+
+When I was a little girl, the world was divided into two parts;
+namely, Polotzk, the place where I lived, and a strange land called
+Russia. All the little girls I knew lived in Polotzk, with their
+fathers and mothers and friends. Russia was the place where one's
+father went on business. It was so far off, and so many bad things
+happened there, that one's mother and grandmother and grown-up aunts
+cried at the railroad station, and one was expected to be sad and
+quiet for the rest of the day, when the father departed for Russia.
+
+After a while there came to my knowledge the existence of another
+division, a region intermediate between Polotzk and Russia. It seemed
+there was a place called Vitebsk, and one called Vilna, and Riga, and
+some others. From those places came photographs of uncles and cousins
+one had never seen, and letters, and sometimes the uncles themselves.
+These uncles were just like people in Polotzk; the people in Russia,
+one understood, were very different. In answer to one's questions, the
+visiting uncles said all sorts of silly things, to make everybody
+laugh; and so one never found out why Vitebsk and Vilna, since they
+were not Polotzk, were not as sad as Russia. Mother hardly cried at
+all when the uncles went away.
+
+One time, when I was about eight years old, one of my grown-up
+cousins went to Vitebsk. Everybody went to see her off, but I didn't.
+I went with her. I was put on the train, with my best dress tied up in
+a bandana, and I stayed on the train for hours and hours, and came to
+Vitebsk. I could not tell, as we rushed along, where the end of
+Polotzk was. There were a great many places on the way, with strange
+names, but it was very plain when we got to Vitebsk.
+
+The railroad station was a big place, much bigger than the one in
+Polotzk. Several trains came in at once, instead of only one. There
+was an immense buffet, with fruits and confections, and a place where
+books were sold. My cousin never let go my hand, on account of the
+crowd. Then we rode in a cab for ever so long, and I saw the most
+beautiful streets and shops and houses, much bigger and finer than any
+in Polotzk.
+
+We remained in Vitebsk several days, and I saw many wonderful things,
+but what gave me my one great surprise was something that wasn't new
+at all. It was the river--the river Dvina. Now the Dvina is in
+Polotzk. All my life I had seen the Dvina. How, then, could the Dvina
+be in Vitebsk? My cousin and I had come on the train, but everybody
+knew that a train could go everywhere, even to Russia. It became clear
+to me that the Dvina went on and on, like a railroad track, whereas I
+had always supposed that it stopped where Polotzk stopped. I had never
+seen the end of Polotzk; I meant to, when I was bigger. But how could
+there be an end to Polotzk now? Polotzk was everything on both sides
+of the Dvina, as all my life I had known; and the Dvina, it now turned
+out, never broke off at all. It was very curious that the Dvina should
+remain the same, while Polotzk changed into Vitebsk!
+
+The mystery of this transmutation led to much fruitful thinking. The
+boundary between Polotzk and the rest of the world was not, as I had
+supposed, a physical barrier, like the fence which divided our garden
+from the street. The world went like this now: Polotzk--more
+Polotzk--more Polotzk--Vitebsk! And Vitebsk was not so different, only
+bigger and brighter and more crowded. And Vitebsk was not the end. The
+Dvina, and the railroad, went on beyond Vitebsk,--went on to Russia.
+Then was Russia more Polotzk? Was here also no dividing fence? How I
+wanted to see Russia! But very few people went there. When people went
+to Russia it was a sign of trouble; either they could not make a
+living at home, or they were drafted for the army, or they had a
+lawsuit. No, nobody went to Russia for pleasure. Why, in Russia lived
+the Czar, and a great many cruel people; and in Russia were the
+dreadful prisons from which people never came back.
+
+Polotzk and Vitebsk were now bound together by the continuity of the
+earth, but between them and Russia a formidable barrier still
+interposed. I learned, as I grew older, that much as Polotzk disliked
+to go to Russia, even more did Russia object to letting Polotzk come.
+People from Polotzk were sometimes turned back before they had
+finished their business, and often they were cruelly treated on the
+way. It seemed there were certain places in Russia--St. Petersburg,
+and Moscow, and Kiev--where my father or my uncle or my neighbor must
+never come at all, no matter what important things invited them. The
+police would seize them and send them back to Polotzk, like wicked
+criminals, although they had never done any wrong.
+
+It was strange enough that my relatives should be treated like this,
+but at least there was this excuse for sending them back to Polotzk,
+that they belonged there. For what reason were people driven out of
+St. Petersburg and Moscow who had their homes in those cities, and had
+no other place to go to? Ever so many people, men and women and even
+children, came to Polotzk, where they had no friends, with stories of
+cruel treatment in Russia; and although they were nobody's relatives,
+they were taken in, and helped, and set up in business, like
+unfortunates after a fire.
+
+It was very strange that the Czar and the police should want all
+Russia for themselves. It was a very big country; it took many days
+for a letter to reach one's father in Russia. Why might not everybody
+be there who wanted to?
+
+I do not know when I became old enough to understand. The truth was
+borne in on me a dozen times a day, from the time I began to
+distinguish words from empty noises. My grandmother told me about it,
+when she put me to bed at night. My parents told me about it, when
+they gave me presents on holidays. My playmates told me, when they
+drew me back into a corner of the gateway, to let a policeman pass.
+Vanka, the little white-haired boy, told me all about it, when he ran
+out of his mother's laundry on purpose to throw mud after me when I
+happened to pass. I heard about it during prayers, and when women
+quarrelled in the market place; and sometimes, waking in the night, I
+heard my parents whisper it in the dark. There was no time in my life
+when I did not hear and see and feel the truth--the reason why Polotzk
+was cut off from the rest of Russia. It was the first lesson a little
+girl in Polotzk had to learn. But for a long while I did not
+understand. Then there came a time when I knew that Polotzk and
+Vitebsk and Vilna and some other places were grouped together as the
+"Pale of Settlement," and within this area the Czar commanded me to
+stay, with my father and mother and friends, and all other people like
+us. We must not be found outside the Pale, because we were Jews.
+
+So there was a fence around Polotzk, after all. The world was divided
+into Jews and Gentiles. This knowledge came so gradually that it could
+not shock me. It trickled into my consciousness drop by drop. By the
+time I fully understood that I was a prisoner, the shackles had grown
+familiar to my flesh.
+
+The first time Vanka threw mud at me, I ran home and complained to my
+mother, who brushed off my dress and said, quite resignedly, "How can
+I help you, my poor child? Vanka is a Gentile. The Gentiles do as they
+like with us Jews." The next time Vanka abused me, I did not cry, but
+ran for shelter, saying to myself, "Vanka is a Gentile." The third
+time, when Vanka spat on me, I wiped my face and thought nothing at
+all. I accepted ill-usage from the Gentiles as one accepts the
+weather. The world was made in a certain way, and I had to live in it.
+
+Not quite all the Gentiles were like Vanka. Next door to us lived a
+Gentile family which was very friendly. There was a girl as big as I,
+who never called me names, and gave me flowers from her father's
+garden. And there were the Parphens, of whom my grandfather rented his
+store. They treated us as if we were not Jews at all. On our festival
+days they visited our house and brought us presents, carefully
+choosing such things as Jewish children might accept; and they liked
+to have everything explained to them, about the wine and the fruit and
+the candles, and they even tried to say the appropriate greetings and
+blessings in Hebrew. My father used to say that if all the Russians
+were like the Parphens, there would be no trouble between Gentiles and
+Jews; and Fedora Pavlovna, the landlady, would reply that the Russian
+_people_ were not to blame. It was the priests, she said, who taught
+the people to hate the Jews. Of course she knew best, as she was a
+very pious Christian. She never passed a church without crossing
+herself.
+
+The Gentiles were always crossing themselves; when they went into a
+church, and when they came out, when they met a priest, or passed an
+image in the street. The dirty beggars on the church steps never
+stopped crossing themselves; and even when they stood on the corner of
+a Jewish street, and received alms from Jewish people, they crossed
+themselves and mumbled Christian prayers. In every Gentile house there
+was what they called an "icon," which was an image or picture of the
+Christian god, hung up in a corner, with a light always burning before
+it. In front of the icon the Gentiles said their prayers, on their
+knees, crossing themselves all the time.
+
+I tried not to look in the corner where the icon was, when I came into
+a Gentile house. I was afraid of the cross. Everybody was, in
+Polotzk--all the Jews, I mean. For it was the cross that made the
+priests, and the priests made our troubles, as even some Christians
+admitted. The Gentiles said that we had killed their God, which was
+absurd, as they never had a God--nothing but images. Besides, what
+they accused us of had happened so long ago; the Gentiles themselves
+said it was long ago. Everybody had been dead for ages who could have
+had anything to do with it. Yet they put up crosses everywhere, and
+wore them on their necks, on purpose to remind themselves of these
+false things; and they considered it pious to hate and abuse us,
+insisting that we had killed their God. To worship the cross and to
+torment a Jew was the same thing to them. That is why we feared the
+cross.
+
+Another thing the Gentiles said about us was that we used the blood of
+murdered Christian children at the Passover festival. Of course that
+was a wicked lie. It made me sick to think of such a thing. I knew
+everything that was done for Passover, from the time I was a very
+little girl. The house was made clean and shining and holy, even in
+the corners where nobody ever looked. Vessels and dishes that were
+used all the year round were put away in the garret, and special
+vessels were brought out for the Passover week. I used to help unpack
+the new dishes, and find my own blue mug. When the fresh curtains were
+put up, and the white floors were uncovered, and everybody in the
+house put on new clothes, and I sat down to the feast in my new dress,
+I felt clean inside and out. And when I asked the Four Questions,
+about the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs and the other things,
+and the family, reading from their books, answered me, did I not know
+all about Passover, and what was on the table, and why? It was wicked
+of the Gentiles to tell lies about us. The youngest child in the house
+knew how Passover was kept.
+
+The Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from the land
+of Egypt, and felt so glad and thankful, as if it had only just
+happened, was the time our Gentile neighbors chose to remind us that
+Russia was another Egypt. That is what I heard people say, and it was
+true. It was not so bad in Polotzk, within the Pale; but in Russian
+cities, and even more in the country districts, where Jewish families
+lived scattered, by special permission of the police, who were always
+changing their minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the
+Passover a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that
+lie about murdering Christian children, and the stupid peasants would
+get mad about it, and fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill
+the Jews. They attacked them with knives and clubs and scythes and
+axes, killed them or tortured them, and burned their houses. This was
+called a "pogrom." Jews who escaped the pogroms came to Polotzk with
+wounds on them, and horrible, horrible stories, of little babies torn
+limb from limb before their mothers' eyes. Only to hear these things
+made one sob and sob and choke with pain. People who saw such things
+never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived; and sometimes
+their hair turned white in a day, and some people became insane on the
+spot.
+
+Often we heard that the pogrom was led by a priest carrying a cross
+before the mob. Our enemies always held up the cross as the excuse of
+their cruelty to us. I never was in an actual pogrom, but there were
+times when it threatened us, even in Polotzk; and in all my fearful
+imaginings, as I hid in dark corners, thinking of the horrible things
+the Gentiles were going to do to me, I saw the cross, the cruel cross.
+
+I remember a time when I thought a pogrom had broken out in our
+street, and I wonder that I did not die of fear. It was some Christian
+holiday, and we had been warned by the police to keep indoors. Gates
+were locked; shutters were barred. If a child cried, the nurse
+threatened to give it to the priest, who would soon be passing by.
+Fearful and yet curious, we looked through the cracks in the
+shutters. We saw a procession of peasants and townspeople, led by a
+number of priests, carrying crosses and banners and images. In the
+place of honor was carried a casket, containing a relic from the
+monastery in the outskirts of Polotzk. Once a year the Gentiles
+paraded with this relic, and on that occasion the streets were
+considered too holy for Jews to be about; and we lived in fear till
+the end of the day, knowing that the least disturbance might start a
+riot, and a riot lead to a pogrom.
+
+On the day when I saw the procession through a crack in the shutter,
+there were soldiers and police in the street. This was as usual, but I
+did not know it. I asked the nurse, who was pressing to the crack over
+my head, what the soldiers were for. Thoughtlessly she answered me,
+"In case of a pogrom." Yes, there were the crosses and the priests and
+the mob. The church bells were pealing their loudest. Everything was
+ready. The Gentiles were going to tear me in pieces, with axes and
+knives and ropes. They were going to burn me alive. The cross--the
+cross! What would they do to me first?
+
+There was one thing the Gentiles might do to me worse than burning or
+rending. It was what was done to unprotected Jewish children who fell
+into the hands of priests or nuns. They might baptize me. That would
+be worse than death by torture. Rather would I drown in the Dvina than
+a drop of the baptismal water should touch my forehead. To be forced
+to kneel before the hideous images, to kiss the cross,--sooner would I
+rush out to the mob that was passing, and let them tear my vitals out.
+To forswear the One God, to bow before idols,--rather would I be
+seized with the plague, and be eaten up by vermin. I was only a little
+girl, and not very brave; little pains made me ill, and I cried. But
+there was no pain that I would not bear--no, none--rather than submit
+to baptism.
+
+Every Jewish child had that feeling. There were stories by the dozen
+of Jewish boys who were kidnapped by the Czar's agents and brought up
+in Gentile families, till they were old enough to enter the army,
+where they served till forty years of age; and all those years the
+priests tried, by bribes and daily tortures, to force them to accept
+baptism, but in vain. This was in the time of Nicholas I, but men who
+had been through this service were no older than my grandfather, when
+I was a little girl; and they told their experiences with their own
+lips, and one knew it was true, and it broke one's heart with pain and
+pride.
+
+Some of these soldiers of Nicholas, as they were called, were taken as
+little boys of seven or eight--snatched from their mothers' laps. They
+were carried to distant villages, where their friends could never
+trace them, and turned over to some dirty, brutal peasant, who used
+them like slaves and kept them with the pigs. No two were ever left
+together; and they were given false names, so that they were entirely
+cut off from their own world. And then the lonely child was turned
+over to the priests, and he was flogged and starved and terrified--a
+little helpless boy who cried for his mother; but still he refused to
+be baptized. The priests promised him good things to eat, and fine
+clothes, and freedom from labor; but the boy turned away, and said his
+prayers secretly--the Hebrew prayers.
+
+As he grew older, severer tortures were invented for him; still he
+refused baptism. By this time he had forgotten his mother's face, and
+of his prayers perhaps only the "Shema" remained in his memory; but
+he was a Jew, and nothing would make him change. After he entered the
+army, he was bribed with promises of promotions and honors. He
+remained a private, and endured the cruellest discipline. When he was
+discharged, at the age of forty, he was a broken man, without a home,
+without a clue to his origin, and he spent the rest of his life
+wandering among Jewish settlements, searching for his family; hiding
+the scars of torture under his rags, begging his way from door to
+door. If he were one who had broken down under the cruel torments, and
+allowed himself to be baptized, for the sake of a respite, the Church
+never let him go again, no matter how loudly he protested that he was
+still a Jew. If he was caught practicing Jewish rites, he was
+subjected to the severest punishment.
+
+My father knew of one who was taken as a small boy, who never yielded
+to the priests under the most hideous tortures. As he was a very
+bright boy, the priests were particularly eager to convert him. They
+tried him with bribes that would appeal to his ambition. They promised
+to make a great man of him--a general, a noble. The boy turned away
+and said his prayers. Then they tortured him, and threw him into a
+cell; and when he lay asleep from exhaustion, the priest came and
+baptized him. When he awoke, they told him he was a Christian, and
+brought him the crucifix to kiss. He protested, threw the crucifix
+from him, but they held him to it that he was a baptized Jew, and
+belonged to the Church; and the rest of his life he spent between the
+prison and the hospital, always clinging to his faith, saying the
+Hebrew prayers in defiance of his tormentors, and paying for it with
+his flesh.
+
+There were men in Polotzk whose faces made you old in a minute. They
+had served Nicholas I, and come back unbaptized. The white church in
+the square--how did it look to them? I knew. I cursed the church in my
+heart every time I had to pass it; and I was afraid--afraid.
+
+On market days, when the peasants came to church, and the bells kept
+ringing by the hour, my heart was heavy in me, and I could find no
+rest. Even in my father's house I did not feel safe. The church bell
+boomed over the roofs of the houses, calling, calling, calling. I
+closed my eyes, and saw the people passing into the church: peasant
+women with bright embroidered aprons and glass beads; barefoot little
+girls with colored kerchiefs on their heads; boys with caps pulled too
+far down over their flaxen hair; rough men with plaited bast sandals,
+and a rope around the waist,--crowds of them, moving slowly up the
+steps, crossing themselves again and again, till they were swallowed
+by the black doorway, and only the beggars were left squatting on the
+steps. _Boom, boom!_ What are the people doing in the dark, with the
+waxen images and the horrid crucifixes? _Boom, boom, boom!_ They are
+ringing the bell for me. Is it in the church they will torture me,
+when I refuse to kiss the cross?
+
+They ought not to have told me those dreadful stories. They were long
+past; we were living under the blessed "New Regime." Alexander III was
+no friend of the Jews; still he did not order little boys to be taken
+from their mothers, to be made into soldiers and Christians. Every man
+had to serve in the army for four years, and a Jewish recruit was
+likely to be treated with severity, no matter if his behavior were
+perfect; but that was little compared to the dreadful conditions of
+the old regime.
+
+The thing that really mattered was the necessity of breaking the
+Jewish laws of daily life while in the service. A soldier often had to
+eat trefah and work on Sabbath. He had to shave his beard and do
+reverence to Christian things. He could not attend daily services at
+the synagogue; his private devotions were disturbed by the jeers and
+insults of his coarse Gentile comrades. He might resort to all sorts
+of tricks and shams, still he was obliged to violate Jewish law. When
+he returned home, at the end of his term of service, he could not rid
+himself of the stigma of those enforced sins. For four years he had
+led the life of a Gentile.
+
+Piety alone was enough to make the Jews dread military service, but
+there were other things that made it a serious burden. Most men of
+twenty-one--the age of conscription--were already married and had
+children. During their absence their families suffered, their business
+often was ruined. At the end of their term they were beggars. As
+beggars, too, they were sent home from their military post. If they
+happened to have a good uniform at the time of their dismissal, it was
+stripped from them, and replaced by a shabby one. They received a free
+ticket for the return journey, and a few kopecks a day for expenses.
+In this fashion they were hurried back into the Pale, like escaped
+prisoners. The Czar was done with them. If within a limited time they
+were found outside the Pale, they would be seized and sent home in
+chains.
+
+There were certain exceptions to the rule of compulsory service. The
+only son of a family was exempt, and certain others. In the physical
+examination preceding conscription, many were rejected on account of
+various faults. This gave the people the idea of inflicting injuries
+on themselves, so as to produce temporary deformities on account of
+which they might be rejected at the examination. Men would submit to
+operations on their eyes, ears, or limbs, which caused them horrible
+sufferings, in the hope of escaping the service. If the operation was
+successful, the patient was rejected by the examining officers, and in
+a short time he was well, and a free man. Often, however, the
+deformity intended to be temporary proved incurable, so that there
+were many men in Polotzk blind of one eye, or hard of hearing, or
+lame, as a result of these secret practices; but these things were
+easier to bear than the memory of four years in the Czar's service.
+
+Sons of rich fathers could escape service without leaving any marks on
+their persons. It was always possible to bribe conscription officers.
+This was a dangerous practice,--it was not the officers who suffered
+most in case the negotiations leaked out,--but no respectable family
+would let a son be taken as a recruit till it had made every effort to
+save him. My grandfather nearly ruined himself to buy his sons out of
+service; and my mother tells thrilling anecdotes of her younger
+brother's life, who for years lived in hiding, under assumed names and
+in various disguises, till he had passed the age of liability for
+service.
+
+If it were cowardice that made the Jews shrink from military service
+they would not inflict on themselves physical tortures greater than
+any that threatened them in the army, and which often left them maimed
+for life. If it were avarice--the fear of losing the gains from their
+business for four years--they would not empty their pockets and sell
+their houses and sink into debt, on the chance of successfully bribing
+the Czar's agents. The Jewish recruit dreaded, indeed, brutality and
+injustice at the hands of officers and comrades; he feared for his
+family, which he left, often enough, as dependents on the charity of
+relatives; but the fear of an unholy life was greater than all other
+fears. I know, for I remember my cousin who was taken as a soldier.
+Everything had been done to save him. Money had been spent freely--my
+uncle did not stop at his unmarried daughter's portion, when
+everything else was gone. My cousin had also submitted to some secret
+treatment,--some devastating drug administered for months before the
+examination,--but the effects were not pronounced enough, and he was
+passed. For the first few weeks his company was stationed in Polotzk.
+I saw my cousin drill on the square, carrying a gun, _on a Sabbath_. I
+felt unholy, as if I had sinned the sin in my own person. It was easy
+to understand why mothers of conscript sons fasted and wept and prayed
+and worried themselves to their graves.
+
+There was a man in our town called David the Substitute, because he
+had gone as a soldier in another's stead, he himself being exempt. He
+did it for a sum of money. I suppose his family was starving, and he
+saw a chance to provide for them for a few years. But it was a sinful
+thing to do, to go as a soldier and be obliged to live like a Gentile,
+of his own free will. And David knew how wicked it was, for he was a
+pious man at heart. When he returned from service, he was aged and
+broken, bowed down with the sense of his sins. And he set himself a
+penance, which was to go through the streets every Sabbath morning,
+calling the people to prayer. Now this was a hard thing to do,
+because David labored bitterly all the week, exposed to the weather,
+summer or winter; and on Sabbath morning there was nobody so tired and
+lame and sore as David. Yet he forced himself to leave his bed before
+it was yet daylight, and go from street to street, all over Polotzk,
+calling on the people to wake and go to prayer. Many a Sabbath morning
+I awoke when David called, and lay listening to his voice as it passed
+and died out; and it was so sad that it hurt, as beautiful music
+hurts. I was glad to feel my sister lying beside me, for it was lonely
+in the gray dawn, with only David and me awake, and God waiting for
+the people's prayers.
+
+The Gentiles used to wonder at us because we cared so much about
+religious things,--about food, and Sabbath, and teaching the children
+Hebrew. They were angry with us for our obstinacy, as they called it,
+and mocked us and ridiculed the most sacred things. There were wise
+Gentiles who understood. These were educated people, like Fedora
+Pavlovna, who made friends with their Jewish neighbors. They were
+always respectful, and openly admired some of our ways. But most of
+the Gentiles were ignorant and distrustful and spiteful. They would
+not believe that there was any good in our religion, and of course we
+dared not teach them, because we should be accused of trying to
+convert them, and that would be the end of us.
+
+Oh, if they could only understand! Vanka caught me on the street one
+day, and pulled my hair, and called me names; and all of a sudden I
+asked myself _why_--_why?_--a thing I had stopped asking years before.
+I was so angry that I could have punished him; for one moment I was
+not afraid to hit back. But this _why_--_why?_ broke out in my heart,
+and I forgot to revenge myself. It was so wonderful--Well, there were
+no words in my head to say it, but it meant that Vanka abused me only
+because _he did not understand_. If he could feel with my heart, if he
+could be a little Jewish boy for one day, I thought, he would know--he
+would know. If he could understand about David the Substitute, now,
+without being told, as I understood. If he could wake in my place on
+Sabbath morning, and feel his heart break in him with a strange pain,
+because a Jew had dishonored the law of Moses, and God was bending
+down to pardon him. Oh, why could I not make Vanka understand? I was
+so sorry that my heart hurt me, worse than Vanka's blows. My anger and
+my courage were gone. Vanka was throwing stones at me now from his
+mother's doorway, and I continued on my errand, but I did not hurry.
+The thing that hurt me most I could not run away from.
+
+There was one thing the Gentiles always understood, and that was
+money. They would take any kind of bribe at any time. Peace cost so
+much a year in Polotzk. If you did not keep on good terms with your
+Gentile neighbors, they had a hundred ways of molesting you. If you
+chased their pigs when they came rooting up your garden, or objected
+to their children maltreating your children, they might complain
+against you to the police, stuffing their case with false accusations
+and false witnesses. If you had not made friends with the police, the
+case might go to court; and there you lost before the trial was
+called, unless the judge had reason to befriend you. The cheapest way
+to live in Polotzk was to pay as you went along. Even a little girl
+understood that, in Polotzk.
+
+Perhaps your parents were in business,--usually they were, as almost
+everybody kept store,--and you heard a great deal about the chief of
+police, and excise officers, and other agents of the Czar. Between the
+Czar whom you had never seen, and the policeman whom you knew too
+well, you pictured to yourself a long row of officials of all sorts,
+all with their palms stretched out to receive your father's money. You
+knew your father hated them all, but you saw him smile and bend as he
+filled those greedy palms. You did the same, in your petty way, when
+you saw Vanka coming toward you on a lonely street, and you held out
+to him the core of the apple you had been chewing, and forced your
+unwilling lips into a smile. It hurt, that false smile; it made you
+feel black inside.
+
+In your father's parlor hung a large colored portrait of Alexander
+III. The Czar was a cruel tyrant,--oh, it was whispered when doors
+were locked and shutters tightly barred, at night,--he was a Titus, a
+Haman, a sworn foe of all Jews,--and yet his portrait was seen in a
+place of honor in your father's house. You knew why. It looked well
+when police or government officers came on business.
+
+You went out to play one morning, and saw a little knot of people
+gathered around a lamp-post. There was a notice on it--a new order
+from the chief of police. You pushed into the crowd, and stared at the
+placard, but you could not read. A woman with a ragged shawl looked
+down upon you, and said, with a bitter kind of smile, "Rejoice,
+rejoice, little girl! The chief of police bids you rejoice. There
+shall be a pretty flag flying from every housetop to-day, because it
+is the Czar's birthday, and we must celebrate. Come and watch the poor
+people pawn their samovars and candlesticks, to raise money for a
+pretty flag. It is a holiday, little girl. Rejoice!"
+
+You know the woman is mocking,--you are familiar with the quality of
+that smile,--but you accept the hint and go and watch the people buy
+their flags. Your cousin keeps a dry-goods store, where you have a
+fine view of the proceedings. There is a crowd around the counter, and
+your cousin and the assistant are busily measuring off lengths of
+cloth, red, and blue, and white.
+
+"How much does it take?" somebody asks. "May I know no more of sin
+than I know of flags," another replies. "How is it put together?" "Do
+you have to have all three colors?" One customer puts down a few
+kopecks on the counter, saying, "Give me a piece of flag. This is all
+the money I have. Give me the red and the blue; I'll tear up my shirt
+for the white."
+
+You know it is no joke. The flag must show from every house, or the
+owner will be dragged to the police station, to pay a fine of
+twenty-five rubles. What happened to the old woman who lives in that
+tumble-down shanty over the way? It was that other time when flags
+were ordered up, because the Grand Duke was to visit Polotzk. The old
+woman had no flag, and no money. She hoped the policeman would not
+notice her miserable hut. But he did, the vigilant one, and he went up
+and kicked the door open with his great boot, and he took the last
+pillow from the bed, and sold it, and hoisted a flag above the rotten
+roof. I knew the old woman well, with her one watery eye and her
+crumpled hands. I often took a plate of soup to her from our kitchen.
+There was nothing but rags left on her bed, when the policeman had
+taken the pillow.
+
+The Czar always got his dues, no matter if it ruined a family. There
+was a poor locksmith who owed the Czar three hundred rubles, because
+his brother had escaped from Russia before serving his term in the
+army. There was no such fine for Gentiles, only for Jews; and the
+whole family was liable. Now, the locksmith never could have so much
+money, and he had no valuables to pawn. The police came and attached
+his household goods, everything he had, including his young bride's
+trousseau; and the sale of the goods brought thirty-five rubles. After
+a year's time the police came again, looking for the balance of the
+Czar's dues. They put their seal on everything they found. The bride
+was in bed with her first baby, a boy. The circumcision was to be next
+day. The police did not leave a sheet to wrap the child in when he is
+handed up for the operation.
+
+Many bitter sayings came to your ears if you were a Jewish little girl
+in Polotzk. "It is a false world," you heard, and you knew it was so,
+looking at the Czar's portrait, and at the flags. "Never tell a police
+officer the truth," was another saying, and you knew it was good
+advice. That fine of three hundred rubles was a sentence of lifelong
+slavery for the poor locksmith, unless he freed himself by some trick.
+As fast as he could collect a few rags and sticks, the police would be
+after them. He might hide under a false name, if he could get away
+from Polotzk on a false passport; or he might bribe the proper
+officials to issue a false certificate of the missing brother's death.
+Only by false means could he secure peace for himself and his family,
+as long as the Czar was after his dues.
+
+It was bewildering to hear how many kinds of duties and taxes we owed
+the Czar. We paid taxes on our houses, and taxes on the rents from the
+houses, taxes on our business, taxes on our profits. I am not sure
+whether there were taxes on our losses. The town collected taxes, and
+the county, and the central government; and the chief of police we had
+always with us. There were taxes for public works, but rotten
+pavements went on rotting year after year; and when a bridge was to be
+built, special taxes were levied. A bridge, by the way, was not always
+a public highway. A railroad bridge across the Dvina, while open to
+the military, could be used by the people only by individual
+permission.
+
+My uncle explained to me all about the excise duties on tobacco.
+Tobacco being a source of government revenue, there was a heavy tax on
+it. Cigarettes were taxed at every step of their process. The tobacco
+was taxed separately, and the paper, and the mouthpiece, and on the
+finished product an additional tax was put. There was no tax on the
+smoke. The Czar must have overlooked it.
+
+Business really did not pay when the price of goods was so swollen by
+taxes that the people could not buy. The only way to make business pay
+was to cheat--cheat the Government of part of the duties. But playing
+tricks on the Czar was dangerous, with so many spies watching his
+interests. People who sold cigarettes without the government seal got
+more gray hairs than bank notes out of their business. The constant
+risk, the worry, the dread of a police raid in the night, and the
+ruinous fines, in case of detection, left very little margin of profit
+or comfort to the dealer in contraband goods. "But what can one do?"
+the people said, with the shrug of the shoulders that expresses the
+helplessness of the Pale. "What can one do? One must live."
+
+It was not easy to live, with such bitter competition as the
+congestion of population made inevitable. There were ten times as many
+stores as there should have been, ten times as many tailors, cobblers,
+barbers, tinsmiths. A Gentile, if he failed in Polotzk, could go
+elsewhere, where there was less competition. A Jew could make the
+circle of the Pale, only to find the same conditions as at home.
+Outside the Pale he could only go to certain designated localities, on
+payment of prohibitive fees, augmented by a constant stream of bribes;
+and even then he lived at the mercy of the local chief of police.
+
+Artisans had the right to reside outside the Pale, on fulfilment of
+certain conditions. This sounded easy to me, when I was a little girl,
+till I realized how it worked. There was a capmaker who had duly
+qualified, by passing an examination and paying for his trade papers,
+to live in a certain city. The chief of police suddenly took it into
+his head to impeach the genuineness of his papers. The capmaker was
+obliged to travel to St. Petersburg, where he had qualified in the
+first place, to repeat the examination. He spent the savings of years
+in petty bribes, trying to hasten the process, but was detained ten
+months by bureaucratic red tape. When at length he returned to his
+home town, he found a new chief of police, installed during his
+absence, who discovered a new flaw in the papers he had just obtained,
+and expelled him from the city. If he came to Polotzk, there were then
+eleven capmakers where only one could make a living.
+
+Merchants fared like the artisans. They, too, could buy the right of
+residence outside the Pale, permanent or temporary, on conditions that
+gave them no real security. I was proud to have an uncle who was a
+merchant of the First Guild, but it was very expensive for my uncle.
+He had to pay so much a year for the title, and a certain percentage
+on the profits from his business. This gave him the right to travel on
+business outside the Pale, twice a year, for not more than six months
+in all. If he were found outside the Pale after his permit expired, he
+had to pay a fine that exceeded all he had gained by his journey,
+perhaps. I used to picture my uncle on his Russian travels, hurrying,
+hurrying to finish his business in the limited time; while a policeman
+marched behind him, ticking off the days and counting up the hours.
+That was a foolish fancy, but some of the things that were done in
+Russia really were very funny.
+
+There were things in Polotzk that made you laugh with one eye and weep
+with the other, like a clown. During an epidemic of cholera, the city
+officials, suddenly becoming energetic, opened stations for the
+distribution of disinfectants to the people. A quarter of the
+population was dead when they began, and most of the dead were buried,
+while some lay decaying in deserted houses. The survivors, some of
+them crazy from horror, stole through the empty streets, avoiding one
+another, till they came to the appointed stations, where they pushed
+and crowded to get their little bottles of carbolic acid. Many died
+from fear in those horrible days, but some must have died from
+laughter. For only the Gentiles were allowed to receive the
+disinfectant. Poor Jews who had nothing but their new-made graves were
+driven away from the stations.
+
+Perhaps it was wrong of us to think of our Gentile neighbors as a
+different species of beings from ourselves, but such madness as that
+did not help to make them more human in our eyes. It was easier to be
+friends with the beasts in the barn than with some of the Gentiles.
+The cow and the goat and the cat responded to kindness, and
+remembered which of the housemaids was generous and which was cross.
+The Gentiles made no distinctions. A Jew was a Jew, to be hated and
+spat upon and used spitefully.
+
+The only Gentiles, besides the few of the intelligent kind, who did
+not habitually look upon us with hate and contempt, were the stupid
+peasants from the country, who were hardly human themselves. They
+lived in filthy huts together with their swine, and all they cared for
+was how to get something to eat. It was not their fault. The land laws
+made them so poor that they had to sell themselves to fill their
+bellies. What help was there for us in the good will of such wretched
+slaves? For a cask of vodka you could buy up a whole village of them.
+They trembled before the meanest townsman, and at a sign from a
+long-haired priest they would sharpen their axes against us.
+
+The Gentiles had their excuse for their malice. They said our
+merchants and money-lenders preyed upon them, and our shopkeepers gave
+false measure. People who want to defend the Jews ought never to deny
+this. Yes, I say, we cheated the Gentiles whenever we dared, because
+it was the only thing to do. Remember how the Czar was always sending
+us commands,--you shall not do this and you shall not do that, until
+there was little left that we might honestly do, except pay tribute
+and die. There he had us cooped up, thousands of us where only
+hundreds could live, and every means of living taxed to the utmost.
+When there are too many wolves in the prairie, they begin to prey upon
+each other. We starving captives of the Pale--we did as do the hungry
+brutes. But our humanity showed in our discrimination between our
+victims. Whenever we could, we spared our own kind, directing against
+our racial foes the cunning wiles which our bitter need invented. Is
+not that the code of war? Encamped in the midst of the enemy, we could
+practice no other. A Jew could hardly exist in business unless he
+developed a dual conscience, which allowed him to do to the Gentile
+what he would call a sin against a fellow Jew. Such spiritual
+deformities are self-explained in the step-children of the Czar. A
+glance over the statutes of the Pale leaves you wondering that the
+Russian Jews have not lost all semblance to humanity.
+
+   [Illustration: THE GRAVE DIGGER OF POLOTZK]
+
+A favorite complaint against us was that we were greedy for gold. Why
+could not the Gentiles see the whole truth where they saw half? Greedy
+for profits we were, eager for bargains, for savings, intent on
+squeezing the utmost out of every business transaction. But why? Did
+not the Gentiles know the reason? Did they not know what price we had
+to pay for the air we breathed? If a Jew and a Gentile kept store side
+by side, the Gentile could content himself with smaller profits. He
+did not have to buy permission to travel in the interests of his
+business. He did not have to pay three hundred rubles fine if his son
+evaded military service. He was saved the expense of hushing inciters
+of pogroms. Police favor was retailed at a lower price to him than to
+the Jew. His nature did not compel him to support schools and
+charities. It cost nothing to be a Christian; on the contrary, it
+brought rewards and immunities. To be a Jew was a costly luxury, the
+price of which was either money or blood. Is it any wonder that we
+hoarded our pennies? What his shield is to the soldier in battle, that
+was the ruble to the Jew in the Pale.
+
+The knowledge of such things as I am telling leaves marks upon the
+flesh and spirit. I remember little children in Polotzk with old, old
+faces and eyes glazed with secrets. I knew how to dodge and cringe and
+dissemble before I knew the names of the seasons. And I had plenty of
+time to ponder on these things, because I was so idle. If they had let
+me go to school, now--But of course they didn't.
+
+There was no free school for girls, and even if your parents were rich
+enough to send you to a private school, you could not go very far. At
+the high school, which was under government control, Jewish children
+were admitted in limited numbers,--only ten to every hundred,--and
+even if you were among the lucky ones, you had your troubles. The
+tutor who prepared you talked all the time about the examinations you
+would have to pass, till you were scared. You heard on all sides that
+the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining
+officers did not like the turn of their noses. You went up to be
+examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that
+matter of your nose. There was a special examination for the Jewish
+candidates, of course; a nine-year-old Jewish child had to answer
+questions that a thirteen-year-old Gentile was hardly expected to
+understand. But that did not matter so much. You had been prepared for
+the thirteen-year-old test; you found the questions quite easy. You
+wrote your answers triumphantly--and you received a low rating, and
+there was no appeal.
+
+I used to stand in the doorway of my father's store, munching an apple
+that did not taste good any more, and watch the pupils going home from
+school in twos and threes; the girls in neat brown dresses and black
+aprons and little stiff hats, the boys in trim uniforms with many
+buttons. They had ever so many books in the satchels on their backs.
+They would take them out at home, and read and write, and learn all
+sorts of interesting things. They looked to me like beings from
+another world than mine. But those whom I envied had their own
+troubles, as I often heard. Their school life was one struggle against
+injustice from instructors, spiteful treatment from fellow students,
+and insults from everybody. Those who, by heroic efforts and
+transcendent good luck, successfully finished the course, found
+themselves against a new wall, if they wished to go on. They were
+turned down at the universities, which admitted them in the ratio of
+three Jews to a hundred Gentiles, under the same debarring entrance
+conditions as at the high school,--especially rigorous examinations,
+dishonest marking, or arbitrary rulings without disguise. No, the Czar
+did not want us in the schools.
+
+I heard from my mother of a different state of affairs, at the time
+when her brothers were little boys. The Czar of those days had a
+bright idea. He said to his ministers: "Let us educate the people. Let
+us win over those Jews through the public schools, instead of allowing
+them to persist in their narrow Hebrew learning, which teaches them no
+love for their monarch. Force has failed with them; the unwilling
+converts return to their old ways whenever they dare. Let us try
+education."
+
+Perhaps peaceable conversion of the Jews was not the Czar's only
+motive when he opened public schools everywhere and compelled parents
+to send their boys for instruction. Perhaps he just wanted to be good,
+and really hoped to benefit the country. But to the Jews the public
+schools appeared as a trap door to the abyss of apostasy. The
+instructors were always Christians, the teaching was Christian, and
+the regulations of the schoolroom, as to hours, costume, and manners,
+were often in opposition to Jewish practices. The public school
+interrupted the boy's sacred studies in the Hebrew school. Where would
+you look for pious Jews, after a few generations of boys brought up by
+Christian teachers? Plainly the Czar was after the souls of the Jewish
+children. The church door gaped for them at the end of the school
+course. And all good Jews rose up against the schools, and by every
+means, fair or foul, kept their boys away. The official appointed to
+keep the register of boys for school purposes waxed rich on the bribes
+paid him by anxious parents who kept their sons in hiding.
+
+After a while the wise Czar changed his mind, or he died,--probably he
+did both,--and the schools were closed, and the Jewish boys perused
+their Hebrew books in peace, wearing the sacred fringes[1] in plain
+sight, and never polluting their mouths with a word of Russian.
+
+And then it was the Jews who changed their minds--some of them. They
+wanted to send their children to school, to learn histories and
+sciences, because they had discovered that there was good in such
+things as well as in the Sacred Law. These people were called
+progressive, but they had no chance to progress. All the czars that
+came along persisted in the old idea, that for the Jew no door should
+be opened,--no door out of the Pale, no door out of their mediaevalism.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] A four-cornered cloth with specially prepared fringes is worn by
+pious males under the outer garments, but with, the fringes showing.
+The latter play a part in the daily ritual.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHILDREN OF THE LAW
+
+
+As I look back to-day I see, within the wall raised around my
+birthplace by the vigilance of the police, another wall, higher,
+thicker, more impenetrable. This is the wall which the Czar with all
+his minions could not shake, the priests with their instruments of
+torture could not pierce, the mob with their firebrands could not
+destroy. This wall within the wall is the religious integrity of the
+Jews, a fortress erected by the prisoners of the Pale, in defiance of
+their jailers; a stronghold built of the ruins of their pillaged
+homes, cemented with the blood of their murdered children.
+
+Harassed on every side, thwarted in every normal effort, pent up
+within narrow limits, all but dehumanized, the Russian Jew fell back
+upon the only thing that never failed him,--his hereditary faith in
+God. In the study of the Torah he found the balm for all his wounds;
+the minute observance of traditional rites became the expression of
+his spiritual cravings; and in the dream of a restoration to Palestine
+he forgot the world.
+
+What did it matter to us, on a Sabbath or festival, when our life was
+centred in the synagogue, what czar sat on the throne, what evil
+counsellors whispered in his ear? They were concerned with revenues
+and policies and ephemeral trifles of all sorts, while we were intent
+on renewing our ancient covenant with God, to the end that His promise
+to the world should be fulfilled, and His justice overwhelm the
+nations.
+
+On a Friday afternoon the stores and markets closed early. The clatter
+of business ceased, the dust of worry was laid, and the Sabbath peace
+flooded the quiet streets. No hovel so mean but what its casement sent
+out its consecrated ray, so that a wayfarer passing in the twilight
+saw the spirit of God brooding over the lowly roof.
+
+Care and fear and shrewishness dropped like a mask from every face.
+Eyes dimmed with weeping kindled with inmost joy. Wherever a head bent
+over a sacred page, there rested the halo of God's presence.
+
+Not on festivals alone, but also on the common days of the week, we
+lived by the Law that had been given us through our teacher Moses. How
+to eat, how to bathe, how to work--everything had been written down
+for us, and we strove to fulfil the Law. The study of the Torah was
+the most honored of all occupations, and they who engaged in it the
+most revered of all men.
+
+My memory does not go back to a time when I was too young to know that
+God had made the world, and had appointed teachers to tell the people
+how to live in it. First came Moses, and after him the great rabbis,
+and finally the Rav of Polotzk, who read all day in the sacred books,
+so that he could tell me and my parents and my friends what to do
+whenever we were in doubt. If my mother cut up a chicken and found
+something wrong in it,--some hurt or mark that should not be,--she
+sent the housemaid with it to the rav, and I ran along, and saw the
+rav look in his big books; and whatever he decided was right. If he
+called the chicken "trefah" I must not eat of it; no, not if I had to
+starve. And the rav knew about everything: about going on a journey,
+about business, about marrying, about purifying vessels for Passover.
+
+Another great teacher was the dayyan, who heard people's quarrels and
+settled them according to the Law, so that they should not have to go
+to the Gentile courts. The Gentiles were false, judges and witnesses
+and all. They favored the rich man against the poor, the Christian
+against the Jew. The dayyan always gave true judgments. Nohem
+Rabinovitch, the richest man in Polotzk, could not win a case against
+a servant maid, unless he were in the right.
+
+Besides the rav and the dayyan there were other men whose callings
+were holy,--the shohat, who knew how cattle and fowls should be
+killed; the hazzan and the other officers of the synagogue; the
+teachers of Hebrew, and their pupils. It did not matter how poor a man
+was, he was to be respected and set above other men, if he were
+learned in the Law.
+
+In the synagogue scores of men sat all day long over the Hebrew books,
+studying and disputing from early dawn till candles were brought in at
+night, and then as long as the candles lasted. They could not take
+time for anything else, if they meant to become great scholars. Most
+of them were strangers in Polotzk, and had no home except the
+synagogue. They slept on benches, on tables, on the floor; they picked
+up their meals wherever they could. They had come from distant cities,
+so as to be under good teachers in Polotzk; and the townspeople were
+proud to support them by giving them food and clothing and sometimes
+money to visit their homes on holidays. But the poor students came in
+such numbers that there were not enough rich families to provide for
+all, so that some of them suffered privation. You could pick out a
+poor student in a crowd, by his pale face and shrunken form.
+
+There was almost always a poor student taking meals at our house. He
+was assigned a certain day, and on that day my grandmother took care
+to have something especially good for dinner. It was a very shabby
+guest who sat down with us at table, but we children watched him with
+respectful eyes. Grandmother had told us that he was a lamden
+(scholar), and we saw something holy in the way he ate his cabbage.
+
+Not every man could hope to be a rav, but no Jewish boy was allowed to
+grow up without at least a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew. The
+scantiest income had to be divided so as to provide for the boys'
+tuition. To leave a boy without a teacher was a disgrace upon the
+whole family, to the remotest relative. For the children of the
+destitute there was a free school, supported by the charity of the
+pious. And so every boy was sent to heder (Hebrew school) almost as
+soon as he could speak; and usually he continued to study until his
+confirmation, at thirteen years of age, or as much longer as his
+talent and ambition carried him. My brother was five years old when he
+entered on his studies. He was carried to the heder, on the first day,
+covered over with a praying-shawl, so that nothing unholy should look
+on him; and he was presented with a bun, on which were traced, in
+honey, these words: "The Torah left by Moses is the heritage of the
+children of Jacob."
+
+After a boy entered heder, he was the hero of the family. He was
+served before the other children at table, and nothing was too good
+for him. If the family were very poor, all the girls might go
+barefoot, but the heder boy must have shoes; he must have a plate of
+hot soup, though the others ate dry bread. When the rebbe (teacher)
+came on Sabbath afternoon, to examine the boy in the hearing of the
+family, everybody sat around the table and nodded with satisfaction,
+if he read his portion well; and he was given a great saucerful of
+preserves, and was praised, and blessed, and made much of. No wonder
+he said, in his morning prayer, "I thank Thee, Lord, for not having
+created me a female." It was not much to be a girl, you see. Girls
+could not be scholars and rabbonim.
+
+I went to my brother's heder, sometimes, to bring him his dinner, and
+saw how the boys studied. They sat on benches around the table, with
+their hats on, of course, and the sacred fringes hanging beneath their
+jackets. The rebbe sat at an end of the table, rehearsing two or three
+of the boys who were studying the same part, pointing out the words
+with his wooden pointer, so as not to lose the place. Everybody read
+aloud, the smallest boys repeating the alphabet in a sing-song, while
+the advanced boys read their portions in a different sing-song; and
+everybody raised his voice to its loudest so as to drown the other
+voices. The good boys never took their eyes off their page, except to
+ask the rebbe a question; but the naughty boys stared around the room,
+and kicked each other under the table, till the rebbe caught them at
+it. He had a ruler for striking the bad boys on the knuckles, and in a
+corner of the room leaned a long birch wand for pupils who would not
+learn their lessons.
+
+The boys came to heder before nine in the morning, and remained until
+eight or nine in the evening. Stupid pupils, who could not remember
+the lesson, sometimes had to stay till ten. There was an hour for
+dinner and play at noon. Good little boys played quietly in their
+places, but most of the boys ran out of the house and jumped and
+yelled and quarrelled.
+
+There was nothing in what the boys did in heder that I could not have
+done--if I had not been a girl. For a girl it was enough if she could
+read her prayers in Hebrew, and follow the meaning by the Yiddish
+translation at the bottom of the page. It did not take long to learn
+this much,--a couple of terms with a rebbetzin (female teacher),--and
+after that she was done with books.
+
+A girl's real schoolroom was her mother's kitchen. There she learned
+to bake and cook and manage, to knit, sew, and embroider; also to spin
+and weave, in country places. And while her hands were busy, her
+mother instructed her in the laws regulating a pious Jewish household
+and in the conduct proper for a Jewish wife; for, of course, every
+girl hoped to be a wife. A girl was born for no other purpose.
+
+How soon it came, the pious burden of wifehood! One day the girl is
+playing forfeits with her laughing friends, the next day she is missed
+from the circle. She has been summoned to a conference with the
+shadchan (marriage broker), who has been for months past advertising
+her housewifely talents, her piety, her good looks, and her marriage
+portion, among families with marriageable sons. Her parents are
+pleased with the son-in-law proposed by the shadchan, and now, at the
+last, the girl is brought in, to be examined and appraised by the
+prospective parents-in-law. If the negotiations go off smoothly, the
+marriage contract is written, presents are exchanged between the
+engaged couple, through their respective parents, and all that is left
+the girl of her maidenhood is a period of busy preparation for the
+wedding.
+
+   [Illustration: HEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL) FOR BOYS IN POLOTZK]
+
+If the girl is well-to-do, it is a happy interval, spent in visits to
+the drapers and tailors, in collecting linens and featherbeds and
+vessels of copper and brass. The former playmates come to inspect the
+trousseau, enviously fingering the silks and velvets of the
+bride-elect. The happy heroine tries on frocks and mantles before her
+glass, blushing at references to the wedding day; and to the question,
+"How do you like the bridegroom?" she replies, "How should I know?
+There was such a crowd at the betrothal that I didn't see him."
+
+Marriage was a sacrament with us Jews in the Pale. To rear a family of
+children was to serve God. Every Jewish man and woman had a part in
+the fulfilment of the ancient promise given to Jacob that his seed
+should be abundantly scattered over the earth. Parenthood, therefore,
+was the great career. But while men, in addition to begetting, might
+busy themselves with the study of the Law, woman's only work was
+motherhood. To be left an old maid became, accordingly, the greatest
+misfortune that could threaten a girl; and to ward off that calamity
+the girl and her family, to the most distant relatives, would strain
+every nerve, whether by contributing to her dowry, or hiding her
+defects from the marriage broker, or praying and fasting that God
+might send her a husband.
+
+Not only must all the children of a family be mated, but they must
+marry in the order of their ages. A younger daughter must on no
+account marry before an elder. A houseful of daughters might be held
+up because the eldest failed to find favor in the eyes of prospective
+mothers-in-law; not one of the others could marry till the eldest was
+disposed of.
+
+A cousin of mine was guilty of the disloyalty of wishing to marry
+before her elder sister, who was unfortunate enough to be rejected by
+one mother-in-law after another. My uncle feared that the younger
+daughter, who was of a firm and masterful nature, might carry out her
+plans, thereby disgracing her unhappy sister. Accordingly he hastened
+to conclude an alliance with a family far beneath him, and the girl
+was hastily married to a boy of whom little was known beyond the fact
+that he was inclined to consumption.
+
+The consumptive tendency was no such horror, in an age when
+superstition was more in vogue than science. For one patient that went
+to a physician in Polotzk, there were ten who called in unlicensed
+practitioners and miracle workers. If my mother had an obstinate
+toothache that honored household remedies failed to relieve, she went
+to Dvoshe, the pious woman, who cured by means of a flint and steel,
+and a secret prayer pronounced as the sparks flew up. During an
+epidemic of scarlet fever, we protected ourselves by wearing a piece
+of red woolen tape around the neck. Pepper and salt tied in a corner
+of the pocket was effective in warding off the evil eye. There were
+lucky signs, lucky dreams, spirits, and hobgoblins, a grisly
+collection, gathered by our wandering ancestors from the demonologies
+of Asia and Europe.
+
+Antiquated as our popular follies was the organization of our small
+society. It was a caste system with social levels sharply marked off,
+and families united by clannish ties. The rich looked down on the
+poor, the merchants looked down on the artisans, and within the ranks
+of the artisans higher and lower grades were distinguished. A
+shoemaker's daughter could not hope to marry the son of a shopkeeper,
+unless she brought an extra large dowry; and she had to make up her
+mind to be snubbed by the sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law all her
+life.
+
+One qualification only could raise a man above his social level, and
+that was scholarship. A boy born in the gutter need not despair of
+entering the houses of the rich, if he had a good mind and a great
+appetite for sacred learning. A poor scholar would be preferred in the
+marriage market to a rich ignoramus. In the phrase of our
+grandmothers, a boy stuffed with learning was worth more than a girl
+stuffed with bank notes.
+
+Simple piety unsupported by learning had a parallel value in the eyes
+of good families. This was especially true among the Hasidim, the sect
+of enthusiasts who set religious exaltation above rabbinical lore.
+Ecstasy in prayer and fantastic merriment on days of religious
+rejoicing, raised a Hasid to a hero among his kind. My father's
+grandfather, who knew of Hebrew only enough to teach beginners, was
+famous through a good part of the Pale for his holy life. Israel
+Kimanyer he was called, from the village of Kimanye where he lived;
+and people were proud to establish even the most distant relationship
+with him. Israel was poor to the verge of beggary, but he prayed more
+than other people, never failed in the slightest observance enjoined
+on Jews, shared his last crust with every chance beggar, and sat up
+nights to commune with God. His family connections included country
+peddlers, starving artisans, and ne'er-do-wells; but Israel was a
+zaddik--a man of piety--and the fame of his good life redeemed the
+whole wretched clan. When his grandson, my father, came to marry, he
+boasted his direct descent from Israel Kimanyer, and picked his bride
+from the best families.
+
+The little house may still be standing which the pious Jews of Kimanye
+and the neighboring villages built for my great-grandfather, close on
+a century ago. He was too poor to build his own house, so the good
+people who loved him, and who were almost as poor as he, collected a
+few rubles among themselves, and bought a site, and built the house.
+Built, let it be known, with their own hands; for they were too poor
+to hire workmen. They carried the beams and boards on their shoulders,
+singing and dancing on the way, as they sang and danced at the
+presentation of a scroll to the synagogue. They hauled and sawed and
+hammered, till the last nail was driven home; and when they conducted
+the holy man to his new abode, the rejoicing was greater than at the
+crowning of a czar.
+
+That little cabin was fit to be preserved as the monument to a
+species of idealism that has rarely been known outside the Pale. What
+was the ultimate source of the pious enthusiasm that built my
+great-grandfather's house? What was the substance behind the show of
+the Judaism of the Pale? Stripped of its grotesque mask of forms,
+rites, and mediaeval superstitions, the religion of these fanatics was
+simply the belief that God was, had been, and ever would be, and that
+they, the children of Jacob, were His chosen messengers to carry His
+Law to all the nations. Beneath the mountainous volumes of the
+Talmudists and commentators, the Mosaic tablets remained intact. Out
+of the mazes of the Cabala the pure doctrine of ancient Judaism found
+its way to the hearts of the faithful. Sects and schools might rise
+and fall, deafening the ears of the simple with the clamor of their
+disputes, still the Jew, retiring within his own soul, heard the
+voice of the God of Abraham. Prophets, messiahs, miracle workers
+might have their day, still the Jew was conscious that between
+himself and God no go-between was needed; that he, as well as every
+one of his million brothers, had his portion of God's work to do. And
+this close relation to God was the source of the strength that
+sustained the Jew through all the trials of his life in the Pale.
+Consciously or unconsciously, the Jew identified himself with the
+cause of righteousness on earth; and hence the heroism with which he
+met the battalions of tyrants.
+
+No empty forms could have impressed the unborn children of the Pale so
+deeply that they were prepared for willing martyrdom almost as soon as
+they were weaned from their mother's breast. The flame of the burning
+bush that had dazzled Moses still lighted the gloomy prison of the
+Pale. Behind the mummeries, ceremonials, and symbolic accessories, the
+object of the Jew's adoration was the face of God.
+
+This has been many times proved by those who escaped from the Pale,
+and, excited by sudden freedom, thought to rid themselves, by one
+impatient effort, of every strand of their ancient bonds. Eager to be
+merged in the better world in which they found themselves, the escaped
+prisoners determined on a change of mind, a change of heart, a change
+of manner. They rejoiced in their transformation, thinking that every
+mark of their former slavery was obliterated. And then, one day,
+caught in the vise of some crucial test, the Jew fixed his alarmed
+gaze on his inmost soul, and found there the image of his father's
+God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Merrily played the fiddlers at the wedding of my father, who was the
+grandson of Israel Kimanyer of sainted memory. The most pious men in
+Polotzk danced the night through, their earlocks dangling, the tails
+of their long coats flying in a pious ecstasy. Beggars swarmed among
+the bidden guests, sure of an easy harvest where so many hearts were
+melted by piety. The wedding jester excelled himself in apt allusions
+to the friends and relatives who brought up their wedding presents at
+his merry invitation. The sixteen-year-old bride, suffocated beneath
+her heavy veil, blushed unseen at the numerous healths drunk to her
+future sons and daughters. The whole town was a-flutter with joy,
+because the pious scion of a godly race had found a pious wife, and a
+young branch of the tree of Judah was about to bear fruit.
+
+When I came to lie on my mother's breast, she sang me lullabies on
+lofty themes. I heard the names of Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah as early
+as the names of father, mother, and nurse. My baby soul was enthralled
+by sad and noble cadences, as my mother sang of my ancient home in
+Palestine, or mourned over the desolation of Zion. With the first
+rattle that was placed in my hand a prayer was pronounced over me, a
+petition that a pious man might take me to wife, and a messiah be
+among my sons.
+
+I was fed on dreams, instructed by means of prophecies, trained to
+hear and see mystical things that callous senses could not perceive. I
+was taught to call myself a princess, in memory of my forefathers who
+had ruled a nation. Though I went in the disguise of an outcast, I
+felt a halo resting on my brow. Sat upon by brutal enemies, unjustly
+hated, annihilated a hundred times, I yet arose and held my head high,
+sure that I should find my kingdom in the end, although I had lost my
+way in exile; for He who had brought my ancestors safe through a
+thousand perils was guiding my feet as well. God needed me and I
+needed Him, for we two together had a work to do, according to an
+ancient covenant between Him and my forefathers.
+
+This is the dream to which I was heir, in common with every sad-eyed
+child of the Pale. This is the living seed which I found among my
+heirlooms, when I learned how to strip from them the prickly husk in
+which they were passed down to me. And what is the fruit of such seed
+as that, and whither lead such dreams? If it is mine to give the
+answer, let my words be true and brave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BOTH THEIR HOUSES
+
+
+Among the mediaeval customs which were preserved in the Pale when the
+rest of the world had long forgotten them was the use of popular
+sobriquets in place of surnames proper. Family names existed only in
+official documents, such as passports. For the most part people were
+known by nicknames, prosaic or picturesque, derived from their
+occupations, their physical peculiarities, or distinctive
+achievements. Among my neighbors in Polotzk were Yankel the Wig-maker,
+Mulye the Blind, Moshe the Six-fingered; and members of their
+respective families were referred to by these nicknames: as, for
+example, "Mirele, niece of Moshe the Six-fingered."
+
+Let me spread out my family tree, raise aloft my coat-of-arms, and see
+what heroes have left a mark by which I may be distinguished. Let me
+hunt for my name in the chronicles of the Pale.
+
+In the village of Yuchovitch, about sixty versts above Polotzk, the
+oldest inhabitant still remembered my father's great-grandfather when
+my father was a boy. Lebe the Innkeeper he was called, and no reproach
+was coupled with the name. His son Hayyim succeeded to the business,
+but later he took up the glazier's trade, and developed a knack for
+all sorts of tinkering, whereby he was able to increase his too scanty
+earnings.
+
+Hayyim the Glazier is reputed to have been a man of fine countenance,
+wise in homely counsel, honest in all his dealings. Rachel Leah, his
+wife, had a reputation for practical wisdom even greater than his. She
+was the advice giver of the village in every perplexity of life. My
+father remembers his grandmother as a tall, trim, handsome old woman,
+active and independent. Satin headbands and lace-trimmed bonnets not
+having been invented in her day, Rachel Leah wore the stately knupf or
+turban on her shaven head. On Sabbaths and holidays she went to the
+synagogue with a long, straight mantle hanging from neck to ankle; and
+she wore it with an air, on one sleeve only, the other dangling empty
+from her shoulder.
+
+Hayyim begat Joseph, and Joseph begat Pinchus, my father. It behooves
+me to consider the stuff I sprang from.
+
+Joseph inherited the trade, good name, and meagre portion of his
+father, and maintained the family tradition of honesty and poverty
+unbroken to the day of his death. For that matter, Yuchovitch never
+heard of any connection of the family, not even a doubtful cousin, who
+was not steeped to the earlocks in poverty. But that was no
+distinction in Yuchovitch; the whole village was poor almost to
+beggary.
+
+Joseph was an indifferent workman, an indifferent scholar, and an
+indifferent hasid. At one thing only he was strikingly good, and that
+was at grumbling. Although not unkind, he had a temper that boiled
+over at small provocation, and even in his most placid mood he took
+very little satisfaction in the world. He reversed the proverb,
+looking for the sable lining of every silver cloud. In the conditions
+of his life he found plenty of food for his pessimism, and merry
+hearts were very rare among his neighbors. Still a certain amount of
+gloom appears to have been inherent in the man. And as he distrusted
+the whole world, so Joseph distrusted himself, which made him shy and
+awkward in company. My mother tells how, at the wedding of his only
+son, my father, Joseph sat the whole night through in a corner, never
+as much as cracking a smile, while the wedding guests danced, laughed,
+and rejoiced.
+
+It may have been through distrust of the marital state that Joseph
+remained single till the advanced age of twenty-five. Then he took
+unto himself an orphan girl as poor as he, namely, Rachel, the
+daughter of Israel Kimanyer of pious memory.
+
+My grandmother was such a gentle, cheerful soul, when I knew her, that
+I imagine she must have been a merry bride. I should think my
+grandfather would have taken great satisfaction in her society, as her
+attempts to show him the world through rose-hued spectacles would have
+given him frequent opportunity to parade his grievances and recite his
+wrongs. But from all reports it appears that he was never satisfied,
+and if he did not make his wife unhappy it was because he was away
+from home so much. He was absent the greater part of the time; for a
+glazier, even if he were a better workman than my grandfather, could
+not make a living in Yuchovitch. He became a country peddler, trading
+between Polotzk and Yuchovitch, and taking in all the desolate little
+hamlets scattered along that route. Fifteen rubles' worth of goods was
+a big bill to carry out of Polotzk. The stock consisted of cheap
+pottery, tobacco, matches, boot grease, and axle grease. These he
+bartered for country produce, including grains in small quantity,
+bristles, rags, and bones. Money was seldom handled in these
+transactions.
+
+A rough enough life my grandfather led, on the road at all seasons, in
+all weathers, knocking about at smoky little inns, glad sometimes of
+the hospitality of some peasant's hut, where the pigs slept with the
+family. He was doing well if he got home for the holidays with a
+little white flour for a cake, and money enough to take his best coat
+out of pawn. The best coat, and the candlesticks, too, would be
+repawned promptly on the first workday; for it was not for the like of
+Joseph of Yuchovitch to live with idle riches around him.
+
+For the credit of Yuchovitch it must be recorded that my grandfather
+never had to stay away from the synagogue for want of his one decent
+coat to wear. His neighbor Isaac, the village money lender, never
+refused to give up the pledged articles on a Sabbath eve, even if the
+money due was not forthcoming. Many Sabbath coats besides my
+grandfather's, and many candlesticks besides my grandmother's, passed
+most of their existence under Isaac's roof, waiting to be redeemed.
+But on the eve of Sabbath or holiday Isaac delivered them to their
+respective owners, came they empty-handed or otherwise; and at the
+expiration of the festival the grateful owners brought them promptly
+back, for another season of retirement.
+
+While my grandfather was on the road, my grandmother conducted her
+humble household in a capable, housewifely way. Of her six children,
+three died young, leaving two daughters and an only son, my father. My
+grandmother fed and dressed her children the best she could, and
+taught them to thank God for what they had not as well as for what
+they had. Piety was about the only positive doctrine she attempted to
+drill them in, leaving the rest of their education to life and the
+rebbe.
+
+Promptly when custom prescribed, Pinchus, the petted only son, was
+sent to heder. My grandfather being on the road at the time, my
+grandmother herself carried the boy in her arms, as was usual on the
+first day. My father distinctly remembers that she wept on the way to
+the heder; partly, I suppose, from joy at starting her son on a holy
+life, and partly from sadness at being too poor to set forth the wine
+and honey-cake proper to the occasion. For Grandma Rachel, schooled
+though she was to pious contentment, probably had her moments of human
+pettiness like the rest of us.
+
+My father distinguished himself for scholarship from the first. Five
+years old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a _yeshibah
+bahur_--a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use
+the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the
+dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and carried his fame
+to Polotzk.
+
+My grandmother's cup of pious joy was overfilled. Everything her boy
+did was pleasant in her sight, for Pinchus was going to be a scholar,
+a godly man, a credit to the memory of his renowned grandfather,
+Israel Kimanyer. She let nothing interfere with his schooling. When
+times were bad, and her husband came home with his goods unsold, she
+borrowed and begged, till the rebbe's fee was produced. If bad luck
+continued, she pleaded with the rebbe for time. She pawned not only
+the candlesticks, but her shawl and Sabbath cap as well, to secure the
+scant rations that gave the young scholar strength to study. More than
+once in the bitter winter, as my father remembers, she carried him to
+heder on her back, because he had no shoes; she herself walking
+almost barefoot in the cruel snow. No sacrifice was too great for her
+in the pious cause of her boy's education. And when there was no rebbe
+in Yuchovitch learned enough to guide him in the advanced studies, my
+father was sent to Polotzk, where he lived with his poor relations,
+who were not too poor to help support a future rebbe or rav. In
+Polotzk he continued to distinguish himself for scholarship, till
+people began to prophesy that he would live to be famous; and
+everybody who remembered Israel Kimanyer regarded the promising
+grandson with double respect.
+
+At the age of fifteen my father was qualified to teach beginners in
+Hebrew, and he was engaged as instructor in two families living six
+versts apart in the country. The boy tutor had to make himself useful,
+after lesson hours, by caring for the horse, hauling water from the
+frozen pond, and lending a hand at everything. When the little sister
+of one of his pupils died, in the middle of the winter, it fell to my
+father's lot to take the body to the nearest Jewish cemetery, through
+miles of desolate country, no living soul accompanying him.
+
+After one term of this, he tried to go on with his own studies,
+sometimes in Yuchovitch, sometimes in Polotzk, as opportunity
+dictated. He made the journey to Polotzk beside his father, jogging
+along in the springless wagon on the rutty roads. He took a boy's
+pleasure in the gypsy life, the green wood, and the summer storm;
+while his father sat moody beside him, seeing nothing but the spavins
+on the horse's hocks, and the mud in the road ahead.
+
+There is little else to tell of my father's boyhood, as most of his
+time was spent in the schoolroom. Outside the schoolroom he was
+conspicuous for high spirits in play, daring in mischief, and
+independence in everything. But a boy's playtime was so short in
+Yuchovitch, and his resources so limited, that even a lad of spirit
+came to the edge of his premature manhood without a regret for his
+nipped youth. So my father, at the age of sixteen and a half, lent a
+willing ear to the cooing voice of the marriage broker.
+
+Indeed, it was high time for him to marry. His parents had kept him so
+far, but they had two daughters to marry off, and not a groschen laid
+by for their dowries. The cost of my father's schooling, as he
+advanced, had mounted to seventeen rubles a term, and the poor rebbe
+was seldom paid in full. Of course my father's scholarship was his
+fortune--in time it would be his support; but in the meanwhile the
+burden of feeding and clothing him lay heavy on his parents'
+shoulders. The time had come to find him a well-to-do father-in-law,
+who should support him and his wife and children, while he continued
+to study in the seminary.
+
+After the usual conferences between parents and marriage brokers, my
+father was betrothed to an undertaker's daughter in Polotzk. The girl
+was too old,--every day of twenty years,--but three hundred rubles in
+dowry, with board after marriage, not to mention handsome presents to
+the bridegroom, easily offset the bride's age. My father's family, to
+the humblest cousin, felt themselves set up by the match he had made;
+and the boy was happy enough, displaying a watch and chain for the
+first time in his life, and a good coat on week days. As for his
+fiancee, he could have no objection to her, as he had seen her only at
+a distance, and had never spoken to her.
+
+When it was time for the wedding preparations to begin, news came to
+Yuchovitch of the death of the bride-elect, and my father's prospects
+seemed fallen to the ground. But the undertaker had another daughter,
+girl of thirteen, and he pressed my father to take her in her sister's
+place. At the same time the marriage broker proposed another match;
+and my father's poor cousins bristled with importance once more.
+
+Somehow or other my father succeeded in getting in a word at the
+family councils that ensued; he even had the temerity to express a
+strong preference. He did not want any more of the undertaker's
+daughters; he wanted to consider the rival match. There were no
+serious objections from the cousins, and my father became engaged to
+my mother.
+
+This second choice was Hannah Hayye, only daughter of Raphael, called
+the Russian. She had had a very different bringing-up from Pinchus,
+the grandson of Israel Kimanyer. She had never known a day of want;
+had never gone barefoot from necessity. The family had a solid
+position in Polotzk, her father being the owner of a comfortable home
+and a good business.
+
+Prosperity is prosaic, so I shall skip briefly over the history of my
+mother's house.
+
+My grandfather Raphael, early left an orphan, was brought up by an
+elder brother, in a village at no great distance from Polotzk. The
+brother dutifully sent him to heder, and at an early age betrothed him
+to Deborah, daughter of one Solomon, a dealer in grain and cattle.
+Deborah was not yet in her teens at the time of the betrothal, and so
+foolish was she that she was afraid of her affianced husband. One day,
+when she was coming from the store with a bottle of liquid yeast, she
+suddenly came face to face with her betrothed, which gave her such a
+fright that she dropped the bottle, spilling the yeast on her pretty
+dress; and she ran home crying all the way. At thirteen she was
+married, which had a good effect on her deportment. I hear no more of
+her running away from her husband.
+
+Among the interesting things belonging to my grandmother, besides her
+dowry, at the time of the marriage, was her family. Her father was so
+original that he kept a tutor for his daughters--sons he had none--and
+allowed them to be instructed in the rudiments of three or four
+languages and the elements of arithmetic. Even more unconventional was
+her sister Hode. She had married a fiddler, who travelled constantly,
+playing at hotels and inns, all through "far Russia." Having no
+children, she ought to have spent her days in fasting and praying and
+lamenting. Instead of this, she accompanied her husband on his
+travels, and even had a heart to enjoy the excitement and variety of
+their restless life. I should be the last to blame my great-aunt, for
+the irregularity of her conduct afforded my grandfather the opening
+for his career, the fruits of which made my childhood so pleasant. For
+several years my grandfather travelled in Hode's train, in the
+capacity of shohat providing kosher meat for the little troup in the
+unholy wilds of "far Russia"; and the grateful couple rewarded him so
+generously that he soon had a fortune of eighty rubles laid by.
+
+My grandfather thought the time had now come to settle down, but he
+did not know how to invest his wealth. To resolve his perplexity, he
+made a pilgrimage to the Rebbe of Kopistch, who advised him to open a
+store in Polotzk, and gave him a blessed groschen to keep in the money
+drawer for good luck.
+
+The blessing of the "good Jew" proved fruitful. My grandfather's
+business prospered, and my grandmother bore him children, several sons
+and one daughter. The sons were sent to heder, like all respectable
+boys; and they were taught, in addition, writing and arithmetic,
+enough for conducting a business. With this my grandfather was
+content; more than this he considered incompatible with piety. He was
+one of those who strenuously opposed the influence of the public
+school, and bribed the government officials to keep their children's
+names off the register of schoolboys, as we have already seen. When he
+sent his sons to a private tutor, where they could study Russian with
+their hats on, he felt, no doubt, that he was giving them all the
+education necessary to a successful business career, without violating
+piety too grossly.
+
+If reading and writing were enough for the sons, even less would
+suffice the daughter. A female teacher was engaged for my mother, at
+three kopecks a week, to teach her the Hebrew prayers; and my
+grandmother, herself a better scholar than the teacher, taught her
+writing in addition. My mother was quick to learn, and expressed an
+ambition to study Russian. She teased and coaxed, and her mother
+pleaded for her, till my grandfather was persuaded to send her to a
+tutor. But the fates were opposed to my mother's education. On the
+first day at school, a sudden inflammation of the eyes blinded my
+mother temporarily, and although the distemper vanished as suddenly as
+it had appeared, it was taken as an omen, and my mother was not
+allowed to return to her lessons.
+
+Still she did not give up. She saved up every groschen that was given
+her to buy sweets, and bribed her brother Solomon, who was proud of
+his scholarship, to give her lessons in secret. The two strove
+earnestly with book and quill, in their hiding-place under the
+rafters, till my mother could read and write Russian, and translate a
+simple passage of Hebrew.
+
+My grandmother, although herself a good housewife, took no pains to
+teach her only daughter the domestic arts. She only petted and coddled
+her and sent her out to play. But my mother was as ambitious about
+housework as about books. She coaxed the housemaid to let her mix the
+bread. She learned knitting from watching her playmates. She was
+healthy and active, quick at everything, and restless with unspent
+energy. Therefore she was quite willing, at the age of ten, to go into
+her father's business as his chief assistant.
+
+As the years went by she developed a decided talent for business, so
+that her father could safely leave all his affairs in her hands if he
+had to go out of town. Her devotion, ability, and tireless energy made
+her, in time, indispensable. My grandfather was obliged to admit that
+the little learning she had stolen was turned to good account, when he
+saw how well she could keep his books, and how smoothly she got along
+with Russian and Polish customers. Perhaps that was the argument that
+induced him, after obstinate years, to remove his veto from my
+mother's petitions and let her take up lessons again. For while piety
+was my grandfather's chief concern on the godly side, on the worldly
+side he set success in business above everything.
+
+My mother was fifteen years old when she entered on a career of higher
+education. For two hours daily she was released from the store, and in
+that interval she strove with might and main to conquer the world
+of knowledge. Katrina Petrovna, her teacher, praised and encouraged
+her; and there was no reason why the promising pupil should not have
+developed into a young lady of culture, with Madame teaching Russian,
+German, crocheting, and singing--yes, out of a book, to the
+accompaniment of a clavier--all for a fee of seventy-five kopecks a
+week.
+
+    [Illustration: THE WOOD MARKET, POLOTZK]
+
+Did I say there was no reason? And what about the marriage broker?
+Hannah Hayye, the only daughter of Raphael the Russian, going on
+sixteen, buxom, bright, capable, and well educated, could not escape
+the eye of the shadchan. A fine thing it would be to let such a likely
+girl grow old over a book! To the canopy with her, while she could
+fetch the highest price in the marriage market!
+
+My mother was very unwilling to think of marriage at this time. She
+had nothing to gain by marriage, for already she had everything that
+she desired, especially since she was permitted to study. While her
+father was rather stern, her mother spoiled and petted her; and she
+was the idol of her aunt Hode, the fiddler's wife.
+
+Hode had bought a fine estate in Polotzk, after my grandfather settled
+there, and made it her home whenever she became tired of travelling.
+She lived in state, with many servants and dependents, wearing silk
+dresses on week days, and setting silver plate before the meanest
+guest. The women of Polotzk were breathless over her wardrobe,
+counting up how many pairs of embroidered boots she had, at fifteen
+rubles a pair. And Hode's manners were as much a subject of gossip as
+her clothes, for she had picked up strange ways in her travels
+Although she was so pious that she was never tempted to eat trefah, no
+matter if she had to go hungry, her conduct in other respects was not
+strictly orthodox. For one thing, she was in the habit of shaking
+hands with men, looking them straight in the face. She spoke Russian
+like a Gentile, she kept a poodle, and she had no children.
+
+Nobody meant to blame the rich woman for being childless, because it
+was well known in Polotzk that Hode the Russian, as she was called,
+would have given all her wealth for one scrawny baby. But she was to
+blame for voluntarily exiling herself from Jewish society for years at
+a time, to live among pork-eaters, and copy the bold ways of Gentile
+women. And so while they pitied her childlessness, the women of
+Polotzk regarded her misfortune as perhaps no more than a due
+punishment.
+
+Hode, poor woman, felt a hungry heart beneath her satin robes. She
+wanted to adopt one of my grandmother's children, but my grandmother
+would not hear of it. Hode was particularly taken with my mother, and
+my grandmother, in compassion, loaned her the child for days at a
+time; and those were happy days for both aunt and niece. Hode would
+treat my mother to every delicacy in her sumptuous pantry, tell her
+wonderful tales of life in distant parts, show her all her beautiful
+dresses and jewels, and load her with presents.
+
+As my mother developed into girlhood, her aunt grew more and more
+covetous of her. Following a secret plan, she adopted a boy from the
+poorhouse, and brought him up with every advantage that money could
+buy. My mother, on her visits, was thrown a great deal into this boy's
+society, but she liked him less than the poodle. This grieved her
+aunt, who cherished in her heart the hope that my mother would marry
+her adopted son, and so become her daughter after all. And in order
+to accustom her to think well of the match, Hode dinned the boy's name
+in my mother's ears day and night, praising him and showing him off.
+She would open her jewel boxes and take out the flashing diamonds,
+heavy chains, and tinkling bracelets, dress my mother in them in front
+of the mirror, telling her that they would all be hers--all her
+own--when she became the bride of Mulke.
+
+My mother still describes the necklace of pearls and diamonds which
+her aunt used to clasp around her plump throat, with a light in her
+eyes that is reminiscent of girlish pleasure. But to all her aunt's
+teasing references to the future, my mother answered with a giggle and
+a shake of her black curls, and went on enjoying herself, thinking
+that the day of judgment was very, very far away. But it swooped down
+on her sooner than she expected--the momentous hour when she must
+choose between the pearl necklace with Mulke and a penniless stranger
+from Yuchovitch who was reputed to be a fine scholar.
+
+Mulke she would not have even if all the pearls in the ocean came with
+him. The boy was stupid and unteachable, and of unspeakable origin.
+Picked up from the dirty floor of the poorhouse, his father was
+identified as the lazy porter who sometimes chopped a cord of wood for
+my grandmother; and his sisters were slovenly housemaids scattered
+through Polotzk. No, Mulke was not to be considered. But why consider
+anybody? Why think of a _hossen_ at all, when she was so content? My
+mother ran away every time the shadchan came, and she begged to be
+left as she was, and cried, and invoked her mother's support. But her
+mother, for the first time in her history, refused to take the
+daughter's part. She joined the enemy--the family and the
+shadchan--and my mother saw that she was doomed.
+
+Of course she submitted. What else could a dutiful daughter do, in
+Polotzk? She submitted to being weighed, measured, and appraised
+before her face, and resigned herself to what was to come.
+
+When that which was to come did come, she did not recognize it. She
+was all alone in the store one day, when a beardless young man, in top
+boots that wanted grease, and a coat too thin for the weather, came in
+for a package of cigarettes. My mother climbed up on the counter, with
+one foot on a shelf, to reach down the cigarettes. The customer gave
+her the right change, and went out. And my mother never suspected that
+that was the proposed hossen, who came to look her over and see if she
+was likely to last. For my father considered himself a man of
+experience now, this being his second match, and he was determined to
+have a hand in this affair himself.
+
+No sooner was the hossen out of the store than his mother, also
+unknown to the innocent storekeeper, came in for a pound of tallow
+candles. She offered a torn bill in payment, and my mother accepted it
+and gave change; showing that she was wise enough in money matters to
+know that a torn bill was good currency.
+
+After the woman there shuffled in a poor man evidently from the
+country, who, in a shy and yet challenging manner, asked for a package
+of cheap tobacco. My mother produced the goods with her usual
+dispatch, gave the correct change, and stood at attention for more
+trade.
+
+Parents and son held a council around the corner, the object of their
+espionage never dreaming that she had been put to a triple test and
+not found wanting. But in the evening of the same day she was
+enlightened. She was summoned to her elder brother's house, for a
+conference on the subject of the proposed match, and there she found
+the young man who had bought the cigarettes. For my mother's family,
+if they forced her to marry, were willing to make her path easier by
+letting her meet the hossen, convinced that she must be won over by
+his good looks and learned conversation.
+
+It does not really matter how my mother felt, as she sat, with a
+protecting niece in her lap, at one end of a long table, with the
+hossen fidgeting at the other end. The marriage contract would be
+written anyway, no matter what she thought of the hossen. And the
+contract was duly written, in the presence of the assembled families
+of both parties, after plenty of open discussion, in which everybody
+except the prospective bride and groom had a voice.
+
+One voice in particular broke repeatedly into the consultations of the
+parents and the shadchan, and that was the voice of Henne Roesel, one
+of my father's numerous poor cousins. Henne Roesel was not unknown to
+my mother. She often came to the store, to beg, under pretence of
+borrowing, a little flour or sugar or a stick of cinnamon. On the
+occasion of the betrothal she had arrived late, dressed in
+indescribable odds and ends, with an artificial red flower stuck into
+her frowzy wig. She pushed and elbowed her way to the middle of the
+table, where the shadchan sat ready with paper and ink to take down
+the articles of the contract. On every point she had some comment to
+make, till a dispute arose over a note which my grandfather offered as
+part of the dowry, the hossen's people insisting on cash. No one
+insisted so loudly as the cousin with the red flower in her wig; and
+when the other cousins seemed about to weaken and accept the note,
+Red-Flower stood up and exhorted them to be firm, lest their flesh and
+blood be cheated under their noses. The meddlesome cousin was silenced
+at last, the contract was signed, the happiness of the engaged couple
+was pledged in wine, the guests dispersed. And all this while my
+mother had not opened her mouth, and my father had scarcely been
+heard.
+
+That is the way my fate was sealed. It gives me a shudder of wonder to
+think what a narrow escape I had; I came so near not being born at
+all. If the beggarly cousin with the frowzy wig had prevailed upon her
+family and broken off the match, then my mother would not have married
+my father, and I should at this moment be an unborn possibility in a
+philosopher's brain. It is right that I should pick my words most
+carefully, and meditate over every comma, because I am describing
+miracles too great for careless utterance. If I had died after my
+first breath, my history would still be worth recording. For before I
+could lie on my mother's breast, the earth had to be prepared, and the
+stars had to take their places; a million races had to die, testing
+the laws of life; and a boy and girl had to be bound for life to watch
+together for my coming. I was millions of years on the way, and I came
+through the seas of chance, over the fiery mountain of law, by the
+zigzag path of human possibility. Multitudes were pushed back into the
+abyss of non-existence, that I should have way to creep into being.
+And at the last, when I stood at the gate of life, a weazen-faced
+fishwife, who had not wit enough to support herself, came near
+shutting me out.
+
+Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand deaths before
+we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own world, if we
+choose. Since I have stood on my own feet, I have never met my master.
+For every time I choose a friend I determine my fate anew. I can think
+of no cataclysm that could have the force to move me from my path.
+Fire or flood or the envy of men may tear the roof off my house, but
+my soul would still be at home under the lofty mountain pines that dip
+their heads in star dust. Even life, that was so difficult to attain,
+may serve me merely as a wayside inn, if I choose to go on eternally.
+However I came here, it is mine to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DAILY BREAD
+
+
+My mother ought to have been happy in her engagement. Everybody
+congratulated her on securing such a scholar, her parents loaded her
+with presents, and her friends envied her. It is true that the
+hossen's family consisted entirely of poor relations; there was not
+one solid householder among them. From the worldly point of view my
+mother made a mesalliance. But as one of my aunts put it, when my
+mother objected to the association with the undesirable cousins, she
+could take out the cow and set fire to the barn; meaning that she
+could rejoice in the hossen and disregard his family.
+
+The hossen, on his part, had reason to rejoice, without any
+reservations. He was going into a highly respectable family, with a
+name supported by property and business standing. The promised dowry
+was considerable, the presents were generous, the trousseau would be
+liberal, and the bride was fair and capable. The bridegroom would have
+years before him in which he need do nothing but eat free board, wear
+his new clothes, and study Torah; and his poor relations could hold up
+their heads at the market stalls, and in the rear pews in the
+synagogue.
+
+My mother's trousseau was all that a mother-in-law could wish. The
+best tailor in Polotzk was engaged to make the cloaks and gowns, and
+his shop was filled to bursting with ample lengths of velvet and satin
+and silk. The wedding gown alone cost every kopeck of fifty rubles,
+as the tailor's wife reported all over Polotzk. The lingerie was of
+the best, and the seamstress was engaged on it for many weeks.
+Featherbeds, linen, household goods of every sort--everything was
+provided in abundance. My mother crocheted many yards of lace to trim
+the best sheets, and fine silk coverlets adorned the plump beds. Many
+a marriageable maiden who came to view the trousseau went home to
+prink and blush and watch for the shadchan.
+
+The wedding was memorable for gayety and splendor. The guests included
+some of the finest people in Polotzk; for while my grandfather was not
+quite at the top of the social scale, he had business connections with
+those that were, and they all turned out for the wedding of his only
+daughter, the men in silk frock coats, the women in all their jewelry.
+
+The bridegroom's aunts and cousins came in full force. Wedding
+messengers had been sent to every person who could possibly claim
+relationship with the hossen. My mother's parents were too generous to
+slight the lowliest. Instead of burning the barn, they did all they
+could to garnish it. One or two of the more important of the poor
+relations came to the wedding in gowns paid for by my rich
+grandfather. The rest came decked out in borrowed finery, or in
+undisguised shabbiness. But nobody thought of staying away--except the
+obstructive cousin who had nearly prevented the match.
+
+When it was time to conduct the bride to the wedding canopy, the
+bridegroom's mother missed Henne Roesel. The house was searched for
+her, but in vain. Nobody had seen her. But my grandmother could not
+bear to have the marriage solemnized in the absence of a first
+cousin. Such a wedding as this was not likely to be repeated in her
+family; it would be a great pity if any of the relatives missed it. So
+she petitioned the principals to delay the ceremony, while she herself
+went in search of the missing cousin.
+
+Clear over to the farthest end of the town she walked, lifting her
+gala dress well above her ankles. She found Henne Roesel in her untidy
+kitchen, sound in every limb but sulky in spirit. My grandmother
+exclaimed at her conduct, and bade her hurry with her toilet, and
+accompany her; the wedding guests were waiting; the bride was faint
+from prolonging her fast. But Henne Roesel flatly refused to go; the
+bride might remain an old maid, for all she, Henne Roesel, cared about
+the wedding. My troubled grandmother expostulated, questioned her,
+till she drew out the root of the cousin's sulkiness. Henne Roesel
+complained that she had not been properly invited. The wedding
+messenger had come,--oh, yes!--but she had not addressed her as
+flatteringly, as respectfully as she had been heard to address the
+wife of Yohem, the money-lender. And Henne Roesel wasn't going to any
+weddings where she was not wanted. My grandmother had a struggle of
+it, but she succeeded in soothing the sensitive cousin, who consented
+at length to don her best dress and go to the wedding.
+
+While my grandmother labored with Henne Roesel, the bride sat in state
+in her father's house under the hill, the maidens danced, and the
+matrons fanned themselves, while the fiddlers and _zimblers_ scraped
+and tinkled. But as the hours went by, the matrons became restless and
+the dancers wearied. The poor relations grew impatient for the feast,
+and the babies in their laps began to fidget and cry; while the bride
+grew faint, and the bridegroom's party began to send frequent
+messengers from the house next door, demanding to know the cause of
+the delay. Some of the guests at last lost all patience, and begged
+leave to go home. But before they went they deposited the wedding
+presents in the bride's satin lap, till she resembled a heathen image
+hung about with offerings.
+
+My mother, after thirty years of bustling life, retains a lively
+memory of the embarrassment she suffered while waiting for the arrival
+of the troublesome cousin. When that important dame at last appeared,
+with her chin in the air, the artificial flower still stuck
+belligerently into her dusty wig, and my grandmother beaming behind
+her, the bride's heart fairly jumped with anger, and the red blood of
+indignation set her cheeks afire. No wonder that she speaks the name
+of the Red-Flower with an unloving accent to this day, although she
+has forgiven the enemies who did her greater wrong. The bride is a
+princess on her wedding day. To put upon her an indignity is an
+unpardonable offense.
+
+After the feasting and dancing, which lasted a whole week, the wedding
+presents were locked up, the bride, with her hair discreetly covered,
+returned to her father's store, and the groom, with his new
+praying-shawl, repaired to the synagogue. This was all according to
+the marriage bargain, which implied that my father was to study and
+pray and fill the house with the spirit of piety, in return for board
+and lodging and the devotion of his wife and her entire family.
+
+All the parties concerned had entered into this bargain in good faith,
+so far as they knew their own minds. But the eighteen-year-old
+bridegroom, before many months had passed, began to realize that he
+felt no such hunger for the word of the Law as he was supposed to
+feel. He felt, rather, a hunger for life that all his studying did not
+satisfy. He was not trained enough to analyze his own thoughts to any
+purpose; he was not experienced enough to understand where his
+thoughts were leading him. He only knew that he felt no call to pray
+and fast that the Torah did not inspire him, and his days were blank.
+The life he was expected to lead grew distasteful to him, and yet he
+knew no other way to live. He became lax in his attendance at the
+synagogue, incurring the reproach of the family. It began to be
+rumored among the studious that the son-in-law of Raphael the Russian
+was not devoting himself to the sacred books with any degree of
+enthusiasm. It was well known that he had a good mind, but evidently
+the spirit was lacking. My grandparents went from surprise to
+indignation, from exhortation they passed to recrimination. Before my
+parents had been married half a year, my grandfather's house was
+divided against itself and my mother was torn between the two
+factions. For while she sympathized with her parents, and felt
+personally cheated by my father's lack of piety, she thought it was
+her duty to take her husband's part, even against her parents, in
+their own house. My mother was one of those women who always obey the
+highest law they know, even though it leads them to their doom.
+
+How did it happen that my father, who from his early boyhood had been
+pointed out as a scholar in embryo, failed to live up to the
+expectations of his world? It happened as it happened that his hair
+curled over his high forehead: he was made that way. If people were
+disappointed, it was because they had based their expectations on a
+misconception of his character, for my father had never had any
+aspirations for extreme piety. Piety was imputed to him by his mother,
+by his rebbe, by his neighbors, when they saw that he rendered the
+sacred word more intelligently than his fellow students. It was not
+his fault that his people confused scholarship with religious ardor.
+Having a good mind, he was glad to exercise it; and being given only
+one subject to study he was bound to make rapid progress in that. If
+he had ever been offered a choice between a religious and a secular
+education, his friends would have found out early that he was not born
+to be a rav. But as he had no mental opening except through the
+hedder, he went on from year to year winning new distinction in Hebrew
+scholarship; with the result that witnesses with preconceived ideas
+began to see the halo of piety playing around his head, and a
+well-to-do family was misled into making a match with him for the sake
+of the glory that he was to attain.
+
+When it became evident that the son-in-law was not going to develop
+into a rav, my grandfather notified him that he would have to assume
+the support of his own family without delay. My father therefore
+entered on a series of experiments with paying occupations, for none
+of which he was qualified, and in none of which he succeeded
+permanently.
+
+My mother was with my father, as equal partner and laborer, in
+everything he attempted in Polotzk. They tried keeping a wayside inn,
+but had to give it up because the life was too rough for my mother,
+who was expecting her first baby. Returning to Polotzk they went to
+storekeeping on their own account, but failed in this also, because my
+father was inexperienced, and my mother, now with the baby to nurse,
+was not able to give her best attention to business. Over two years
+passed in this experiment, and in the interval the second child was
+born, increasing my parents' need of a home and a reliable income.
+
+It was then decided that my father should seek his fortune elsewhere.
+He travelled as far east as Tchistopol, on the Volga, and south as far
+as Odessa, on the Black Sea, trying his luck at various occupations
+within the usual Jewish restrictions. Finally he reached the position
+of assistant superintendent in a distillery, with a salary of thirty
+rubles a month. That was a fair income for those days, and he was
+planning to have his family join him when my Grandfather Raphael died,
+leaving my mother heir to a good business. My father thereupon
+returned to Polotzk, after nearly three years' absence from home.
+
+As my mother had been trained to her business from childhood, while my
+father had had only a little irregular experience, she naturally
+remained the leader. She was as successful as her father before her.
+The people continued to call her Raphael's Hannah Hayye, and under
+that name she was greatly respected in the business world. Her eldest
+brother was now a merchant of importance, and my mother's
+establishment was gradually enlarged; so that, altogether, our family
+had a solid position in Polotzk, and there were plenty to envy us.
+
+We were almost rich, as Polotzk counted riches in those days;
+certainly we were considered well-to-do. We moved into a larger house,
+where there was room for out-of-town customers to stay overnight, with
+stabling for their horses. We lived as well as any people of our
+class, and perhaps better, because my father had brought home with
+him from his travels a taste for a more genial life than Polotzk
+usually asked for. My mother kept a cook and a nursemaid, and a
+dvornik, or outdoor man, to take care of the horses, the cow, and the
+woodpile. All the year round we kept open house, as I remember.
+Cousins and aunts were always about, and on holidays friends of all
+degrees gathered in numbers. And coming and going in the wing set
+apart for business guests were merchants, traders, country peddlers,
+peasants, soldiers, and minor government officials. It was a full
+house at all times, and especially so during fairs, and at the season
+of the military draft.
+
+In the family wing there was also enough going on. There were four of
+us children, besides father and mother and grandmother, and the
+parasitic cousins. Fetchke was the eldest; I was the second; the third
+was my only brother, named Joseph, for my father's father; and the
+fourth was Deborah, named for my mother's mother.
+
+I suppose I ought to explain my own name also, especially because I am
+going to emerge as the heroine by and by. Be it therefore known that I
+was named Maryashe, for a bygone aunt. I was never called by my full
+name, however. "Maryashe" was too dignified for me. I was always
+"Mashinke," or else "Mashke," by way of diminutive. A variety of
+nicknames, mostly suggested by my physical peculiarities, were
+bestowed on me from time to time by my fond or foolish relatives. My
+uncle Berl, for example, gave me the name of "Zukrochene Flum," which
+I am not going to translate, because it is uncomplimentary.
+
+My sister Fetchke was always the good little girl, and when our
+troubles began she was an important member of the family. What sort of
+little girl I was will be written by and by. Joseph was the best
+Jewish boy that ever was born, but he hated to go to heder, so he had
+to be whipped, of course. Deborah was just a baby, and her principal
+characteristic was single-mindedness. If she had teething to attend
+to, she thought of nothing else day or night, and communicated with
+the family on no other subject. If it was whooping-cough, she whooped
+most heartily; if it was measles, she had them thick.
+
+It was the normal thing in Polotzk, where the mothers worked as well
+as the fathers, for the children to be left in the hands of
+grandmothers and nursemaids. I suffer reminiscent terrors when I
+recall Deborah's nurse, who never opened her lips except to frighten
+us children--or else to lie. That girl never told the truth if she
+could help it. I know it is so because I heard her tell eleven or
+twelve unnecessary lies every day. In the beginning of her residence
+with us, I exposed her indignantly every time I caught her lying; but
+the tenor of her private conversations with me was conducive to a
+cessation of my activity along the line of volunteer testimony. In
+shorter words, the nurse terrified me with horrid threats until I did
+not dare to contradict her even if she lied her head off. The things
+she promised me in this life and in the life to come could not be
+executed by a person without imagination. The nurse gave almost her
+entire attention to us older children, disposing easily of the baby's
+claims. Deborah, unless she was teething or whoop-coughing, was a
+quiet baby, and would lie for hours on the nurse's lap, sucking at a
+"pacifier" made of bread and sugar tied up in a muslin rag, and
+previously chewed to a pulp by the nurse. And while the baby sucked
+the nurse told us things--things that we must remember when we went to
+bed at night.
+
+A favorite subject of her discourse was the Evil One, who lived, so
+she told us, in our attic, with his wife and brood. A pet amusement of
+our invisible tenant was the translating of human babies into his
+lair, leaving one of his own brats in the cradle; the moral of which
+was that if nurse wanted to loaf in the yard and watch who went out
+and who came in, we children must mind the baby. The girl was so sly
+that she carried on all this tyranny without being detected, and we
+lived in terror till she was discharged for stealing.
+
+In our grandmothers we were very fortunate: They spoiled us to our
+hearts' content. Grandma Deborah's methods I know only from hearsay,
+for I was very little when she died. Grandma Rachel I remember
+distinctly, spare and trim and always busy. I recall her coming in
+midwinter from the frozen village where she lived. I remember, as if
+it were but last winter, the immense shawls and wraps which we unwound
+from about her person, her voluminous brown sack coat in which there
+was room for three of us at a time, and at last the tight clasp of her
+long arms, and her fresh, cold cheeks on ours. And when the hugging
+and kissing were over, Grandma had a treat for us. It was _talakno_,
+or oat flour, which we mixed with cold water and ate raw, using wooden
+spoons, just like the peasants, and smacking our lips over it in
+imaginary enjoyment.
+
+But Grandma Rachel did not come to play. She applied herself
+energetically to the housekeeping. She kept her bright eye on
+everything, as if she were in her own trifling establishment in
+Yuchovitch. Watchful was she as any cat--and harmless as a tame
+rabbit. If she caught the maids at fault, she found an excuse for
+them at the same time. If she was quite exasperated with the stupidity
+of Yakub, the dvornik, she pretended to curse him in a phrase of her
+own invention, a mixture of Hebrew and Russian, which, translated,
+said, "Mayst thou have gold and silver in thy bosom"; but to the
+choreman, who was not a linguist, the mongrel phrase conveyed a sense
+of his delinquency.
+
+Grandma Rachel meant to be very strict with us children, and
+accordingly was prompt to discipline us; but we discovered early in
+our acquaintance with her that the child who got a spanking was sure
+to get a hot cookie or the jam pot to lick, so we did not stand in
+great awe of her punishments. Even if it came to a spanking it was
+only a farce. Grandma generally interposed a pillow between the palm
+of her hand and the area of moral stimulation.
+
+The real disciplinarian in our family was my father. Present or
+absent, it was fear of his displeasure that kept us in the straight
+and narrow path. In the minds of us children he was as much
+represented, when away from home, by the strap hanging on the wall as
+by his portrait which stood on a parlor table, in a gorgeous frame
+adorned with little shells. Almost everybody's father had a strap, but
+our father's strap was more formidable than the ordinary. For one
+thing, it was more painful to encounter personally, because it was not
+a simple strap, but a bunch of fine long strips, clinging as rubber.
+My father called it noodles; and while his facetiousness was lost on
+us children, the superior sting of his instrument was entirely
+effective.
+
+In his leisure, my father found means of instructing us other than by
+the strap. He took us walking and driving, answered our questions, and
+taught us many little things that our playmates were not taught.
+From distant parts of the country he had imported little tricks of
+speech and conduct, which we learned readily enough; for we were
+always a teachable lot. Our pretty manners were very much admired, so
+that we became used to being held up as models to children less
+polite. Guests at our table praised our deportment, when, at the end
+of a meal, we kissed the hands of father and mother and thanked them
+for food. Envious mothers of rowdy children used to sneer, "Those
+grandchildren of Raphael the Russian are quite the aristocrats."
+
+    [Illustration: MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT]
+
+And yet, off the stage, we had our little quarrels and tempests,
+especially I. I really and truly cannot remember a time when Fetchke
+was naughty, but I was oftener in trouble than out of it. I need not
+go into details. I only need to recall how often, on going to bed, I
+used to lie silently rehearsing the day's misdeeds, my sister
+refraining from talk out of sympathy. As I always came to the
+conclusion that I wanted to reform, I emerged from my reflections with
+this solemn formula: "Fetchke, let us be good." And my generosity in
+including my sister in my plans for salvation was equalled by her
+magnanimity in assuming part of my degradation. She always replied, in
+aspiration as eager as mine, "Yes, Mashke, let us be good."
+
+My mother had less to do than any one with our early training, because
+she was confined to the store. When she came home at night, with her
+pockets full of goodies for us, she was too hungry for our love to
+listen to tales against us, too tired from work to discipline us. It
+was only on Sabbaths and holidays that she had a chance to get
+acquainted with us, and we all looked forward to these days of
+enjoined rest.
+
+On Friday afternoons my parents came home early, to wash and dress and
+remove from their persons every sign of labor. The great keys of the
+store were put away out of sight; the money bag was hidden in the
+featherbeds. My father put on his best coat and silk skull-cap; my
+mother replaced the cotton kerchief by the well-brushed wig. We
+children bustled around our parents, asking favors in the name of the
+Sabbath--"Mama, let Fetchke and me wear our new shoes, in honor of
+Sabbath"; or "Papa, will you take us to-morrow across the bridge? You
+said you would, on Sabbath." And while we adorned ourselves in our
+best, my grandmother superintended the sealing of the oven, the maids
+washed the sweat from their faces, and the dvornik scraped his feet at
+the door.
+
+My father and brother went to the synagogue, while we women and girls
+assembled in the living-room for candle prayer. The table gleamed with
+spotless linen and china. At my father's place lay the Sabbath loaf,
+covered over with a crocheted doily; and beside it stood the wine
+flask and _kiddush_ cup of gold or silver. At the opposite end of the
+table was a long row of brass candlesticks, polished to perfection,
+with the heavy silver candlesticks in a shorter row in front; for my
+mother and grandmother were very pious, and each used a number of
+candles; while Fetchke and I and the maids had one apiece.
+
+After the candle prayer the women generally read in some book of
+devotion, while we children amused ourselves in the quietest manner,
+till the men returned from synagogue. "Good Sabbath!" my father
+called, as he entered; and "Good Sabbath! Good Sabbath!" we wished him
+in return. If he brought with him a Sabbath guest from the synagogue,
+some poor man without a home, the stranger was welcomed and invited
+in, and placed in the seat of honor, next to my father.
+
+We all stood around the table while _kiddush_, or the blessing over
+the wine, was said, and if a child whispered or nudged another my
+father reproved him with a stern look, and began again from the
+beginning. But as soon as he had cut the consecrated loaf, and
+distributed the slices, we were at liberty to talk and ask questions,
+unless a guest was present, when we maintained a polite silence.
+
+Of one Sabbath guest we were always sure, even if no destitute Jew
+accompanied my father from the synagogue. Yakub the choreman partook
+of the festival with us. He slept on a bunk built over the entrance
+door, and reached by means of a rude flight of steps. There he liked
+to roll on his straw and rags, whenever he was not busy, or felt
+especially lazy. On Friday evenings he climbed to his roost very
+early, before the family assembled for supper, and waited for his cue,
+which was the breaking-out of table talk after the blessing of the
+bread. Then Yakub began to clear his throat and kept on working at it
+until my father called to him to come down and have a glass of vodka.
+Sometimes my father pretended not to hear him, and we smiled at one
+another around the table, while Yakub's throat grew worse and worse,
+and he began to cough and mutter and rustle in his straw. Then my
+father let him come down, and he shuffled in, and stood clutching his
+cap with both hands, while my father poured him a brimming glass of
+whiskey. This Yakub dedicated to all our healths, and tossed off to
+his own comfort. If he got a slice of boiled fish after his glassful,
+he gulped it down as a chicken gulps worms, smacked his lips
+explosively, and wiped his fingers on his unkempt locks. Then,
+thanking his master and mistress, and scraping and bowing, he backed
+out of the room and ascended to his roost once more; and in less time
+than it takes to write his name, the simple fellow was asleep, and
+snoring the snore of the just.
+
+On Sabbath morning almost everybody went to synagogue, and those who
+did not, read their prayers and devotions at home. Dinner, at midday,
+was a pleasant and leisurely meal in our house. Between courses my
+father led us in singing our favorite songs, sometimes Hebrew,
+sometimes Yiddish, sometimes Russian, or some of the songs without
+words for which the Hasidim were famous. In the afternoon we went
+visiting, or else we took long walks out of town, where the fields
+sprouted and the orchards waited to bloom. If we stayed at home, we
+were not without company. Neighbors dropped in for a glass of tea.
+Uncles and cousins came, and perhaps my brother's rebbe, to examine
+his pupil in the hearing of the family. And wherever we spent the day,
+the talk was pleasant, the faces were cheerful, and the joy of Sabbath
+pervaded everything.
+
+The festivals were observed with all due pomp and circumstance in our
+house. Passover was beautiful with shining new things all through the
+house; _Purim_ was gay with feasting and presents and the jolly
+mummers; _Succoth_ was a poem lived in a green arbor; New-Year
+thrilled our hearts with its symbols and promises; and the Day of
+Atonement moved even the laughing children to a longing for
+consecration. The year, in our pious house, was an endless song in
+many cantos of joy, lamentation, aspiration, and rhapsody.
+
+We children, while we regretted the passing of a festival, found
+plenty to content us in the common days of the week. We had
+everything we needed, and almost everything we wanted. We were
+welcomed everywhere, petted and praised, abroad as well as at home. I
+suppose no little girls with whom we played had a more comfortable
+sense of being well-off than Fetchke and I. "Raphael the Russian's
+grandchildren" people called us, as if referring to the quarterings in
+our shield. It was very pleasant to wear fine clothes, to have kopecks
+to spend at the fruit stalls, and to be pointed at admiringly. Some of
+the little girls we went with were richer than we, but after all one's
+mother can wear only one pair of earrings at a time, and our mother
+had beautiful gold ones that hung down on her neck.
+
+As we grew older, my parents gave us more than physical comfort and
+social standing to rejoice in. They gave us, or set out to give us,
+education, which was less common than gold earrings in Polotzk. For
+the ideal of a modern education was the priceless ware that my father
+brought back with him from his travels in distant parts. His travels,
+indeed, had been the making of my father. He had gone away from
+Polotzk, in the first place, as a man unfit for the life he led, out
+of harmony with his surroundings, at odds with his neighbors. Never
+heartily devoted to the religious ideals of the Hebrew scholar, he was
+more and more a dissenter as he matured, but he hardly knew what he
+wanted to embrace in place of the ideals he rejected. The rigid scheme
+of orthodox Jewish life in the Pale offered no opening to any other
+mode of life. But in the large cities in the east and south he
+discovered a new world, and found himself at home in it. The Jews
+among whom he lived in those parts were faithful to the essence of the
+religion, but they allowed themselves more latitude in practice and
+observance than the people in Polotzk. Instead of bribing government
+officials to relax the law of compulsory education for boys, these
+people pushed in numbers at every open door of culture and
+enlightenment. Even the girls were given books in Odessa and Kherson,
+as the rock to build their lives on, and not as an ornament for
+idleness. My father's mind was ready for the reception of such ideas,
+and he was inspired by the new view of the world which they afforded
+him.
+
+When he returned to Polotzk he knew what had been wrong with his life
+before, and he proceeded to remedy it. He resolved to live, as far as
+the conditions of existence in Polotzk permitted, the life of a modern
+man. And he saw no better place to begin than with the education of
+the children. Outwardly he must conform to the ways of his neighbors,
+just as he must pay tribute to the policeman on the beat; for standing
+room is necessary to all operations, and social ostracism could ruin
+him as easily as police persecution. His children, if he started them
+right, would not have to bow to the yoke as low as he; his children's
+children might even be free men. And education was the one means to
+redemption.
+
+Fetchke and I were started with a rebbe, in the orthodox way, but we
+were taught to translate as well as read Hebrew, and we had a secular
+teacher besides. My sister and I were very diligent pupils, and my
+father took great satisfaction in our progress and built great plans
+for our higher education.
+
+My brother, who was five years old when he entered heder, hated to be
+shut up all day over a printed page that meant nothing to him. He
+cried and protested, but my father was determined that he should not
+grow up ignorant, so he used the strap freely to hasten the truant's
+steps to school. The heder was the only beginning allowable for a boy
+in Polotzk, and to heder Joseph must go. So the poor boy's life was
+made a nightmare, and the horror was not lifted until he was ten years
+old, when he went to a modern school where intelligible things were
+taught, and it proved that it was not the book he hated, but the
+blindness of the heder.
+
+For a number of peaceful years after my father's return from "far
+Russia," we led a wholesome life of comfort, contentment, and faith in
+to-morrow. Everything prospered, and we children grew in the sun. My
+mother was one with my father in all his plans for us. Although she
+had spent her young years in the pursuit of the ruble, it was more to
+her that our teacher praised us than that she had made a good bargain
+with a tea merchant. Fetchke and Joseph and I, and Deborah, when she
+grew up, had some prospects even in Polotzk, with our parents' hearts
+set on the highest things; but we were destined to seek our fortunes
+in a world which even my father did not dream of when he settled down
+to business in Polotzk.
+
+Just when he felt himself safe and strong, a long series of troubles
+set in to harass us, and in a few years' time we were reduced to a
+state of helpless poverty, in which there was no room to think of
+anything but bread. My father became seriously ill, and spent large
+sums on cures that did not cure him. While he was still an invalid, my
+mother also became ill and kept her bed for the better part of two
+years. When she got up, it was only to lapse again. Some of us
+children also fell ill, so that at one period the house was a
+hospital. And while my parents were incapacitated, the business was
+ruined through bad management, until a day came when there was not
+enough money in the cash drawer to pay the doctor's bills.
+
+For some years after they got upon their feet again, my parents
+struggled to regain their place in the business world, but failed to
+do so. My father had another period of experimenting with this or that
+business, like his earlier experience. But everything went wrong, till
+at last he made a great resolve to begin life all over again. And the
+way to do that was to start on a new soil. My father determined to
+emigrate to America.
+
+I have now told who I am, what my people were, how I began life, and
+why I was brought to a new home. Up to this point I have borrowed the
+recollections of my parents, to piece out my own fragmentary
+reminiscences. But from now on I propose to be my own pilot across the
+seas of memory; and if I lose myself in the mists of uncertainty, or
+run aground on the reefs of speculation, I still hope to make port at
+last, and I shall look for welcoming faces on the shore. For the ship
+I sail in is history, and facts will kindle my beacon fires.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+I REMEMBER
+
+
+My father and mother could tell me much more that I have forgotten, or
+that I never was aware of; but I want to reconstruct my childhood from
+those broken recollections only which, recurring to me in after years,
+filled me with the pain and wonder of remembrance. I want to string
+together those glimpses of my earliest days that dangle in my mind,
+like little lanterns in the crooked alleys of the past, and show me an
+elusive little figure that is myself, and yet so much a stranger to
+me, that I often ask, Can this be I?
+
+I have not much faith in the reality of my first recollection, but as
+I can never go back over the past without bringing up at last at this
+sombre little scene, as at a door beyond which I cannot pass, I must
+put it down for what it is worth in the scheme of my memories. I see,
+then, an empty, darkened room. In the middle, on the floor, lies a
+long Shape, covered with some black stuff. There are candles at the
+head of the Shape. Dim figures are seated low, against the walls,
+swaying to and fro. No sound is in the room, except a moan or a sigh
+from the shadowy figures; but a child is walking softly around and
+around the Shape on the floor, in quiet curiosity.
+
+The Shape is the body of my grandfather laid out for burial. The child
+is myself--myself asking questions of Death.
+
+I was four years old when my mother's father died. Do I really
+remember the little scene? Perhaps I heard it described by some fond
+relative, as I heard other anecdotes of my infancy, and unconsciously
+incorporated it with my genuine recollections. It is so suitable a
+scene for a beginning: the darkness, the mystery, the impenetrability.
+My share in it, too, is characteristic enough, if I really studied
+that Shape by the lighted candles, as I have always pretended to
+myself. So often afterwards I find myself forgetting the conventional
+meanings of things, in some search for a meaning of my own. It is more
+likely, however, that I took no intellectual interest in my
+grandfather's remains at the time, but later on, when I sought for a
+First Recollection, perhaps, elaborated the scene, and my part in it,
+to something that satisfied my sense of dramatic fitness. If I really
+committed such a fraud, I am now well punished, by being obliged, at
+the very start, to discredit the authenticity of my memoirs.
+
+The abode of our childhood, if not revisited in later years, is apt to
+loom in our imagination as a vast edifice with immense chambers in
+which our little self seems lost. Somehow I have failed of this
+illusion. My grandfather's house, where I was born, stands, in my
+memory, a small, one-story wooden building, whose chimneys touch the
+sky at the same level as its neighbors' chimneys. Such as it was, the
+house stood even with the sidewalk, but the yard was screened from the
+street by a board fence, outside which I am sure there was a bench.
+The gate into the yard swung so high from the ground that four-footed
+visitors did not have to wait till it was opened. Pigs found their way
+in, and were shown the way out, under the gate; grunting on their
+arrival, but squealing on their departure.
+
+   [Illustration: MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, WHERE I WAS BORN]
+
+Of the interior of the house I remember only one room, and not so much
+the room as the window, which had a blue sash curtain, and beyond the
+curtain a view of a narrow, walled garden, where deep-red dahlias
+grew. The garden belonged to the house adjoining my grandfather's,
+where lived the Gentile girl who was kind to me.
+
+Concerning my dahlias I have been told that they were not dahlias at
+all, but poppies. As a conscientious historian I am bound to record
+every rumor, but I retain the right to cling to my own impression.
+Indeed, I must insist on my dahlias, if I am to preserve the garden at
+all. I have so long believed in them, that if I try to see _poppies_
+in those red masses over the wall, the whole garden crumbles away, and
+leaves me a gray blank. I have nothing against poppies. It is only
+that my illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often
+build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling
+to pieces, if any one but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.
+
+Ours was a quiet neighborhood. Across the narrow street was the
+orderly front of the Korpus, or military academy, with straight rows
+of unshuttered windows. It was an imposing edifice in the eyes of us
+all, because it was built of brick, and was several stories high. At
+one of the windows I pretend I remember seeing a tailor mending the
+uniforms of the cadets. I knew the uniforms, and I knew, in later
+years, the man who had been the tailor; but I am not sure that he did
+not emigrate to America, there to seek his fortune in a candy shop,
+and his happiness in a family of triplets, twins, and even odds, long
+before I was old enough to toddle as far as the gate.
+
+Behind my grandfather's house was a low hill, which I do _not_
+remember as a mountain. Perhaps it was only a hump in the ground. This
+eminence, of whatever stature, was a part of the Vall, a longer and
+higher ridge on the top of which was a promenade, and which was said
+to be the burying-ground of Napoleonic soldiers. This historic rumor
+meant very little to me, for I never knew what Napoleon was.
+
+It was not my way to accept unchallenged every superstition that came
+to my ears. Among the wild flowers that grew on the grassy slopes of
+the Vall, there was a small daisy, popularly called "blind flower,"
+because it was supposed to cause blindness in rash children who picked
+it. I was rash, if I was awake; and I picked "blind flowers" behind
+the house, handfuls of them, and enjoyed my eyesight unimpaired. If my
+faith in nursery lore was shaken by this experience, I kept my
+discovery to myself, and did not undertake to enlighten my playmates.
+I find other instances, later on, of the curious fact that I was
+content with _finding out_ for myself. It is curious to me because I
+am not so reticent now. When I discover anything, if only a new tint
+in the red sunset, I must publish the fact to all my friends. Is it
+possible that in my childish reflections I recognized the fact that
+ours was a secretive atmosphere, where knowledge was for the few, and
+wisdom was sometimes a capital offence?
+
+In the summer-time I lived outdoors considerably. I found many
+occasions to visit my mother in the store, which gave me a long walk.
+If my errand was not pressing--or perhaps even if it was--I made a
+long stop on the Platz, especially if I had a companion with me. The
+Platz was a rectangular space in the centre of a roomy square, with a
+shady promenade around its level lawn. The Korpus faced on the Platz,
+which was its drill ground. Around the square were grouped the fine
+residences of the officers of the Korpus, with a great white church
+occupying one side. These buildings had a fearful interest for me,
+especially the church, as the dwellings and sanctuary of the enemy;
+but on the Platz I was not afraid to play and seek adventures. I loved
+to watch the cadets drill and play ball, or pass them close as they
+promenaded, two and two, looking so perfect in white trousers and
+jackets and visored caps. I loved to run with my playmates and lay out
+all sorts of geometric figures on the four straight sides of the
+promenade; patterns of infinite variety, traceable only by a pair of
+tireless feet. If one got so wild with play as to forget all fear, one
+could swing, until chased away by the guard, on the heavy chain
+festoons that encircled the monument at one side of the square. This
+was the only monument in Polotzk, dedicated I never knew to whom or
+what. It was the monument, as the sky was the sky, and the earth,
+earth: the only phenomenon of its kind, mysterious, unquestionable.
+
+It was not far from the limits of Polotzk to the fields and woods. My
+father was fond of taking us children for a long walk on a Sabbath
+afternoon. I have little pictures in my mind of places where we went,
+though I doubt if they could be found from my descriptions. I try in
+vain to conjure up a panoramic view of the neighborhood. Even when I
+stood on the apex of the Vall, and saw the level country spread in all
+directions, my inexperienced eyes failed to give me the picture of the
+whole. I saw the houses in the streets below, all going to market. The
+highroads wandered out into the country, and disappeared in the sunny
+distance, where the edge of the earth and the edge of the sky fitted
+together, like a jewel box with the lid ajar. In these things I saw
+what a child always sees: the unrelated fragments of a vast,
+mysterious world. But although my geography may be vague, and the
+scenes I remember as the pieces of a paper puzzle, still my breath
+catches as I replace this bit or that, and coax the edges to fit
+together. I am obstinately positive of some points, and for the rest,
+you may amend the puzzle if you can. You may make a survey of Polotzk
+ever so accurate, and show me where I was wrong; still I am the better
+guide. You may show that my adventureful road led nowhere, but I can
+prove, by the quickening of my pulse and the throbbing of my rapid
+recollections, that _things happened to me_ there or here; and I shall
+be believed, not you. And so over the vague canvas of scenes half
+remembered, half imagined, I draw the brush of recollection, and pick
+out here a landmark, there a figure, and set my own feet back in the
+old ways, and live over the old events. It is real enough, as by my
+beating heart you might know.
+
+Sometimes my father took us out by the Long Road. There is no road in
+the neighborhood of Polotzk by that name, but I know very well that
+the way was long to my little feet; and long are the backward thoughts
+that creep along it, like a sunbeam travelling with the day.
+
+The first landmark on the sunny, dusty road is the house of a peasant
+acquaintance where we stopped for rest and a drink. I remember a cool
+gray interior, a woman with her bosom uncovered pattering barefoot to
+hand us the hospitable dipper, and a baby smothered in a deep cradle
+which hung by ropes from the ceiling. Farther on, the empty road gave
+us shadows of trees and rustlings of long grass. This, at least, is
+what I imagine over the spaces where no certain object is. Then, I
+know, we ran and played, and it was father himself who hid in the
+corn, and we made havoc following after. Laughing, we ramble on, till
+we hear the long, far whistle of a locomotive. The railroad track is
+just visible over the field on the _left_ of the road; the cornfield,
+I say, is on the _right_. We stand on tiptoe and wave our hands and
+shout as the long train rushes by at a terrific speed, leaving its
+pennon of smoke behind.
+
+The passing of the train thrilled me wonderfully. Where did it come
+from, and whither did it fly, and how did it feel to be one of the
+faces at the windows? If ever I dreamed of a world beyond Polotzk, it
+must have been at those times, though I do not honestly remember.
+
+Somewhere out on that same Long Road is the place where we once
+attended a wedding. I do not know who were married, or whether they
+lived happily ever after; but I remember that when the dancers were
+wearied, and we were all sated with goodies, day was dawning, and
+several of the young people went out for a stroll in a grove near by.
+They took me with them--who were they?--and they lost me. At any rate,
+when they saw me again, I was a stranger. For I had sojourned, for an
+immeasurable moment, in a world apart from theirs. I had witnessed my
+first sunrise; I had watched the rosy morning tiptoe in among the
+silver birches. And that grove stands on the _left_ side of the road.
+
+We had another stopping-place out in that direction. It was the place
+where my mother sent her hundred and more house plants to be cared for
+one season, because for some reason they could not fare well at home.
+We children went to visit them once; and the memory of that is red and
+white and purple.
+
+The Long Road went ever on and on; I remember no turns. But we turned
+at last, when the sun was set and the breeze of evening blew; and
+sometimes the first star came in and the Sabbath went out before we
+reached home and supper.
+
+Another way out of town was by the bridge across the Polota. I recall
+more than one excursion in that direction. Sometimes we made a large
+party, annexing a few cousins and aunts for the day. At this moment I
+feel a movement of affection for these relations who shared our
+country adventures. I had forgotten what virtue there was in our
+family; I do like people who can walk. In those days, it is likely
+enough, I did not always walk on my own legs, for I was very little,
+and not strong. I do not remember being carried, but if any of my big
+uncles gave me a lift, I am sure I like them all the more for it.
+
+The Dvina River swallowed the Polota many times a day, yet the lesser
+stream flooded the universe on one occasion. On the hither bank of
+that stream, as you go from Polotzk, I should plant a flowering bush,
+a lilac or a rose, in memory of the life that bloomed in me one day
+that I was there.
+
+Leisurely we had strolled out of the peaceful town. It was early
+spring, and the sky and the earth were two warm palms in which all
+live things nestled. Little green leaves trembled on the trees, and
+the green, green grass sparkled. We sat us down to rest a little above
+the bridge; and life flowed in and out of us fully, freely, as the
+river flowed and parted about the bridge piles.
+
+A market garden lay on the opposite slope, yellow-green with first
+growth. In the long black furrows yet unsown a peasant pushed his
+plow. I watched him go up and down, leaving a new black line on the
+bank for every turn. Suddenly he began to sing, a rude plowman's song.
+Only the melody reached me, but the meaning sprang up in my heart to
+fit it--a song of the earth and the hopes of the earth. I sat a long
+time listening, looking, tense with attention. I felt myself
+discovering things. Something in me gasped for life, and lay still. I
+was but a little body, and Life Universal had suddenly burst upon me.
+For a moment I had my little hand on the Great Pulse, but my fingers
+slipped, empty. For the space of a wild heartbeat I _knew_, and then I
+was again a simple child, looking to my earthly senses for life. But
+the sky had stretched for me, the earth had expanded; a greater life
+had dawned in me.
+
+We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first and the
+spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are
+attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful.
+Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we
+ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth. Our souls
+are scarred with the struggles of successive births, and the process
+is recorded also by the wrinkles in our brains, by the lines in our
+faces. Look at me and you will see that I have been born many times.
+And my first self-birth happened, as I have told, that spring day of
+my early springs. Therefore would I plant a rose on the green bank of
+the Polota, there to bloom in token of eternal life.
+
+Eternal, divine life. This is a tale of immortal life. Should I be
+sitting here, chattering of my infantile adventures, if I did not know
+that I was speaking for thousands? Should you be sitting there,
+attending to my chatter, while the world's work waits, if you did not
+know that I spoke also for you? I might say "you" or "he" instead of
+"I." Or I might be silent, while you spoke for me and the rest, but
+for the accident that I was born with a pen in my hand, and you
+without. We love to read the lives of the great, yet what a broken
+history of mankind they give, unless supplemented by the lives of the
+humble. But while the great can speak for themselves, or by the
+tongues of their admirers, the humble are apt to live inarticulate and
+die unheard. It is well that now and then one is born among the simple
+with a taste for self-revelation. The man or woman thus endowed must
+speak, will speak, though there are only the grasses in the field to
+hear, and none but the wind to carry the tale.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is fun to run over the bridge, with a clatter of stout little shoes
+on resounding timbers. We pass a walled orchard on the right, and
+remind each other of the fruit we enjoyed here last summer. Our next
+stopping-place is farther on, beyond the wayside inn where lives the
+idiot boy who gave me such a scare last time. It is a poor enough
+place, where we stop, but there is an ice house, the only one I know.
+We are allowed to go in and see the greenish masses of ice gleaming in
+the half-light, and bring out jars of sweet, black "lager beer," which
+we drink in the sunny doorway. I shall always remember the flavor of
+the stuff, and the smell, and the wonder and chill of the ice house.
+
+I vaguely remember something about a convent out in that direction,
+but I was tired and sleepy after my long walk, and glad to be
+returning home. I hope they carried me a bit of the way, for I was
+very tired. There were stars out before we reached home, and the men
+stopped in the middle of the street to bless the new moon.
+
+It is pleasant to recall how we went bathing in the Polota. On Friday
+afternoons in summer, when the week's work was done, and the houses of
+the good housewives stood shining with cleanliness, ready for the
+Sabbath, parties of women and girls went chattering and laughing down
+to the river bank. There was a particular spot which belonged to the
+women. I do not know where the men bathed, but our part of the river
+was just above Bonderoff's gristmill. I can see the green bank sloping
+to the water, and the still water sliding down to the sudden swirl and
+spray of the mill race.
+
+The woods on the bank screened the bathers. Bathing costumes were
+simply absent, which caused the mermaids no embarrassment, for they
+were accustomed to see each other naked in the public hot baths. They
+had little fear of intrusion, for the spot was sacred to them. They
+splashed about and laughed and played tricks, with streaming hair and
+free gestures. I do not know when I saw the girls play as they did in
+the water. It was a pretty picture, but the bathers would have been
+shocked beyond your understanding if you had suggested that naked
+women might be put into a picture. If it ever happened, as it happened
+at least once for me to remember, that their privacy was outraged, the
+bathers were thrown into a panic as if their very lives were
+threatened. Screaming, they huddled together, low in the water, some
+hiding their eyes in their hands, with the instinct of the ostrich.
+Some ran for their clothes on the bank, and stood shrinking behind
+some inadequate rag. The more spirited of the naiads threw pebbles at
+the cowardly intruders, who, safe behind the leafy cover that was
+meant to shield modesty, threw jeers and mockery in return. But the
+Gentile boys ran away soon, or ran away punished. A chemise and a
+petticoat turn a frightened woman into an Amazon in such
+circumstances; and woe to the impudent wretch who lingered after the
+avengers plunged into the thicket. Slaps and cuffs at close range were
+his portion, and curses pursued him in retreat.
+
+Among the liveliest of my memories are those of eating and drinking;
+and I would sooner give up some of my delightful remembered walks,
+green trees, cool skies, and all, than to lose my images of suppers
+eaten on Sabbath evenings at the end of those walks. I make no apology
+to the spiritually minded, to whom this statement must be a revelation
+of grossness. I am content to tell the truth as well as I am able. I
+do not even need to console myself with the reflection that what is
+dross to the dreamy ascetic may be gold to the psychologist. The fact
+is that I ate, even as a delicate child, with considerable relish; and
+I remember eating with a relish still keener. Why, I can dream away a
+half-hour on the immortal flavor of those thick cheese cakes we used
+to have on Saturday night. I am no cook, so I cannot tell you how to
+make such cake. I might borrow the recipe from my mother, but I would
+rather you should take my word for the excellence of Polotzk cheese
+cakes. If you should attempt that pastry, I am certain, be you ever so
+clever a cook, you would be disappointed by the result; and hence you
+might be led to mistrust my reflections and conclusions. You have
+nothing in your kitchen cupboard to give the pastry its notable
+flavor. It takes history to make such a cake. First, you must eat it
+as a ravenous child, in memorable twilights, before the lighting of
+the week-day lamp. Then you must have yourself removed from the house
+of your simple feast, across the oceans, to a land where your
+cherished pastry is unknown even by name; and where daylight and
+twilight, work day and fete day, for years rush by you in the unbroken
+tide of a strange, new, overfull life. You must abstain from the
+inimitable morsel for a period of years,--I think fifteen is the magic
+number,--and then suddenly, one day, rub the Aladdin's lamp of memory,
+and have the renowned tidbit whisked upon your platter, garnished with
+a hundred sweet herbs of past association.
+
+Do you think all your imported spices, all your scientific blending
+and manipulating, could produce so fragrant a morsel as that which I
+have on my tongue as I write? Glad am I that my mother, in her
+assiduous imitation of everything American, has forgotten the secrets
+of Polotzk cookery. At any rate, she does not practise it, and I am
+the richer in memories for her omissions. Polotzk cheese cake, as I
+now know it, has in it the flavor of daisies and clover picked on the
+Vall; the sweetness of Dvina water; the richness of newly turned earth
+which I moulded with bare feet and hands; the ripeness of red cherries
+bought by the dipperful in the market place; the fragrance of all my
+childhood's summers.
+
+Abstinence, as I have mentioned, is one of the essential ingredients
+in the phantom dish. I discovered this through a recent experience. It
+was cherry time in the country, and the sight of the scarlet fruit
+suddenly reminded me of a cherry season in Polotzk, I could not say
+how many years ago. On that earlier occasion my Cousin Shimke, who,
+like everybody else, was a storekeeper, had set a boy to watch her
+store, and me to watch the boy, while she went home to make cherry
+preserves. She gave us a basket of cherries for our trouble, and the
+boy offered to eat them with the stones if I would give him my share.
+But I was equal to that feat myself, so we sat down to a cherry-stone
+contest. Who ate the most stones I could not remember as I stood under
+the laden trees not long ago, but the transcendent flavor of the
+historical cherries came back to me, and I needs must enjoy it once
+more.
+
+I climbed into the lowest boughs and hung there, eating cherries with
+the stones, my whole mind concentrated on the sense of taste. Alas!
+the fruit had no such flavor to yield as I sought. Excellent American
+cherries were these, but not so fragrantly sweet as my cousin's
+cherries. And if I should return to Polotzk, and buy me a measure of
+cherries at a market stall, and pay for it with a Russian groschen,
+would the market woman be generous enough to throw in that haunting
+flavor? I fear I should find that the old species of cherry is extinct
+in Polotzk.
+
+Sometimes, when I am not trying to remember at all, I am more
+fortunate in extracting the flavors of past feasts from my plain
+American viands. I was eating strawberries the other day, ripe, red
+American strawberries. Suddenly I experienced the very flavor and
+aroma of some strawberries I ate perhaps twenty years ago. I started
+as from a shock, and then sat still for I do not know how long,
+breathless with amazement. In the brief interval of a gustatory
+perception I became a child again, and I positively ached with the
+pain of being so suddenly compressed to that small being. I wandered
+about Polotzk once more, with large, questioning eyes; I rode the
+Atlantic in an emigrant ship; I took possession of the New World, my
+ears growing accustomed to a new language; I sat at the feet of
+renowned professors, till my eyes contracted in dreaming over what
+they taught; and there I was again, an American among Americans,
+suddenly made aware of all that I had been, all that I had
+become--suddenly illuminated, inspired by a complete vision of myself,
+a daughter of Israel and a child of the universe, that taught me more
+of the history of my race than ever my learned teachers could
+understand.
+
+All this came to me in that instant of tasting, all from the flavor of
+ripe strawberries on my tongue. Why, then, should I not treasure my
+memories of childhood feasts? This experience gives me a great respect
+for my bread and meat. I want to taste of as many viands as possible;
+for when I sit down to a dish of porridge I am certain of rising again
+a better animal, and I may rise a wiser man. I want to eat and drink
+and be instructed. Some day I expect to extract from my pudding the
+flavor of manna which I ate in the desert, and then I shall write you
+a contemporaneous commentary on the Exodus. Nor do I despair of
+remembering yet, over a dish of corn, the time when I fed on worms;
+and then I may be able to recall how it felt to be made at last into a
+man. Give me to eat and drink, for I crave wisdom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My winters, while I was a very little girl, were passed in comparative
+confinement. On account of my delicate health, my grandmother and
+aunts deemed it wise to keep me indoors; or if I went out, I was so
+heavily coated and mittened and shawled that the frost scarcely got a
+chance at the tip of my nose. I never skated or coasted or built snow
+houses. If I had any experience of snowballs, it was with those
+thrown at me by the Gentile boys. The way I dodge a snowball to this
+day makes me certain that I learned the act in my fearful childhood
+days, when I learned so many cowardly tricks of bending to a blow. I
+know that I was proud of myself when, not many years ago, I found I
+was not afraid to stand up and catch a flying baseball; but the fear
+of the snowball I have not conquered. When I turn a corner in snowball
+days, the boys with bulging pockets see a head held high and a step
+unquickened, but I know that I cringe inwardly; and this private
+mortification I set down against old Polotzk, in my long score of
+grievances and shames. Fear is a devil hard to cast out.
+
+Let me make the most of the winter adventures that I recall. First,
+there was sleighing. We never kept horses of our own, but the horses
+of our customer-guests were always at our disposal, and many a jolly
+ride they gave us, with the dvornik at the reins, while their owners
+haggled with my mother in the store about the price of soap. We had no
+luxurious sleigh, with cushions and fur robes, no silver bells on our
+harness. Ours was a bare sledge used for hauling wood, with a padding
+of straw and burlap, and the reins, as likely as not, were a knotted
+rope. But the horses did fly, over the river and up the opposite bank
+if we chose; and whether we had bells or not, the merry, foolish heart
+of Yakub would sing, and the whip would crack, and we children would
+laugh; and the sport was as good as when, occasionally, we did ride in
+a more splendid sleigh, loaned us by one of our prouder guests. We
+were wholesome as apples to look at when we returned for bread and tea
+in the dusk; at least I remember my sister, with cheeks as red as a
+painted doll's under her close-clipped curls; and my little brother,
+rosy, too, and aristocratic-looking enough, in his little greatcoat
+tied with a red sash, and little fur cap with earlaps. For myself, I
+suppose my nose was purple and my cheeks pinched, just as they are now
+in the cold weather; but I had a good time.
+
+At certain--I mean uncertain--intervals we were bundled up and marched
+to the public baths. This was so great an undertaking, consuming half
+a day or so, and involving, in winter, such risk of catching cold,
+that it is no wonder the ceremony was not practised oftener.
+
+The public baths were situated on the river bank. I always stopped
+awhile outside, to visit the poor patient horse in the treadmill, by
+means of which the water was pumped into the baths. I was not
+sentimental about animals then. I had not read of "Black Beauty" or
+any other personified monsters; I had not heard of any societies for
+the prevention of cruelty to anything. But my pity stirred of its own
+accord at the sight of that miserable brute in the treadmill. I was
+used to seeing horses hard-worked and abused. This horse had no load
+to make him sweat, and I never saw him whipped. Yet I pitied this
+creature. Round and round his little circle he trod, with head hanging
+and eyes void of expectation; round and round all day, unthrilled by
+any touch of rein or bridle, interpreters of a living will; round and
+round, all solitary, never driven, never checked, never addressed;
+round and round and round, a walking machine, with eyes that did not
+flash, with teeth that did not threaten, with hoofs that did not
+strike; round and round the dull day long. I knew what a horse's life
+should be, entangled with the life of a master: adventurous, troubled,
+thrilled; petted and opposed, loved and abused; to-day the ringing
+city pavement underfoot, and the buzz of beasts and men in the market
+place; to-morrow the yielding turf under tickled flanks, and the lone
+whinny of scattered mates. How empty the existence of the treadmill
+horse beside this! As empty and endless and dull as the life of almost
+any woman in Polotzk, had I had eyes to see the likeness.
+
+But to my ablutions!
+
+We undress in a room leading directly from the entry, and furnished
+only with benches around the walls. There is no screen or other
+protection against the drafts rushing in every time the door is
+opened. When we enter the bathing-room we are confused by a babel of
+sounds--shrill voices of women, hoarse voices of attendants, wailing
+and yelping of children, and rushing of water. At the same time we are
+smitten by the heat of the room and nearly suffocated by clouds of
+steam. We find at last an empty bench, and surround ourselves with a
+semicircle of wooden pails, collected from all around the room.
+Sometimes two women in search of pails lay hold of the same pail at
+the same moment, and a wrangle ensues, in the course of which each
+disputant reminds the other of all her failings, nicknames, and
+undesirable connections, living, dead, and unborn; until an attendant
+interferes, with more muscle than argument, punctuating the sentence
+of justice with newly coined expletives suggested by the occasion. The
+centre of the room, where the bathers fill their pails at the faucets,
+is a field of endless battle, especially on a crowded day. The
+peaceful women seated within earshot stop their violent scrubbing, to
+the relief of unwilling children, while they attend to the liveliest
+of the quarrels.
+
+I like to watch the _poll_, that place of torture and heroic
+endurance. It is a series of steps rising to the ceiling, affording a
+gradually mounting temperature. The bather who wants to enjoy a
+violent sweating rests full length for a few minutes on each step,
+while an attendant administers several hearty strokes of a stinging
+besom. Sometimes a woman climbs too far, and is brought down in a
+faint. On the poll, also, the cupping is done. The back of the
+patient, with the cups in even rows, looks to me like a muffin pan. Of
+course I never go on the poll: I am not robust enough. My spankings I
+take at home.
+
+Another centre of interest is the _mikweh_, the name of which it is
+indelicate to mention in the hearing of men. It is a large pool of
+standing water, its depth graded by means of a flight of steps. Every
+married woman must perform here certain ceremonious ablutions at
+regular intervals. Cleanliness is as strictly enjoined as godliness,
+and the manner of attaining it is carefully prescribed. The women are
+prepared by the attendants for entering the pool, the curious children
+looking on. In the pool they are ducked over their heads the correct
+number of times. The water in the pool has been standing for days; it
+does not look nor smell fresh. But we had no germs in Polotzk, so no
+harm came of it, any more than of the pails used promiscuously by
+feminine Polotzk. If any were so dainty as to have second thoughts
+about the use of the common bath, they could enjoy, for a fee of
+twenty-five kopecks, a private bathtub in another part of the
+building. For the rich there were luxuries even in Polotzk.
+
+Cleansed, red-skinned, and steaming, we return at last to the
+dressing-room, to shiver, as we dress, in the cold drafts from the
+entry door; and then, muffled up to the eyes, we plunge into the
+refreshing outer air, and hurry home, looking like so many big bundles
+running away with smaller bundles. If we meet acquaintances on the way
+we are greeted with "_zu refueh_" ("to your good health"). If the
+first man we meet is a Gentile, the women who have been to the mikweh
+have to return and repeat the ceremony of purification. To prevent
+such a calamity, the kerchief is worn hooded over the eyes, so as to
+exclude unholy sights. At home we are indulged with extra pieces of
+cake for tea, and otherwise treated like heroes returned from victory.
+We narrate anecdotes of our expedition, and my mother complains that
+my little brother is getting too old to be taken to the women's bath.
+He will go hereafter with the men.
+
+    [Illustration: THE MEAT MARKET, POLOTZK]
+
+My winter confinement was not shared by my older sister, who otherwise
+was my constant companion. She went out more than I, not being so
+afraid of the cold. She used to fret so when my mother was away in the
+store that it became a custom for her to accompany my mother from the
+time she was a mere baby. Muffled and rosy and frost-bitten, the tears
+of cold rolling unnoticed down her plump cheeks, she ran after my busy
+mother all day long, or tumbled about behind the counter, or nestled
+for a nap among the bulging sacks of oats and barley. She warmed her
+little hands over my mother's pot of glowing charcoal--there was no
+stove in the store--and even learned to stand astride of it, for
+further comfort, without setting her clothes on fire.
+
+Fetchke was like a young colt inseparable from the mare. I make this
+comparison not in disrespectful jest, but in deepest pity. Fetchke
+kept close to my mother at first for love and protection, but the
+petting she got became a blind for discipline. She learned early, from
+my mother's example, that hands and feet and brains were made for
+labor. She learned to bow to the yoke, to lift burdens, to do more for
+others than she could ever hope to have done for her in turn. She
+learned to see sugar plums lie around without asking for her share.
+When she was only fit to nurse her dolls, she learned how to comfort a
+weary heart.
+
+And all this while I sat warm and watched over at home, untouched by
+any discipline save such as I directly incurred by my own sins. I
+differed from Fetchke a little in age, considerably in health, and
+enormously in luck. It was my good luck, in the first place, to be
+born after her, instead of before; in the second place, to inherit,
+from the family stock, that particular assortment of gifts which was
+sure to mark me for special attentions, exemptions, and privileges;
+and as fortune always smiles on good fortune, it has ever been my
+luck, in the third place, to find something good in my idle
+hand--whether a sunbeam, or a loving heart, or a congenial
+task--whenever, on turning a corner, I put out my hand to see what my
+new world was like; while my sister, dear, devoted creature, had her
+hands so full of work that the sunbeam slipped, and the loving comrade
+passed out of hearing before she could straighten from her task, and
+all she had of the better world was a scented zephyr fanned in her
+face by the irresistible closing of a door.
+
+Perhaps Esau has been too severely blamed for selling his birthright
+for a mess of pottage. The lot of the firstborn is not necessarily to
+be envied. The firstborn of a well-to-do patriarch, like Isaac, or of
+a Rothschild of to-day, inherits, with his father's flocks and slaves
+and coffers, a troop of cares and responsibilities; unless he be a
+man without a sense of duty, in which case we are not supposed to envy
+him. The firstborn of an indigent father inherits a double measure of
+the disadvantages of poverty,--a joyless childhood, a guideless youth,
+and perhaps a mateless manhood, his own life being drained to feed the
+young of his father's begetting. If we cannot do away with poverty
+entirely, we ought at least to abolish the institution of
+primogeniture. Nature invented the individual, and promised him, as a
+reward for lusty being, comfort and immortality. Comes man with his
+patented brains and copyrighted notions, and levies a tax on the
+individual, in the form of enforced cooeperation, for the maintenance
+of his pet institution, the family. Our comfort, in the grip of this
+tyranny, must lie in the hope that man, who is no bastard child of
+Mother Nature, may be approaching a more perfect resemblance to her
+majestic features; that his fitful development will culminate in a
+spiritual constitution capable of absolute justice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I think I was telling how I stayed at home in the winter, while my
+sister helped or hindered my mother in her store-keeping. The days
+drew themselves out too long sometimes, so that I sat at the window
+thinking what should happen next. No dolls, no books, no games, and at
+times no companions. My grandmother taught me knitting, but I never
+got to the heel of my stocking, because if I discovered a dropped
+stitch I insisted on unravelling all my work till I picked it up; and
+grandmother, instead of encouraging me in my love for perfection, lost
+patience and took away my knitting needles. I still maintain that she
+was in the wrong, but I have forgiven her, since I have worn many
+pairs of stockings with dropped stitches, and been grateful for them.
+And speaking of such everyday things reminds me of my friends, among
+whom also I find an impressive number with a stitch dropped somewhere
+in the pattern of their souls. I love these friends so dearly that I
+begin to think I am at last shedding my intolerance; for I remember
+the day when I could not love less than perfection. I and my imperfect
+friends together aspire to cast our blemishes, and I am happier so.
+
+There was not much to see from my window, yet adventures beckoned to
+me from the empty street. Sometimes the adventure was real, and I went
+out to act in it, instead of dreaming on my stool. Once, I remember,
+it was early spring, and the winter's ice, just chopped up by the
+street cleaners, lay muddy and ragged and high in the streets from
+curb to curb. So it must lie till there was time to cart it to the
+Dvina, which had all it could do at this season to carry tons, and
+heavy tons, of ice and snow and every sort of city rubbish,
+accumulated during the long closed months. Polotzk had no underground
+communication with the sea, save such as water naturally makes for
+itself. The poor old Dvina was hard-worked, serving both as
+drinking-fountain and sewer, as a bridge in winter, a highway in
+summer, and a playground at all times. So it served us right if we had
+to wait weeks and weeks in thawing time for our streets to be cleared;
+and we deserved all the sprains and bruises we suffered from
+clambering over the broken ice in the streets while going about our
+business.
+
+Leah the Short, little and straight and neat, with a basket on one arm
+and a bundle under the other, stood hesitating on the edge of the curb
+opposite my window. Her poor old face, framed in its calico kerchief,
+had a wrinkle of anxiety in it. The tumbled ice heap in the street
+looked to her like an impassable barrier. Tiny as she was, and loaded,
+she had reason to hesitate. Perhaps she had eggs in her basket,--I
+thought of that as I looked at her across the street; and I thought of
+my old ambition to measure myself, shoulder to shoulder, with Leah,
+reputedly short. I was small myself, and was constantly reminded of it
+by a variety of nicknames, lovingly or vengefully invented by my
+friends and enemies. I was called Mouse and Crumb and Poppy Seed.
+Should I live to be called, in my old age, Mashke the Short? I longed
+to measure my stature by Leah's, and here was my chance.
+
+I ran out into the street, my grandmother scolding me for going
+without a shawl, and I calling back to her to be sure and watch me. I
+skipped over the ice blocks like a goat, and offered my assistance to
+Leah the Short. With admirable skill and solicitude I guided her timid
+steps across the street, at the same time winking to my grandmother at
+the window, and pointing to my shoulder close to Leah's. Once on the
+safe sidewalk, the tiny woman thanked me and blessed me and praised me
+for a thoughtful child; and I watched her toddle away without the
+least stir of shame at my hypocrisy. She had convinced me that I was a
+good little girl, and I had convinced myself that I was not so very
+short. My chin was almost on a level with Leah's shoulder, and I had
+years ahead in which to elevate it. Grandma at the window was witness,
+and I was entirely happy. If I caught cold from going bareheaded, so
+much the better; mother would give me rock candy for my cough.
+
+For the long winter evenings there was plenty of quiet occupation. I
+liked to sit with the women at the long bare table picking feathers
+for new featherbeds. It was pleasant to poke my hand into the
+soft-heaped mass and set it all in motion. I pretended that I could
+pick out the feathers of particular hens, formerly my pets. I
+reflected that they had fed me with eggs and broth, and now were going
+to make my bed so soft; while I had done nothing for them but throw
+them a handful of oats now and then, or chase them about, or spoil
+their nests. I was not ashamed of my part; I knew that if I were a hen
+I should do as a hen does. I just liked to think about things in my
+idle way.
+
+Itke, the housemaid, was always the one to break in upon my
+reflections. She was sure to have a fit of sneezing just when the heap
+on the table was highest, sending clouds of feathers into the air,
+like a homemade snowstorm. After that the evening was finished by our
+picking the feathers from each other's hair.
+
+Sometimes we played cards or checkers, munching frost-bitten apples
+between moves. Sometimes the women sewed, and we children wound yarn
+or worsted for grandmother's knitting. If somebody had a story to tell
+while the rest worked, the evening passed with a pleasant sense of
+semi-idleness for all.
+
+On a Saturday night, the Sabbath being just departed, ghost stories
+were particularly in favor. After two or three of the creepy legends
+we began to move closer together under the lamp. At the end of an hour
+or so we started and screamed if a spool fell, or a window rattled. At
+bedtime nobody was willing to make the round of doors and windows, and
+we were afraid to bring a candle into a dark room.
+
+I was just as much afraid as anybody. I am afraid now to be alone in
+the house at night. I certainly was afraid that Saturday night when
+somebody, in bravado, suggested fresh-baked buns, as a charm to dispel
+the ghosts. The baker who lived next door always baked on Saturday
+night. Who would go and fetch the buns? Nobody dared to venture
+outdoors. It had snowed all evening; the frosted windows prevented a
+preliminary survey of the silent night. _Brr-rr!_ Nobody would take
+the dare.
+
+Nobody but me. Oh, how the creeps ran up and down my back! and oh! how
+I loved to distinguish myself! I let them bundle me up till I was
+nearly smothered. I paused with my mittened hand on the latch. I
+shivered, though I could have sat the night out with a Polar bear
+without another shawl. I opened the door, and then turned back, to
+make a speech.
+
+"I am not afraid," I said, in the noble accents of courage. "I am not
+afraid to go. God goes with me."
+
+Pride goeth before a fall. On the step outside I slid down into a
+drift, just on the eve of triumph. They picked me up; they brought me
+in. They found all of me inside my wrappings. They gave me a piece of
+sugar and sent me to bed. And I was very glad. I did hate to go all
+the way next door and all the way back, through the white snow, under
+the white stars, invisible company keeping step with me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And I remember my playmates.
+
+There was always a crowd of us girls. We were a mixed set,--rich
+little girls, well-to-do little girls, and poor little girls,--but not
+because we were so democratic. Rather it came about, if my sister and
+I are considered the centre of the ring, because we had suffered the
+several grades of fortune. In our best days no little girls had to
+stoop to us; in our humbler days we were not so proud that we had to
+condescend to our chance neighbors. The granddaughters of Raphael the
+Russian, in retaining their breeding and manners, retained a few of
+their more exalted friends, and became a link between them and those
+whom they later adopted through force of propinquity.
+
+We were human little girls, so our amusements mimicked the life about
+us. We played house, we played soldiers, we played Gentiles, we
+celebrated weddings and funerals. We copied the life about us
+literally. We had not been to a Froebel kindergarten, and learned to
+impersonate butterflies and stones. Our elders would have laughed at
+us for such nonsense. I remember once standing on the river bank with
+a little boy, when a quantity of lumber was floating down on its way
+to the distant sawmill. A log and a board crowded each other near
+where we stood. The board slipped by first, but presently it swerved
+and swung partly around. Then it righted itself with the stream and
+kept straight on, the lazy log following behind. Said Zalmen to me,
+interpreting: "The board looks back and says, 'Log, log, you will not
+go with me? Then I will go on by myself.'" That boy was called simple,
+on account of such speeches as this. I wonder in what language he is
+writing poetry now.
+
+We had very few toys. Neither Fetchke nor I cared much for dolls. A
+rag baby apiece contented us, and if we had a set of jackstones we
+were perfectly happy. Our jackstones, by the way, were not stones but
+bones. We used the knuckle bones of sheep, dried and scraped; every
+little girl cherished a set in her pocket.
+
+I did not care much for playing house. I liked soldiers better, but it
+was not much fun without boys. Boys and girls always played apart.
+
+I was very fond of playing Gentiles. I am afraid I liked everything
+that was a little risky. I particularly enjoyed being the corpse in a
+Gentile funeral. I was laid across two chairs, and my playmates, in
+borrowed shawls and long calicoes, with their hair loose and with
+candlesticks in their hands, marched around me, singing unearthly
+songs, and groaning till they scared themselves. As I lay there,
+covered over with a black cloth, I felt as dead as dead could be; and
+my playmates were the unholy priests in gorgeous robes of velvet and
+silk and gold. Their candlesticks were the crosiers that were carried
+in Christian funeral processions, and their chantings were hideous
+incantations to the arch enemy, the Christian God of horrible images.
+As I imagined the bareheaded crowds making way for my funeral to pass,
+my flesh crept, not because I was about to be buried, but because the
+people _crossed themselves_. But our procession stopped outside the
+church, because we did not dare to carry even our make-believe across
+that accursed threshold. Besides, none of us had ever been
+inside,--God forbid!--so we did not know what did happen next.
+
+When I arose from my funeral I was indeed a ghost. I felt unreal and
+lost and hateful. I don't think we girls liked each other much after
+playing funeral. Anyway, we never played any more on the same day; or
+if we did, we soon quarrelled. Such was the hold which our hereditary
+terrors and hatreds had upon our childish minds that if we only mocked
+a Christian procession in our play, we suffered a mutual revulsion of
+feeling, as if we had led each other into sin.
+
+We gathered oftener at our house than anywhere else. On Sabbath days
+we refrained, of course, from soldiering and the like, but we had just
+as good a time, going off to promenade, two and two, in our very best
+dresses; whispering secrets and telling stories. We had a few stories
+in the circle--I do not know how they came to us--and these were told
+over and over. Gutke knew the best story of all. She told the story of
+Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and she told it well. It was her
+story, and nobody else ever attempted it, though I, for one, soon had
+it by heart. Gutke's version of the famous tale was unlike any I have
+since read, but it was essentially the story of Aladdin, so that I was
+able to identify it later when I found it in a book. Names, incidents,
+and "local color" were slightly Hebraized, but the supernatural
+wonders of treasure caves, jewelled gardens, genii, princesses, and
+all, were not in the least marred or diminished. Gutke would spin the
+story out for a long afternoon, and we all listened entranced, even at
+the hundredth rehearsal. We had a few other fairy stories,--I later
+identified them with stories of Grimm's or of Andersen's,--but for the
+most part the tales we told were sombre and unimaginative; tales our
+nurses used to tell to frighten us into good behavior.
+
+Sometimes we spent a whole afternoon in dancing. We made our own
+music, singing as we danced, or somebody blew on a comb with a bit of
+paper over its teeth; and comb music is not to be despised when there
+is no other sort. We knew the polka and the waltz, the mazurka, the
+quadrille, and the lancers, and several fancy dances. We did not
+hesitate to invent new steps or figures, and we never stopped till we
+were out of breath. I was one of the most enthusiastic dancers. I
+danced till I felt as if I could fly.
+
+Sometimes we sat in a ring and sang all the songs we knew. None of us
+were trained,--we had never seen a sheet of music--but some of us
+could sing any tune that was ever heard in Polotzk, and the others
+followed half a bar behind. I enjoyed these singing-bees. We had
+Hebrew songs and Jewish and Russian; solemn songs, and jolly songs,
+and songs unfit for children, but harmless enough on our innocent
+lips. I enjoyed the play of moods in these songs--I liked to be
+harrowed one minute and tickled the next. I threw all my heart into
+the singing, which was only fair, as I had very little voice to throw
+in.
+
+Although I always joined the crowd when any fun was on foot, I think I
+had the best times by myself. My sister was fond of housework, but
+I--I was fond of idleness. While Fetchke pottered in the kitchen
+beside the maid or trotted all about the house after my grandmother, I
+wasted time in some window corner, or studied the habits of the cow
+and the chickens in the yard. I always found something to do that was
+of no use to anybody. I had no particular fondness for animals; I
+liked to see what they did, merely because they were curious. The red
+cow would go to meet my grandmother as she came out of the kitchen
+with a bucket of bran for her. She drank it up in no time, the greedy
+creature, in great loud gulps; and then she stood with dripping
+nostrils over the empty bucket, staring at me on the other side. I
+teased grandmother to give the cow more, because I enjoyed her
+enjoyment of it. I wondered, if I ate from a bucket instead of a
+plate, should I take so much more pleasure in my dinner? That red cow
+liked everything. She liked going to pasture, and she liked coming
+back, and she stood still to be milked, as if she liked that too.
+
+The chickens were not all alike. Some of them would not let me catch
+them, while others stood still till I took them up. There were two
+that were particularly tame, a white hen and a speckled one. In
+winter, when they were kept in the house, my sister and I had these
+two for our pets. They let us handle them by the hour, and stayed just
+where we put them. The white hen laid her eggs in a linen chest made
+of bark. We would take the warm egg to grandmother, who rolled it on
+our eyes, repeating this charm: "As this egg is fresh, so may your
+eyes be fresh. As this egg is sound, so may your eyes be sound." I
+still like to touch my eyelids with a fresh-laid egg, whenever I am so
+happy as to possess one.
+
+On the horses in the barn I bestowed the same calm attention as on the
+cow, speculative rather than affectionate. I was not a very
+tender-hearted infant. If I have been a true witness of my own growth,
+I was slower to love than I was to think. I do not know when the
+change was wrought, but to-day, if you ask my friends, they will tell
+you that I know how to love them better than to solve their problems.
+And if you will call one more witness, and ask me, I shall say that if
+you set me down before a noble landscape, I feel it long before I
+begin to see it.
+
+Idle child though I was, the day was not long enough sometimes for my
+idleness. More than once in the pleasant summer I stole out of bed
+when even the cow was still drowsing, and went barefoot through the
+dripping grass and stood at the gate, awaiting the morning. I found a
+sense of adventure in being conscious when all other people were
+asleep. There was not much of a prospect from the gateway, but in
+that early hour everything looked new and large to me, even the little
+houses that yesterday had been so familiar. The houses, when creatures
+went in and out of them, were merely conventional objects; in the soft
+gray morning they were themselves creatures. Some stood up straight,
+and some leaned, and some looked as if they saw me. And then over the
+dewy gardens rose the sun, and the light spread and grew over
+everything, till it shone on my bare feet. And in my heart grew a
+great wonder, and I was ready to cry, my world was so strange and
+sweet about me. In those moments, I think, I could have loved somebody
+as well as I loved later--somebody who cared to get up secretly, and
+stand and see the sun come up.
+
+Was there not somebody who got up before the sun? Was there not Mishka
+the shepherd? Aye, that was an early riser; but I knew he was no
+sun-worshipper. Before the chickens stirred, before the lazy maid let
+the cow out of the barn, I heard his rousing horn, its distant notes
+harmonious with the morning. Barn doors creaked in response to
+Mishka's call, and soft-eyed cattle went willingly out to meet him,
+and stood in groups in the empty square, licking and nosing each
+other; till Mishka's little drove was all assembled, and he tramped
+out of town behind them, in a cloud of dust.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+History shows that in all countries where Jews have equal rights with
+the rest of the people, they lose their fear of secular science, and
+learn how to take their ancient religion with them from century to
+awakening century, dropping nothing by the way but what their growing
+spirit has outgrown. In countries where progress is to be bought only
+at the price of apostasy, they shut themselves up in their synagogues,
+and raise the wall of extreme separateness between themselves and
+their Gentile neighbors. There is never a Jewish community without its
+scholars, but where Jews may not be both intellectuals and Jews, they
+prefer to remain Jews.
+
+The survival in Russia of mediaeval injustice to Jews was responsible
+for the narrowness of educational standards in the Polotzk of my time.
+Jewish scholarship, as we have seen, was confined to a knowledge of
+the Hebrew language and literature, and even these limited stores of
+learning were not equally divided between men and women. In the
+mediaeval position of the women of Polotzk education really had no
+place. A girl was "finished" when she could read her prayers in
+Hebrew, following the meaning by the aid of the Yiddish translation
+especially prepared for women. If she could sign her name in Russian,
+do a little figuring, and write a letter in Yiddish to the parents of
+her betrothed, she was called _wohl gelehrent_--well educated.
+
+Fortunately for me, my parents' ideals soared beyond all this. My
+mother, although she had not stirred out of Polotzk, readily adopted
+the notion of a liberal education imported by my father from cities
+beyond the Pale. She heartily supported him in all his plans for us
+girls. Fetchke and I were to learn to translate as well as pronounce
+Hebrew, the same as our brother. We were to study Russian and German
+and arithmetic. We were to go to the best _pension_ and receive a
+thorough secular education. My father's ambition, after several years'
+sojourn in enlightened circles, reached even beyond the _pension_; but
+that was flying farther than Polotzk could follow him with the naked
+eye.
+
+I do not remember our first teacher. When our second teacher came we
+were already able to read continuous passages. Reb' Lebe was no great
+scholar. Great scholars would not waste their learning on mere girls.
+Reb' Lebe knew enough to teach girls Hebrew. Tall and lean was the
+rebbe, with a lean, pointed face and a thin, pointed beard. The beard
+became pointed from much stroking and pulling downwards. The hands of
+Reb' Lebe were large, and his beard was not half a handful. The
+fingers of the rebbe were long, and the nails, I am afraid, were not
+very clean. The coat of Reb' Lebe was rusty, and so was his skull-cap.
+Remember, Reb' Lebe was only a girls' teacher, and nobody would pay
+much for teaching girls. But lean and rusty as he was, the rebbe's
+pupils regarded him with entire respect, and followed his pointer with
+earnest eyes across the limp page of the alphabet, or the thumbed page
+of the prayer-book.
+
+For a short time my sister and I went for our lessons to Reb' Lebe's
+heder, in the bare room off the women's gallery, up one flight of
+stairs, in a synagogue. The place was as noisy as a reckless
+expenditure of lung power could make it. The pupils on the bench
+shouted their way from _aleph_ to _tav_, cheered and prompted by the
+growl of the rebbe; while the children in the corridor waiting their
+turn played "puss in the corner" and other noisy games.
+
+Fetchke and I, however, soon began to have our lessons in private, at
+our own home. We sat one on each side of the rebbe, reading the Hebrew
+sentences turn and turn about.
+
+When we left off reading by rote and Reb' Lebe began to reveal the
+mysteries to us, I was so eager to know all that was in my book that
+the lesson was always too short. I continued reading by the hour,
+after the rebbe was gone, though I understood about one word in ten.
+My favorite Hebrew reading was the Psalms. Verse after verse I chanted
+to the monotonous tune taught by Reb' Lebe, rocking to the rhythm of
+the chant, just like the rebbe. And so ran the song of David, and so
+ran the hours by, while I sat by the low window, the world erased from
+my consciousness.
+
+What I thought I do not remember; I only know that I loved the sound
+of the words, the full, dense, solid sound of them, to the meditative
+chant of Reb' Lebe. I pronounced Hebrew very well, and I caught some
+mechanical trick of accent and emphasis, which was sufficiently like
+Reb' Lebe's to make my reading sound intelligent. I had a clue to the
+general mood of the subject from the few Psalms I had actually
+translated, and drawing on my imagination for details, I was able to
+read with so much spirit that ignorant listeners were carried away by
+my performance. My mother tells me, indeed, that people used to stop
+outside my window to hear me read. Of this I have not the slightest
+recollection, so I suppose I was an unconscious impostor. Certain I am
+that I thought no ignoble thoughts as I chanted the sacred words; and
+who can say that my visions were not as inspiring as David's? He was a
+shepherd before he became a king. I was an ignorant child in the
+Ghetto, but I was admitted at last to the society of the best; I was
+given the freedom of all America. Perhaps the "stuff that dreams are
+made of" is the same for all dreamers.
+
+When we came to read Genesis I had the great advantage of a complete
+translation in Yiddish. I faithfully studied the portion assigned in
+Hebrew, but I need no longer wait for the next lesson to know how the
+story ends. I could read while daylight lasted, if I chose, in the
+Yiddish. Well I remember that Pentateuch, a middling thick octavo
+volume, in a crumbly sort of leather cover; and how the book opened of
+itself at certain places, where there were pictures. My father tells
+me that when I was just learning to translate single words, he found
+me one evening poring over the _humesh_ and made fun of me for
+pretending to read; whereupon I gave him an eager account, he says, of
+the stories of Jacob, Benjamin, Moses, and others, which I had puzzled
+out from the pictures, by the help of a word here and there that I was
+able to translate.
+
+It was inevitable, as we came to Genesis, that I should ask questions.
+
+Rebbe, translating: "In the beginning God created the earth."
+
+Pupil, repeating: "In the beginning--Rebbe, when was the beginning?"
+
+Rebbe, losing the place in amazement: "'S _gehert a kasse_? (Ever
+hear such a question?) The beginning was--the beginning--the beginning
+was in the beginning, of course! _Nu! nu!_ Go on."
+
+Pupil, resuming: "In the beginning God made the earth.--Rebbe, what
+did He make it out of?"
+
+Rebbe, dropping his pointer in astonishment: "What did--? What sort of
+a girl is this, that asks questions? Go on, go on!"
+
+The lesson continues to the end. The book is closed, the pointer put
+away. The rebbe exchanges his skull-cap for his street cap, is about
+to go.
+
+Pupil, timidly, but determinedly, detaining him: "Reb' Lebe, _who made
+God_?"
+
+The rebbe regards the pupil in amazement mixed with anxiety. His
+emotion is beyond speech. He turns and leaves the room. In his
+perturbation he even forgets to kiss the _mezuzah_[2] on the doorpost.
+The pupil feels reproved and yet somehow in the right. Who _did_ make
+God? But if the rebbe will not tell--will not tell? Or, perhaps, he
+does not know? The rebbe--?
+
+It was some time after this conflict between my curiosity and his
+obtuseness that I saw my teacher act a ridiculous part in a trifling
+comedy, and then I remember no more of him.
+
+Reb' Lebe lingered one day after the lesson. A guest who was about to
+depart, wishing to fortify himself for his journey, took a roll of
+hard sausage from his satchel and laid it, with his clasp knife, on
+the table. He cut himself a slice and ate it standing; and then,
+noticing the thin, lean rebbe, he invited him, by a gesture, to help
+himself to the sausage. The rebbe put his hands behind his coat tails,
+declining the traveller's hospitality. The traveller forgot the other,
+and walked up and down, ready in his fur coat and cap, till his
+carriage should arrive. The sausage remained on the table, thick and
+spicy and brown. No such sausage was known in Polotzk. Reb' Lebe
+looked at it. Reb' Lebe continued to look. The stranger stopped to cut
+another slice, and repeated his gesture of invitation. Reb' Lebe moved
+a step towards the table, but his hands stuck behind his coat tails.
+The traveller resumed his walk. Reb' Lebe moved another step. The
+stranger was not looking. The rebbe's courage rose, he advanced
+towards the table; he stretched out his hand for the knife. At that
+instant the door opened, the carriage was announced. The eager
+traveller, without noticing Reb' Lebe, swept up sausage and knife,
+just at the moment when the timid rebbe was about to cut himself a
+delicious slice. I saw his discomfiture from my corner, and I am
+obliged to confess that I enjoyed it. His face always looked foolish
+to me after that; but, fortunately for us both, we did not study
+together much longer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two little girls dressed in their best, shining from their curls to
+their shoes. One little girl has rosy cheeks, the other has staring
+eyes. Rosy-Cheeks carries a carpet bag; Big-Eyes carries a new slate.
+Hand in hand they go into the summer morning, so happy and pretty a
+pair that it is no wonder people look after them, from window and
+door; and that other little girls, not dressed in their best and
+carrying no carpet bags, stand in the street gaping after them.
+
+Let the folks stare; no harm can come to the little sisters. Did not
+grandmother tie pepper and salt into the corners of their pockets, to
+ward off the evil eye? The little maids see nothing but the road
+ahead, so eager are they upon their errand. Carpet bag and slate
+proclaim that errand: Rosy-Cheeks and Big-Eyes are going to school.
+
+I have no words to describe the pride with which my sister and I
+crossed the threshold of Isaiah the Scribe. Hitherto we had been to
+heder, to a rebbe; now we were to study with a _lehrer_, a secular
+teacher. There was all the difference in the world between the two.
+The one taught you Hebrew only, which every girl learned; the other
+could teach Yiddish and Russian and, some said, even German; and how
+to write a letter, and how to do sums without a counting-frame, just
+on a piece of paper; accomplishments which were extremely rare among
+girls in Polotzk. But nothing was too high for the grandchildren of
+Raphael the Russian; they had "good heads," everybody knew. So we were
+sent to Reb' Isaiah.
+
+My first school, where I was so proud to be received, was a hovel on
+the edge of a swamp. The schoolroom was gray within and without. The
+door was so low that Reb' Isaiah had to stoop in passing. The little
+windows were murky. The walls were bare, but the low ceiling was
+decorated with bundles of goose quills stuck in under the rafters. A
+rough table stood in the middle of the room, with a long bench on
+either side. That was the schoolroom complete. In my eyes, on that
+first morning, it shone with a wonderful light, a strange glory that
+penetrated every corner, and made the stained logs fair as tinted
+marble; and the windows were not too small to afford me a view of a
+large new world.
+
+Room was made for the new pupils on the bench, beside the teacher. We
+found our inkwells, which were simply hollows scooped out in the thick
+table top. Reb' Isaiah made us very serviceable pens by tying the pen
+points securely to little twigs; though some of the pupils used
+quills. The teacher also ruled our paper for us, into little squares,
+like a surveyor's notebook. Then he set us a copy, and we copied, one
+letter in each square, all the way down the page. All the little girls
+and the middle-sized girls and the pretty big girls copied letters in
+little squares, just so. There were so few of us that Reb' Isaiah
+could see everybody's page by just leaning over. And if some of our
+cramped fingers were clumsy, and did not form the loops and curves
+accurately, all he had to do was to stretch out his hand and rap with
+his ruler on our respective knuckles. It was all very cosey, with the
+inkwells that could not be upset, and the pens that grew in the woods
+or strutted in the dooryard, and the teacher in the closest touch with
+his pupils, as I have just told. And as he labored with us, and the
+hours drew themselves out, he was comforted by the smell of his dinner
+cooking in some little hole adjoining the schoolroom, and by the sound
+of his good Leah or Rachel or Deborah (I don't remember her name)
+keeping order among his little ones. She kept very good order, too, so
+that most of the time you could hear the scratching of the laborious
+pens accompanied by the croaking of the frogs in the swamp.
+
+Although my sister and I began our studies at the same time, and
+progressed together, my parents did not want me to take up new
+subjects as fast as Fetchke did. They thought my health too delicate
+for much study. So when Fetchke had her Russian lesson I was told to
+go and play. I am sorry to say that I was disobedient on these
+occasions, as on many others. I did not go and play; I looked on, I
+listened, when Fetchke rehearsed her lesson at home. And one evening I
+stole the Russian primer and repaired to a secret place I knew of. It
+was a storeroom for broken chairs and rusty utensils and dried apples.
+Nobody would look for me in that dusty hole. Nobody did look there,
+but they looked everywhere else, in the house, and in the yard, and in
+the barn, and down the street, and at our neighbors'; and while
+everybody was searching and calling for me, and telling each other
+when I was last seen, and what I was then doing, I, Mashke, was
+bending over the stolen book, rehearsing A, B, C, by the names my
+sister had given them; and before anybody hit upon my retreat, I could
+spell B-O-G, _Bog_ (God) and K-A-Z-A, _Kaza_ (goat). I did not mind in
+the least being caught, for I had my new accomplishment to show off.
+
+I remember the littered place, and the high chest that served as my
+table, and the blue glass lamp that lighted my secret efforts. I
+remember being brought from there into the firelit room where the
+family was assembled, and confusing them all by my recital of the
+simple words, B-O-G, _Bog_, and K-A-Z-A, _Kaza_. I was not reproached
+for going into hiding at bedtime, and the next day I was allowed to
+take part in the Russian lesson.
+
+Alas! there were not many lessons more. Long before we had exhausted
+Reb' Isaiah's learning, my sister and I had to give up our teacher,
+because the family fortunes began to decline, and luxuries, such as
+schooling, had to be cut off. Isaiah the Scribe taught us, in all,
+perhaps two terms, in which time we learned Yiddish and Russian, and a
+little arithmetic. But little good we had from our ability to read,
+for there were no books in our house except prayer-books and other
+religious writings, mostly in Hebrew. For our skill in writing we had
+as little use, as letter-writing was not an everyday exercise, and
+idle writing was not thought of. Our good teacher, however, who had
+taken pride in our progress, would not let us lose all that we had
+learned from him. Books he could not lend us, because he had none
+himself; but he could, and he did, write us out a beautiful "copy"
+apiece, which we could repeat over and over, from time to time, and so
+keep our hands in.
+
+I wonder that I have forgotten the graceful sentences of my "copy";
+for I wrote them out just about countless times. It was in the form of
+a letter, written on lovely pink paper (my sister's was blue), the
+lines taking the shape of semicircles across the page; and that
+without any guide lines showing. The script, of course, was
+perfect--in the best manner of Isaiah the Scribe--and the sentiments
+therein expressed were entirely noble. I was supposed to be a
+high-school pupil away on my vacation; and I was writing to my
+"Respected Parents," to assure them of my welfare, and to tell them
+how, in the midst of my pleasures, I still longed for my friends, and
+looked forward with eagerness to the renewal of my studies. All this,
+in phrases half Yiddish, half German, and altogether foreign to the
+ears of Polotzk. At least, I never heard such talk in the market, when
+I went to buy a kopeck's worth of sunflower seeds.
+
+This was all the schooling I had in Russia. My father's plans fell to
+the ground, on account of the protracted illness of both my parents.
+All his hopes of leading his children beyond the intellectual limits
+of Polotzk were trampled down by the monster poverty who showed his
+evil visage just as my sister and I were fairly started on a broader
+path.
+
+One chance we had, and that was quickly snatched away, of continuing
+our education in spite of family difficulties. Lozhe the Rav, hearing
+from various sources that Pinchus, son-in-law of Raphael the Russian,
+had two bright little girls, whose talents were going to waste for
+want of training, became much interested, and sent for the children,
+to see for himself what the gossip was worth. By a strange trick of
+memory I recall nothing of this important interview, nor indeed of the
+whole matter, although a thousand trifles of that period recur to me
+on the instant; so I report this anecdote on the authority of my
+parents.
+
+They tell me how the rav lifted me up on a table in front of him, and
+asked me many questions, and encouraged me to ask questions in my
+turn. Reb' Lozhe came to the conclusion, as a result of this
+interview, that I ought by all means to be put to school. There was no
+public school for girls, as we know, but a few pupils were maintained
+in a certain private school by irregular contributions from city
+funds. Reb' Lozhe enlisted in my cause the influence of his son, who,
+by virtue of some municipal office which he held, had a vote in fixing
+this appropriation. But although he pleaded eloquently for my
+admission as a city pupil, the rav's son failed to win the consent of
+his colleagues, and my one little crack of opportunity was tightly
+stopped.
+
+My father does not remember on what technicality my application was
+dismissed. My mother is under the impression that it was plainly
+refused on account of my religion, the authorities being unwilling to
+appropriate money for the tuition of a Jewish child. But little it
+matters now what the reason was; the result is what affected me. I was
+left without teacher or book just when my mind was most active. I was
+left without food just when the hunger of growth was creeping up. I
+was left to think and think, without direction; without the means of
+grappling with the contents of my own thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a community which was isolated from the mass of the people on
+account of its religion; which was governed by special civil laws in
+recognition of that fact; in whose calendar there were twoscore days
+of religious observance; whose going and coming, giving and taking,
+living and dying, to the minutest details of social conduct, to the
+most intimate particulars of private life, were regulated by sacred
+laws, there could be no question of personal convictions in religion.
+One was a Jew, leading a righteous life; or one was a Gentile,
+existing to harass the Jews, while making a living off Jewish
+enterprise. In the vocabulary of the more intelligent part of Polotzk,
+it is true, there were such words as freethinker and apostate; but
+these were the names of men who had forsaken the Law in distant times
+or in distant parts, and whose evil fame had reached Polotzk by the
+circuitous route of tradition. Nobody looked for such monsters in his
+neighborhood. Polotzk was safely divided into Jews and Gentiles.
+
+If any one in Polotzk had been idle and curious enough to inquire into
+the state of mind of a little child, I wonder if his findings would
+not have disturbed this simple classification.
+
+There used to be a little girl in Polotzk who recited the long Hebrew
+prayers, morning and evening, before and after meals, and never
+skipped a word; who kissed the _mezuzah_ when going or coming; who
+abstained from food and drink on fast days when she was no bigger than
+a sacrificial hen; who spent Sabbath mornings over the lengthy ritual
+for the day, and read the Psalms till daylight failed.
+
+This pious child could give as good an account of the Creation as any
+boy of her age. She knew how God made the world. Undeterred by the
+fate of Eve, she wanted to know more. She asked her wise rebbe how God
+came to be in His place, and where He found the stuff to make the
+world of, and what was doing in the universe before God undertook His
+task. Finding from his unsatisfying replies that the rebbe was but a
+barren branch on the tree of knowledge, the good little girl never
+betrayed to the world, by look or word, her discovery of his
+limitations, but continued to accord him, outwardly, all the courtesy
+due to his calling.
+
+Her teacher having failed her, the young student, with admirable
+persistence, carried her questions from one to another of her
+acquaintances, putting their answers to the test whenever it was
+possible. She established by this means two facts: first, that she
+knew as much as any of those who undertook to instruct her; second,
+that her oracles sometimes gave false answers. Did the little
+inquisitor charge her betrayers with the lie? Magnanimous creature,
+she kept their falseness a secret, and ceased to probe their shallow
+depths.
+
+What you would know, find out for yourself: this became our student's
+motto; and she passed from the question to the experiment. Her
+grandmother told her that if she handled "blind flowers" she would be
+stricken blind. She found by test that the pretty flowers were
+harmless. She tested everything that could be tested, till she hit at
+last on an impious plan to put God Himself to the proof.
+
+The pious little girl arose one Sabbath afternoon from her religious
+meditations, when all the house was taking its after-dinner nap, and
+went out in the yard, and stopped at the gate. She took out her pocket
+handkerchief. She looked at it. Yes, that would do for the experiment.
+She put it back into her pocket. She did not have to rehearse mentally
+the sacred admonition not to carry anything beyond the house-limits on
+the Sabbath day. She knew it as she knew that she was alive. And with
+her handkerchief in her pocket the audacious child stepped into the
+street!
+
+She stood a moment, her heart beating so that it pained. Nothing
+happened! She walked quite across the street. The Sabbath peace still
+lay on everything. She felt again of the burden in her pocket. Yes,
+she certainly was committing a sin. With an access of impious
+boldness, the sinner walked--she ran as far as the corner, and stood
+still, fearfully expectant. What form would the punishment take? She
+stood breathing painfully for an eternity. How still everything
+was--how close and still the air! Would it be a storm? Would a sudden
+bolt strike her? She stood and waited. She could not bring her hand to
+her pocket again, but she felt that it bulged monstrously. She stood
+with no thought of moving again. Where were the thunders of Jehovah?
+No sacred word of all her long prayers came to her tongue--not even
+"Hear, O Israel." She felt that she was in direct communication with
+God--awful thought!--and He would read her mind and would send His
+answer.
+
+   [Illustration: SABBATH LOAVES FOR SALE (BREAD MARKET, POLOTZK)]
+
+An age passed in blank expectancy. Nothing happened! Where was the
+wrath of God? _Where was God?_
+
+When she turned to go home, the little philosopher had her
+handkerchief tied around her wrist in the proper way. The experiment
+was over, though the result was not clear. God had not punished her,
+but nothing was proved by His indifference. Either the act was no sin,
+and her preceptors were all deceivers; or it was indeed a sin in the
+eyes of God, but He refrained from stern justice for high reasons of
+His own. It was not a searching experiment she had made. She was
+bitterly disappointed, and perhaps that was meant as her punishment:
+God refused to give her a reply. She intended no sin for the sake of
+sin; so, being still in doubt, she tied her handkerchief around her
+wrist. Her eyes stared more than ever,--this was the child with the
+staring eyes,--but that was the only sign she gave of a consciousness
+suddenly expanded, of a self-consciousness intensified.
+
+When she went back into the house, she gazed with a new curiosity at
+her mother, at her grandmother, dozing in their chairs. They looked
+_different_. When they awoke and stretched themselves and adjusted wig
+and cap, they looked _very_ strange. As she went to get her
+grandmother her Bible, and dropped it accidentally, she kissed it by
+way of atonement just as a proper child should.
+
+How, I wonder, would this Psalm-singing child have be enlabelled by
+the investigator of her mind? Would he have called her a Jew? She was
+too young to be called an apostate. Perhaps she would have been
+dismissed as a little fraud; and I should be content with that
+classification, if slightly modified. I should say the child was a
+piteously puzzled little fraud.
+
+To return to the honest first person, I _was_ something of a fraud.
+The days when I believed everything I was told did not run much beyond
+my teething time. I soon began to question if fire was really hot, if
+the cat would really scratch. Presently, as we have seen, I questioned
+God. And in those days my religion depended on my mood. I could
+believe anything I wanted to believe. I did believe, in all my moods,
+that there was a God who had made the world, in some fashion
+unexplained, and who knew about me and my doings; for there was the
+world all about me, and somebody must have made it. And it was
+conceivable that a being powerful enough to do such work could be
+aware of my actions at all times, and yet continue to me invisible.
+The question remained, what did He think of my conduct? Was He really
+angry when I broke the Sabbath, or pleased when I fasted on the Day of
+Atonement? My belief as to these matters wavered. When I swung the
+sacrifice around my head on Atonement Eve, repeating, "Be thou my
+sacrifice," etc., I certainly believed that I was bargaining with the
+Almighty for pardon, and that He was interested in the matter. But
+next day, when the fast was over, and I enjoyed all of my chicken that
+I could eat, I believed as certainly that God could not be party to
+such a foolish transaction, in which He got nothing but words, while I
+got both the feast and the pardon. The sacrifice of money, to be spent
+for the poor, seemed to me a more reliable insurance against
+damnation. The well-to-do pious offered up both living sacrifice and
+money for the poor-box, but it was a sign of poverty to offer only
+money. Even a lean rooster, to be killed, roasted, and garnished for
+the devotee's own table at the breaking of the fast, seemed to be
+considered a more respectable sacrifice than a groschen to increase
+the charity fund. All this was so illogical that it unsettled my faith
+in minor points of doctrine, and on these points I was quite happy to
+believe to-day one thing, to-morrow another.
+
+As unwaveringly as I believed that we Jews had a God who was powerful
+and wise, I believed that the God of my Christian neighbors was
+impotent, cruel, and foolish. I understood that the god of the
+Gentiles was no better than a toy, to be dressed up in gaudy stuffs
+and carried in processions. I saw it often enough, and turned away in
+contempt. While the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--my God--enjoined
+on me honesty and kindness, the god of Vanka bade him beat me and spit
+on me whenever he caught me alone. And what a foolish god was that who
+taught the stupid Gentiles that we drank the blood of a murdered child
+at our Passover feast! Why, I, who was only a child, knew better. And
+so I hated and feared and avoided the great white church in the Platz,
+and hated every sign and symbol of that monstrous god who was kept
+there and hated my own person, when, in our play of a Christian
+funeral, I imagined my body to be the corpse, over which was carried
+the hideous cross.
+
+Perhaps I have established that I was more Jew than Gentile, though I
+can still prove that I was none the less a fraud. For instance, I
+remember how once, on the eve of the Ninth of Ab--the anniversary of
+the fall of the Temple--I was looking on at the lamentations of the
+women. A large circle had gathered around my mother, who was the only
+good reader among them, to listen to the story of the cruel
+destruction. Sitting on humble stools, in stocking feet, shabby
+clothes, and dishevelled hair, weeping in chorus, and wringing their
+hands, as if it was but yesterday that the sacred edifice fell and
+they were in the very dust and ashes of the ruin, the women looked to
+me enviously wretched and pious. I joined the circle in the
+candlelight. I wrung my hands, I moaned; but I was always slow of
+tears--I could not weep. But I wanted to look like the others. So I
+streaked my cheeks with the only moisture at hand.
+
+Alas for my pious ambition! alas for the noble lament of the women!
+Somebody looked up and caught me in the act of manufacturing tears. I
+grinned, and she giggled. Another woman looked up. I grinned, and they
+giggled. Demoralization swept around the circle. Honest laughter
+snuffed out artificial grief. My mother at last looked up, with red
+and astonished eyes, and I was banished from the feast of tears.
+
+I returned promptly to my playmates in the street, who were amusing
+themselves, according to the custom on that sad anniversary, by
+pelting each other with burrs. Here I was distinguished, more than I
+had been among my elders. My hair being curly, it caught a generous
+number of burrs, so that I fairly bristled with these emblems of
+mortification and woe.
+
+Not long after that sinful experiment with the handkerchief I
+discovered by accident that I was not the only doubter in Polotzk. One
+Friday night I lay wakeful in my little bed, staring from the dark
+into the lighted room adjoining mine. I saw the Sabbath candles
+sputter and go out, one by one,--it was late,--but the lamp hanging
+from the ceiling still burned high. Everybody had gone to bed. The
+lamp would go out before morning if there was little oil; or else it
+would burn till Natasha, the Gentile chorewoman, came in the morning
+to put it out, and remove the candlesticks from the table, and unseal
+the oven, and do the dozen little tasks which no Jew could perform on
+the Sabbath. The simple prohibition to labor on the Sabbath day had
+been construed by zealous commentators to mean much more. One must not
+even touch any instrument of labor or commerce, as an axe or a coin.
+It was forbidden to light a fire, or to touch anything that contained
+a fire, or had contained fire, were it only a cold candlestick or a
+burned match. Therefore the lamp at which I was staring must burn till
+the Gentile woman came to put it out.
+
+The light did not annoy me in the least; I was not thinking about it.
+But apparently it troubled somebody else. I saw my father come from
+his room, which also adjoined the living-room. What was he going to
+do? What was this he was doing? Could I believe my eyes? My father
+touched the lighted lamp!--yes, he shook it, as if to see how much oil
+there was left.
+
+I was petrified in my place. I could neither move nor make a sound. It
+seemed to me he must feel my eyes bulging at him out of the dark. But
+he did not know that I was looking; he thought everybody was asleep.
+He turned down the light a very little, and waited. I did not take my
+eyes from him. He lowered the flame a little more, and waited again. I
+watched. By the slightest degrees he turned the light down. I
+understood. In case any one were awake, it would appear as if the lamp
+was going out of itself. I was the only one who lay so as to be able
+to see him, and I had gone to bed so early that he could not suppose I
+was awake. The light annoyed him, he wanted to put it out, but he
+would not risk having it known.
+
+I heard my father find his bed in the dark before I dared to draw a
+full breath. The thing he had done was a monstrous sin. If his mother
+had seen him do it, it would have broken her heart--his mother who
+fasted half the days of the year, when he was a boy, to save his
+teacher's fee; his mother who walked almost barefoot in the cruel snow
+to carry him on her shoulders to school when she had no shoes for him;
+his mother who made it her pious pride to raise up a learned son, that
+most precious offering in the eyes of the great God, from the hand of
+a poor struggling woman. If my mother had seen it, it would have
+grieved her no less--my mother who was given to him, with her youth
+and good name and her dowry, in exchange for his learning and piety;
+my mother who was taken from her play to bear him children and feed
+them and keep them, while he sat on the benches of the scholars and
+repaid her labors with the fame of his learning. I did not put it to
+myself just so, but I understood that learning and piety were the
+things most valued in our family, that my father was a scholar, and
+that piety, of course, was the fruit of sacred learning. And yet my
+father had deliberately violated the Sabbath.
+
+His act was not to be compared with my carrying the handkerchief. The
+two sins were of the same kind, but the sinners and their motives were
+different. I was a child, a girl at that, not yet of the age of moral
+responsibility. He was a man full grown, passing for one of God's
+elect, and accepting the reverence of the world as due tribute to his
+scholarly merits. I had by no means satisfied myself, by my secret
+experiment, that it was not sinful to carry a burden on the Sabbath
+day. If God did not punish me on the spot, perhaps it was because of
+my youth or perhaps it was because of my motive.
+
+According to my elders, my father, by turning out the lamp, committed
+the sin of Sabbath-breaking. What did my father intend? I could not
+suppose that his purpose was similar to mine. Surely he, who had lived
+so long and studied so deeply, had by this time resolved all his
+doubts. Surely God had instructed _him_. I could not believe that he
+did wrong knowingly, so I came to the conclusion that he did not hold
+it a sin to touch a lighted lamp on Sabbath. Then why was he so secret
+in his action? That, too, became clear to me. I myself had
+instinctively adopted secret methods in all my little investigations,
+and had kept the results to myself. The way in which my questions were
+received had taught me much. I had a dim, inarticulate understanding
+of the horror and indignation which my father would excite if he,
+supposedly a man of piety, should publish the heretical opinion that
+it was not wrong to handle fire on the Sabbath. To see what remorse my
+mother suffered, or my father's mother, if by some accident she failed
+in any point of religious observance, was to know that she could never
+be brought to doubt the sacred importance of the thousand minutiae of
+ancient Jewish practice. That which had been taught them as the truth
+by their fathers and mothers was the whole truth to my good friends
+and neighbors--that and nothing else. If there were any people in
+Polotzk who had strange private opinions, such as I concluded my
+father must hold, it was possible that he had a secret acquaintance
+with them. But it would never do, it was plain to me, to make public
+confession of his convictions. Such an act would not only break the
+hearts of his family, but it would also take the bread from the mouths
+of his children, and ruin them forever. My sister and my brother and
+I would come to be called the children of Israel the Apostate, just as
+Gutke, my playmate, was called the granddaughter of Yankel the
+Informer. The most innocent of us would be cursed and shunned for the
+sin of our father.
+
+All this I came to understand, not all at once, but by degrees, as I
+put this and that together, and brought my childish thoughts to order.
+I was by no means absorbed in this problem. I played and danced with
+the other children as heartily as ever, but I brooded in my window
+corner when there was nothing else to do. I had not the slightest
+impulse to go to my father, charge him with his unorthodox conduct,
+and demand an explanation of him. I was quite satisfied that I
+understood him, and I had not the habit of confidences. I was still in
+the days when I was content to _find out_ things, and did not long to
+communicate my discoveries. Moreover, I was used to living in two
+worlds, a real world and a make-believe one, without ever knowing
+which was which. In one world I had much company--father and mother
+and sister and friends--and did as others did, and took everything for
+granted. In the other world I was all alone, and I had to discover
+ways for myself; and I was so uncertain that I did not attempt to
+bring a companion along. And did I find my own father treading in the
+unknown ways? Then perhaps some day he would come across me, and take
+me farther than I had yet been; but I would not be the first to
+whisper that I was there. It seems strange enough to me now that I
+should have been so uncommunicative; but I remind myself that I have
+been thoroughly made over, at least once, since those early days.
+
+I recall with sorrow that I was sometimes as weak in morals as I was
+in religion. I remember stealing a piece of sugar. It was long
+ago--almost as long ago as anything that I remember. We were still
+living in my grandfather's house when this dreadful thing happened and
+I was only four or five years old when we moved from there. Before my
+mother figured this out for me I scarcely had the courage to confess
+my sin.
+
+And it was thus: In a corner of a front room, by a window, stood a
+high chest of drawers. On top of the chest stood a tin box, decorated
+with figures of queer people with queer flat parasols; a Chinese
+tea-box, in a word. The box had a lid. The lid was shut tight. But I
+knew what was in that gorgeous box and I coveted it. I was very
+little--I never could reach anything. There stood a chair suggestively
+near the chest. I pushed the chair a little and mounted it. By
+standing on tiptoe I could now reach the box. I opened it and took out
+an irregular lump of sparkling sugar. I stood on the chair admiring
+it. I stood too long. My grandmother came in--or was it Itke, the
+housemaid?--and found me with the stolen morsel.
+
+I saw that I was fairly caught. How could I hope to escape my captor,
+when I was obliged to turn on my stomach in order to descend safely,
+thus presenting my jailer with the most tempting opportunity for
+immediate chastisement? I took in the situation before my grandmother
+had found her voice for horror. Did I rub my eyes with my knuckles and
+whimper? I wish I could report that I was thus instantly struck with a
+sense of my guilt. I was impressed only with the absolute certainty of
+my impending doom, and I promptly seized on a measure of compensation.
+While my captor--I really think it was a grandmother--rehearsed her
+entire vocabulary of reproach, from a distance sufficient to enable
+her to hurl her voice at me with the best effect, I stuffed the lump
+of sugar into my mouth and munched it as fast as I could. And I had
+eaten it all, and had licked my sticky lips, before the avenging rod
+came down.
+
+I remember no similar lapses from righteousness, but I sinned in
+lesser ways more times than there are years in my life. I sinned, and
+more than once I escaped punishment by some trick or sly speech. I do
+not mean that I lied outright, though that also I did, sometimes; but
+I would twist my naughty speech, if forced to repeat it, in such an
+artful manner, or give such ludicrous explanation of my naughty act,
+that justice was overcome by laughter and threw me, as often as not, a
+handful of raisins instead of a knotted strap. If by such successes I
+was encouraged to cultivate my natural slyness and duplicity, I throw
+the blame on my unwise preceptors, and am glad to be rid of the burden
+for once.
+
+I have said that I used to lie. I recall no particular occasion when a
+lie was the cause of my disgrace; but I know that it was always my
+habit, when I had some trifling adventure to report, to garnish it up
+with so much detail and circumstance that nobody who had witnessed my
+small affair could have recognized it as the same, had I not insisted
+on my version with such fervid conviction. The truth is that
+everything that happened to me really loomed great and shone splendid
+in my eyes, and I could not, except by conscious effort, reduce my
+visions to their actual shapes and colors. If I saw a pair of geese
+leading about a lazy goose girl, they went through all sorts of antics
+before my eyes that fat geese are not known to indulge in. If I met
+poor Blind Munye with a frown on his face, I thought that a cloud of
+wrath overspread his countenance; and I ran home to relate, panting,
+how narrowly I had escaped his fury. I will not pretend that I was
+absolutely unconscious of my exaggerations; but if you insist, I will
+say that things as I reported them might have been so, and would have
+been much more interesting had they been so.
+
+The noble reader who never told a lie, or never confessed one, will be
+shocked at these revelations of my childish depravity. What proof has
+he, he will cry, that I am not lying on every page of this chronicle,
+if, by my own confession, my childhood was spent in a maze of lies and
+dreams? I shall say to the saint, when I am challenged, that the proof
+of my conversion to veracity is engraven in his own soul. Do you not
+remember, you spotless one, how you used to steal and lie and cheat
+and rob? Oh, not with your own hand, of course! It was your remote
+ancestor who lived by plunder, and was honored for the blood upon his
+hairy hands. By and by he discovered that cunning was more effective
+than violence, and less troublesome. Still later he became convinced
+that the greatest cunning was virtue, and made him a moral code, and
+subdued the world. Then, when you came along, stumbling through the
+wilderness of cast-off errors, your wise ancestor gave you a thrust
+that landed you in the clearing of modernity, at the same time
+bellowing in your ear, "Now be good! It pays!"
+
+This is the whole history of your saintliness. But all people do not
+take up life at the same point of human development. Some are backward
+at birth, and have to make up, in the brief space of their individual
+history, the stages they missed on their way out of the black past.
+With me, for example, it actually comes to this: that I have to
+recapitulate in my own experience all the slow steps of the progress
+of the race. I seem to learn nothing except by the prick of life on my
+own skin. I am saved from living in ignorance and dying in darkness
+only by the sensitiveness of my skin. Some men learn through borrowed
+experience. Shut them up in a glass tower, with an unobstructed view
+of the world, and they will go through every adventure of life by
+proxy, and be able to furnish you with a complete philosophy of life;
+and you may safely bring up your children by it. But I am not of that
+godlike organization. I am a thinking animal. Things are as important
+to me as ideas. I imbibe wisdom through every pore of my body. There
+are times, indeed, when the doctor in his study is less intelligible
+to me than a cricket far off in the field. The earth was my mother,
+the earth is my teacher. I am a dutiful pupil: I listen ever with my
+ear close to her lips. It seems to me I do not know a single thing
+that I did not learn, more or less directly, through the corporal
+senses. As long as I have my body, I need not despair of salvation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] A piece of parchment inscribed with a passage of Scripture, rolled
+in a case and tacked to the doorpost. The pious touch or kiss this
+when leaving or entering a house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH
+
+
+The long chapter of troubles which led to my father's emigration to
+America began with his own illness. The doctors sent him to Courland
+to consult expensive specialists, who prescribed tedious courses of
+treatment. He was far from cured when my mother also fell ill, and my
+father had to return to Polotzk to look after the business.
+
+Trouble begets trouble. After my mother took to her bed everything
+continued to go wrong. The business gradually declined, as too much
+money was withdrawn to pay the doctors' and apothecaries' bills; and
+my father, himself in poor health, and worried about my mother, was
+not successful in coping with the growing difficulties. At home, the
+servants were dismissed, for the sake of economy, and all the
+housework and the nursing fell on my grandmother and my sister.
+Fetchke, as a result, was overworked, and fell ill of a fever. The
+baby, suffering from unavoidable neglect, developed the fractious
+temper of semi-illness. And by way of a climax, the old cow took it
+into her head to kick my grandmother, who was laid up for a week with
+a bruised leg.
+
+Neighbors and cousins pulled us through till grandma got up, and after
+her, Fetchke. But my mother remained on her bed. Weeks, months, a year
+she lay there, and half of another year. All the doctors in Polotzk
+attended her in turn, and one doctor came all the way from Vitebsk.
+Every country practitioner for miles around was consulted, every
+quack, every old wife who knew a charm. The apothecaries ransacked
+their shops for drugs the names of which they had forgotten, and kind
+neighbors brought in their favorite remedies. There were midnight
+prayers in the synagogue for my mother, and petitions at the graves of
+her parents; and one awful night when she was near death, three pious
+mothers who had never lost a child came to my mother's bedside and
+bought her, for a few kopecks, for their own, so that she might gain
+the protection of their luck, and so be saved.
+
+Still my poor mother lay on her bed, suffering and wasting. The house
+assumed a look of desolation. Everybody went on tiptoe; we talked in
+whispers; for weeks at a time there was no laughter in our home. The
+ominous night lamp was never extinguished. We slept in our clothes
+night after night, so as to wake the more easily in case of sudden
+need. We watched, we waited, but we scarcely hoped.
+
+Once in a while I was allowed to take a short turn in the sick-room.
+It was awful to sit beside my mother's bed in the still night and see
+her helplessness. She had been so strong, so active. She used to lift
+sacks and barrels that were heavy for a man, and now she could not
+raise a spoon to her mouth. Sometimes she did not know me when I gave
+her the medicine, and when she knew me, she did not care. Would she
+ever care any more? She looked strange and small in the shadows of the
+bed. Her hair had been cut off after the first few months; her short
+curls were almost covered by the ice bag. Her cheeks were red, red,
+but her hands were so white as they had never been before. In the
+still night I wondered if she cared to live.
+
+The night lamp burned on. My father grew old. He was always figuring
+on a piece of paper. We children knew the till was empty when the
+silver candlesticks were taken away to be pawned. Next, superfluous
+featherbeds were sold for what they would bring, and then there came a
+day when grandma, with eyes blinded by tears, groped in the big
+wardrobe for my mother's satin dress and velvet mantle; and after that
+it did not matter any more what was taken out of the house.
+
+Then everything took a sudden turn. My mother began to improve, and at
+the same time my father was offered a good position as superintendent
+of a gristmill.
+
+As soon as my mother could be moved, he took us all out to the mill,
+about three versts out of town, on the Polota. We had a pleasant
+cottage there, with the miller's red-headed, freckled family for our
+only neighbors. If our rooms were barer than they used to be, the sun
+shone in at all the windows; and as the leaves on the trees grew
+denser and darker, my mother grew stronger on her feet, and laughter
+returned to our house as the song bird to the grove.
+
+We children had a very happy summer. We had never lived in the country
+before, and we liked the change. It was endless fun to explore the
+mill; to squeeze into forbidden places, and be pulled out by the angry
+miller; to tyrannize over the mill hands, and be worshipped by them in
+return; to go boating on the river, and discover unvisited nooks, and
+search the woods and fields for kitchen herbs, and get lost, and be
+found, a hundred times a week. And what an adventure it was to walk
+the three versts into town, leaving a trail of perfume from the
+wild-flower posies we carried to our city friends!
+
+But these things did not last. The mill changed hands, and the new
+owner put a protege of his own in my father's place. So, after a short
+breathing spell, we were driven back into the swamp of growing poverty
+and trouble.
+
+The next year or so my father spent in a restless and fruitless search
+for a permanent position. My mother had another serious illness, and
+his own health remained precarious. What he earned did not more than
+half pay the bills in the end, though we were living very humbly now.
+Polotzk seemed to reject him, and no other place invited him.
+
+Just at this time occurred one of the periodic anti-Semitic movements
+whereby government officials were wont to clear the forbidden cities
+of Jews, whom, in the intervals of slack administration of the law,
+they allowed to maintain an illegal residence in places outside the
+Pale, on payment of enormous bribes and at the cost of nameless risks
+and indignities.
+
+It was a little before Passover that the cry of the hunted thrilled
+the Jewish world with the familiar fear. The wholesale expulsion of
+Jews from Moscow and its surrounding district at cruelly short notice
+was the name of this latest disaster. Where would the doom strike
+next? The Jews who lived illegally without the Pale turned their
+possessions into cash and slept in their clothes, ready for immediate
+flight. Those who lived in the comparative security of the Pale
+trembled for their brothers and sisters without, and opened wide their
+doors to afford the fugitives refuge. And hundreds of fugitives,
+preceded by a wail of distress, flocked into the open district,
+bringing their trouble where trouble was never absent, mingling their
+tears with the tears that never dried.
+
+The open cities becoming thus suddenly crowded, every man's chance of
+making a living was diminished in proportion to the number of
+additional competitors. Hardship, acute distress, ruin for many: thus
+spread the disaster, ring beyond ring, from the stone thrown by a
+despotic official into the ever-full river of Jewish persecution.
+
+Passover was celebrated in tears that year. In the story of the Exodus
+we would have read a chapter of current history, only for us there was
+no deliverer and no promised land.
+
+But what said some of us at the end of the long service? Not "May we
+be next year in Jerusalem," but "Next year--in America!" So there was
+our promised land, and many faces were turned towards the West. And if
+the waters of the Atlantic did not part for them, the wanderers rode
+its bitter flood by a miracle as great as any the rod of Moses ever
+wrought.
+
+My father was carried away by the westward movement, glad of his own
+deliverance, but sore at heart for us whom he left behind. It was the
+last chance for all of us. We were so far reduced in circumstances
+that he had to travel with borrowed money to a German port, whence he
+was forwarded to Boston, with a host of others, at the expense of an
+emigrant aid society.
+
+I was about ten years old when my father emigrated. I was used to his
+going away from home, and "America" did not mean much more to me than
+"Kherson," or "Odessa," or any other names of distant places. I
+understood vaguely, from the gravity with which his plans were
+discussed, and from references to ships, societies, and other
+unfamiliar things, that this enterprise was different from previous
+ones; but my excitement and emotion on the morning of my father's
+departure were mainly vicarious.
+
+I know the day when "America" as a world entirely unlike Polotzk
+lodged in my brain, to become the centre of all my dreams and
+speculations. Well I know the day. I was in bed, sharing the measles
+with some of the other children. Mother brought us a thick letter from
+father, written just before boarding the ship. The letter was full of
+excitement. There was something in it besides the description of
+travel, something besides the pictures of crowds of people, of foreign
+cities, of a ship ready to put out to sea. My father was travelling at
+the expense of a charitable organization, without means of his own,
+without plans, to a strange world where he had no friends; and yet he
+wrote with the confidence of a well-equipped soldier going into
+battle. The rhetoric is mine. Father simply wrote that the emigration
+committee was taking good care of everybody, that the weather was
+fine, and the ship comfortable. But I heard something, as we read the
+letter together in the darkened room, that was more than the words
+seemed to say. There was an elation, a hint of triumph, such as had
+never been in my father's letters before. I cannot tell how I knew it.
+I felt a stirring, a straining in my father's letter. It was there,
+even though my mother stumbled over strange words, even though she
+cried, as women will when somebody is going away. My father was
+inspired by a vision. He saw something--he promised us something. It
+was this "America." And "America" became my dream.
+
+While it was nothing new for my father to go far from home in search
+of his fortune, the circumstances in which he left us were unlike
+anything we had experienced before. We had absolutely no reliable
+source of income, no settled home, no immediate prospects. We hardly
+knew where we belonged in the simple scheme of our society. My mother,
+as a bread-winner, had nothing like her former success. Her health was
+permanently impaired, her place in the business world had long been
+filled by others, and there was no capital to start her anew. Her
+brothers did what they could for her. They were well-to-do, but they
+all had large families, with marriageable daughters and sons to be
+bought out of military service. The allowance they made her was
+generous compared to their means,--affection and duty could do no
+more,--but there were four of us growing children, and my mother was
+obliged to make every effort within her power to piece out her income.
+
+How quickly we came down from a large establishment, with servants and
+retainers, and a place among the best in Polotzk, to a single room
+hired by the week, and the humblest associations, and the averted
+heads of former friends! But oftenest it was my mother who turned away
+her head. She took to using the side streets to avoid the pitiful eyes
+of the kind, and the scornful eyes of the haughty. Both were turned on
+her as she trudged from store to store, and from house to house,
+peddling tea or other ware; and both were hard to bear. Many a winter
+morning she arose in the dark, to tramp three or four miles in the
+gripping cold, through the dragging snow, with a pound of tea for a
+distant customer; and her profit was perhaps twenty kopecks. Many a
+time she fell on the ice, as she climbed the steep bank on the far
+side of the Dvina, a heavy basket on each arm. More than once she
+fainted at the doors of her customers, ashamed to knock as suppliant
+where she had used to be received as an honored guest. I hope the
+angels did not have to count the tears that fell on her frost-bitten,
+aching hands as she counted her bitter earnings at night.
+
+And who took care of us children while my mother tramped the streets
+with her basket? Why, who but Fetchke? Who but the little housewife of
+twelve? Sure of our safety was my mother with Fetchke to watch; sure
+of our comfort with Fetchke to cook the soup and divide the scrap of
+meat and remember the next meal. Joseph was in heder all day; the baby
+was a quiet little thing; Mashke was no worse than usual. But still
+there was plenty to do, with order to keep in a crowded room, and the
+washing, and the mending. And Fetchke did it all. She went to the
+river with the women to wash the clothes, and tucked up her dress and
+stood bare-legged in the water, like the rest of them, and beat and
+rubbed with all her might, till our miserable rags gleamed white
+again.
+
+And I? I usually had a cold, or a cough, or something to disable me;
+and I never had any talent for housework. If I swept and sanded the
+floor, polished the samovar, and ran errands, I was doing much. I
+minded the baby, who did not need much minding. I was willing enough,
+I suppose, but the hard things were done without my help.
+
+Not that I mean to belittle the part that I played in our reduced
+domestic economy. Indeed, I am very particular to get all the credit
+due me. I always remind my sister Deborah, who was the baby of those
+humble days, that it was I who pierced her ears. Earrings were a
+requisite part of a girl's toilet. Even a beggar girl must have
+earrings, were they only loops of thread with glass beads. I heard my
+mother bemoan the baby because she had not time to pierce her ears.
+Promptly I armed myself with a coarse needle and a spool of thread,
+and towed Deborah out into the woodshed. The operation was entirely
+successful, though the baby was entirely ungrateful. And I am proud to
+this day of the unflinching manner in which I did what I conceived to
+be my duty. If Deborah chooses to go with ungarnished ears, it is her
+affair; my conscience is free of all reproach.
+
+    [Illustration: WINTER SCENE ON THE DVINA]
+
+I had a direct way in everything. I rushed right in--I spoke right
+out. My mother sent me sometimes to deliver a package of tea, and I
+was proud to help in business. One day I went across the Dvina and far
+up "the other side." It was a good-sized expedition for me to make
+alone, and I was not a little pleased with myself when I delivered my
+package, safe and intact, into the hands of my customer. But the
+storekeeper was not pleased at all. She sniffed and sniffed, she
+pinched the tea, she shook it all out on the counter.
+
+"_Na_, take it back," she said in disgust; "this is not the tea I
+always buy. It's a poorer quality."
+
+I knew the woman was mistaken. I was acquainted with my mother's
+several grades of tea. So I spoke up manfully.
+
+"Oh, no," I said; "this is the tea my mother always sends you. There
+is no worse tea."
+
+Nothing in my life ever hurt me more than that woman's answer to my
+argument. She laughed--she simply laughed. But I understood, even
+before she controlled herself sufficiently to make verbal remarks,
+that I had spoken like a fool, had lost my mother a customer. I had
+only spoken the truth, but I had not expressed it diplomatically.
+That was no way to make business.
+
+I felt very sore to be returning home with the tea still in my hand,
+but I forgot my trouble in watching a summer storm gather up the
+river. The few passengers who took the boat with me looked scared as
+the sky darkened, and the boatman grasped his oars very soberly. It
+took my breath away to see the signs, but I liked it; and I was much
+disappointed to get home dry.
+
+When my mother heard of my misadventure she laughed, too; but that was
+different, and I was able to laugh with her.
+
+This is the way I helped in the housekeeping and in business. I hope
+it does not appear as if I did not take our situation to heart, for I
+did--in my own fashion. It was plain, even to an idle dreamer like me,
+that we were living on the charity of our friends, and barely living
+at that. It was plain, from my father's letters, that he was scarcely
+able to support himself in America, and that there was no immediate
+prospect of our joining him. I realized it all, but I considered it
+temporary, and I found plenty of comfort in writing long letters to my
+father--real, original letters this time, not copies of Reb' Isaiah's
+model--letters which my father treasured for years.
+
+As an instance of what I mean by my own fashion of taking trouble to
+heart, I recall the day when our household effects were attached for a
+debt. We had plenty of debts, but the stern creditor who set the law
+on us this time was none of ours. The claim was against a family to
+whom my mother sublet two of our three rooms, furnished with her own
+things. The police officers, who swooped down upon us without warning,
+as was their habit, asked no questions and paid no heed to
+explanations. They affixed a seal to every lame chair and cracked
+pitcher in the place; aye, to every faded petticoat found hanging in
+the wardrobe. These goods, comprising all our possessions and all our
+tenant's, would presently be removed, to be sold at auction, for the
+benefit of the creditor.
+
+Lame chairs and faded petticoats, when they are the last one has, have
+a vital value in the owner's eyes. My mother moved about, weeping
+distractedly, all the while the officers were in the house. The
+frightened children cried. Our neighbors gathered to bemoan our
+misfortune. And over everything was the peculiar dread which only Jews
+in Russia feel when agents of the Government invade their homes.
+
+The fear of the moment was in my heart, as in every other heart there.
+It was a horrid, oppressive fear. I retired to a quiet corner to
+grapple with it. I was not given to weeping, but I must think things
+out in words. I repeated to myself that the trouble was all about
+money. Somebody wanted money from our tenant, who had none to give.
+Our furniture was going to be sold to make this money. It was a
+mistake, but then the officers would not believe my mother. Still, it
+was only about money. Nobody was dead, nobody was ill. It was all
+about _money_. Why, there was plenty of money in Polotzk! My own uncle
+had many times as much as the creditor claimed. He could buy all our
+things back, or somebody else could. What did it matter? It was only
+_money_, and money was got by working, and we were all willing to
+work. There was nothing gone, nothing lost, as when somebody died.
+This furniture could be moved from place to place, and so could money
+be moved, and nothing was lost out of the world by the transfer.
+_That_ was all. If anybody--
+
+Why, what do I see at the window? Breine Malke, our next-door
+neighbor, is--yes, she is smuggling something out of the window! If
+she is caught--! Oh, I must help! Breine Malke beckons. She wants me
+to do something. I see--I understand. I must stand in the doorway, to
+obstruct the view of the officers, who are all engaged in the next
+room just now. I move readily to my post, but I cannot resist my
+curiosity. I must look over my shoulder a last time, to see what it is
+Breine Malke wants to smuggle out.
+
+I can scarcely stifle my laughter. Of all our earthly goods, our
+neighbor has chosen for salvation a dented bandbox containing a
+moth-eaten bonnet from my mother's happier days! And I laugh not only
+from amusement but also from lightness of heart. For I have succeeded
+in reducing our catastrophe to its simplest terms, and I find that it
+is only a trifle, and no matter of life and death.
+
+I could not help it. That was the way it looked to me.
+
+I am sure I made as serious efforts as anybody to prepare myself for
+life in America on the lines indicated in my father's letters. In
+America, he wrote, it was no disgrace to work at a trade. Workmen and
+capitalists were equal. The employer addressed the employee as _you_,
+not, familiarly, as _thou_. The cobbler and the teacher had the same
+title, "Mister." And all the children, boys and girls, Jews and
+Gentiles, went to school! Education would be ours for the asking, and
+economic independence also, as soon as we were prepared. He wanted
+Fetchke and me to be taught some trade; so my sister was apprenticed
+to a dressmaker and I to a milliner.
+
+Fetchke, of course, was successful, and I, of course, was not. My
+sister managed to learn her trade, although most of the time at the
+dressmaker's she had to spend in sweeping, running errands, and
+minding the babies; the usual occupations of the apprentice in any
+trade.
+
+But I--I had to be taken away from the milliner's after a couple of
+months. I did try, honestly. With all my eyes I watched my mistress
+build up a chimney pot of straw and things. I ripped up old bonnets
+with enthusiasm. I picked up everybody's spools and thimbles, and
+other far-rolling objects. I did just as I was told, for I was
+determined to become a famous milliner, since America honored the
+workman so. But most of the time I was sent away on errands--to the
+market to buy soup greens, to the corner store to get change, and all
+over town with bandboxes half as round again as I. It was winter, and
+I was not very well dressed. I froze; I coughed; my mistress said I
+was not of much use to her. So my mother kept me at home, and my
+career as a milliner was blighted.
+
+This was during our last year in Russia, when I was between twelve and
+thirteen years of age. I was old enough to be ashamed of my failures,
+but I did not have much time to think about them, because my Uncle
+Solomon took me with him to Vitebsk.
+
+It was not my first visit to that city. A few years before I had spent
+some days there, in the care of my father's cousin Rachel, who
+journeyed periodically to the capital of the province to replenish her
+stock of spools and combs and like small wares, by the sale of which
+she was slowly earning her dowry.
+
+On that first occasion, Cousin Rachel, who had developed in business
+that dual conscience, one for her Jewish neighbors and one for the
+Gentiles, decided to carry me without a ticket. I was so small, though
+of an age to pay half-fare, that it was not difficult. I remember her
+simple stratagem from beginning to end. When we approached the ticket
+office she whispered to me to stoop a little, and I stooped. The
+ticket agent passed me. In the car she bade me curl up in the seat,
+and I curled up. She threw a shawl over me and bade me pretend to
+sleep, and I pretended to sleep. I heard the conductor collect the
+tickets. I knew when he was looking at me. I heard him ask my age and
+I heard Cousin Rachel lie about it. I was allowed to sit up when the
+conductor was gone, and I sat up and looked out of the window and saw
+everything, and was perfectly, perfectly happy. I was fond of my
+cousin, and I smiled at her in perfect understanding and admiration of
+her cleverness in beating the railroad company.
+
+I knew then, as I know now, beyond a doubt, that my Uncle David's
+daughter was an honorable woman. With the righteous she dealt
+squarely; with the unjust, as best she could. She was in duty bound to
+make all the money she could, for money was her only protection in the
+midst of the enemy. Every kopeck she earned or saved was a scale in
+her coat of armor. We learned this code early in life, in Polotzk; so
+I was pleased with the success of our ruse on this occasion, though I
+should have been horrified if I had seen Cousin Rachel cheat a Jew.
+
+We made our headquarters in that part of Vitebsk where my father's
+numerous cousins and aunts lived, in more or less poverty, or at most
+in the humblest comfort; but I was taken to my Uncle Solomon's to
+spend the Sabbath. I remember a long walk, through magnificent
+avenues and past splendid shops and houses and gardens. Vitebsk was a
+metropolis beside provincial Polotzk; and I was very small, even
+without stooping.
+
+Uncle Solomon lived in the better part of the city, and I found his
+place very attractive. Still, after a night's sleep, I was ready for
+further travel and adventures, and I set out, without a word to
+anybody, to retrace my steps clear across the city.
+
+The way was twice as long as on the preceding day, perhaps because
+such small feet set the pace, perhaps because I lingered as long as I
+pleased at the shop windows. At some corners, too, I had to stop and
+study my route. I do not think I was frightened at all, though I
+imagine my back was very straight and my head very high all the way;
+for I was well aware that I was out on an adventure.
+
+I did not speak to any one till I reached my Aunt Leah's; and then I
+hardly had a chance to speak, I was so much hugged and laughed over
+and cried over, and questioned and cross-questioned, without anybody
+waiting to hear my answers. I had meant to surprise Cousin Rachel, and
+I had frightened her. When she had come to Uncle Solomon's to take me
+back, she found the house in an uproar, everybody frightened at my
+disappearance. The neighborhood was searched, and at last messengers
+were sent to Aunt Leah's. The messengers in their haste quite
+overlooked me. It was their fault if they took a short cut unknown to
+me. I was all the time faithfully steering by the sign of the tobacco
+shop, and the shop with the jumping-jack in the window, and the garden
+with the iron fence, and the sentry box opposite a drug store, and all
+the rest of my landmarks, as carefully entered on my mental chart the
+day before.
+
+All this I told my scared relatives as soon as they let me, till they
+were convinced that I was not lost, nor stolen by the gypsies, nor
+otherwise done away with. Cousin Rachel was so glad that she would not
+have to return to Polotzk empty-handed that she would not let anybody
+scold me. She made me tell over and over what I had seen on the way,
+till they all laughed and praised my acuteness for seeing so much more
+than they had supposed there was to see. Indeed, I was made a heroine,
+which was just what I intended to be when I set out on my adventure.
+And thus ended most of my unlawful escapades; I was more petted than
+scolded for my insubordination.
+
+My second journey to Vitebsk, in the company of Uncle Solomon, I
+remember as well as the first. I had been up all night, dancing at a
+wedding, and had gone home only to pick up my small bundle and be
+picked up, in turn, by my uncle. I was a little taller now, and had my
+own ticket, like a real traveller.
+
+It was still early in the morning when the train pulled out of the
+station, or else it was a misty day. I know the fields looked soft and
+gray when we got out into the country, and the trees were blurred. I
+did not want to sleep. A new day had begun--a new adventure. I would
+not miss any of it.
+
+But the last day, so unnaturally prolonged, was entangled in the
+skirts of the new. When did yesterday end? Why was not this new day
+the same day continued? I looked up at my uncle, but he was smiling at
+me in that amused way of his--he always seemed to be amused at me, and
+he would make me talk and then laugh at me--so I did not ask my
+question. Indeed, I could not formulate it, so I kept staring out on
+the dim country, and thinking, and thinking; and all the while the
+engine throbbed and lurched, and the wheels ground along, and I was
+astonished to hear that they were keeping perfectly the time of the
+last waltz I had danced at the wedding. I sang it through in my head.
+Yes, that was the rhythm. The engine knew it, the whole machine
+repeated it, and sent vibrations through my body that were just like
+the movements of the waltz. I was so much interested in this discovery
+that I forgot the problem of the Continuity of Time; and from that day
+to this, whenever I have heard that waltz,--one of the sweet Danube
+waltzes,--I have lived through that entire experience; the festive
+night, the misty morning, the abnormal consciousness of time, as if I
+had existed forever, without a break; the journey, the dim landscape,
+and the tune singing itself in my head. Never can I hear that waltz
+without the accompaniment of engine wheels grinding rhythmically along
+speeding tracks.
+
+I remained in Vitebsk about six months. I do not believe I was ever
+homesick during all that time. I was too happy to be homesick. The
+life suited me extremely well. My life in Polotzk had grown meaner and
+duller, as the family fortunes declined. For years there had been no
+lessons, no pleasant excursions, no jolly gatherings with uncles and
+aunts. Poverty, shadowed by pride, trampled down our simple ambitions
+and simpler joys. I cannot honestly say that I was very sensitive to
+our losses. I do not remember suffering because there was no jam on my
+bread, and no new dress for the holidays. I do not know whether I was
+hurt when some of our playmates abandoned us. I remember myself
+oftener in the attitude of an onlooker, as on the occasion of the
+attachment of our furniture, when I went off into a corner to think
+about it. Perhaps I was not able to cling to negations. The possession
+of the bread was a more absorbing fact than the loss of the jam. If I
+were to read my character backwards, I ought to believe that I did
+miss what I lacked in our days of privation; for I know, to my shame,
+that in more recent years I have cried for jam. But I am trying not to
+reason, only to remember; and from many scattered and shadowy
+memories, that glimmer and fade away so fast that I cannot fix them on
+this page, I form an idea, almost a conviction, that it was with me as
+I say.
+
+However indifferent I may have been to what I had not, I was fully
+alive to what I had. So when I came to Vitebsk I eagerly seized on the
+many new things that I found around me; and these new impressions and
+experiences affected me so much that I count that visit as an epoch in
+my Russian life.
+
+I was very much at home in my uncle's household. I was a little afraid
+of my aunt, who had a quick temper, but on the whole I liked her. She
+was fair and thin and had a pretty smile in the wake of her tempers.
+Uncle Solomon was an old friend. I was fond of him and he made much of
+me. His fine brown eyes were full of smiles, and there always was a
+pleasant smile for me, or a teasing one.
+
+Uncle Solomon was comparatively prosperous, so I soon forgot whatever
+I had known at home of sordid cares. I do not remember that I was ever
+haunted by the thought of my mother, who slaved to keep us in bread;
+or of my sister, so little older than myself, who bent her little back
+to a woman's work. I took up the life around me as if there were no
+other life. I did not play all the time, but I enjoyed whatever work I
+found because I was so happy. I helped my Cousin Dinke help her
+mother with the housework. I put it this way because I think my aunt
+never set me any tasks; but Dinke was glad to have me help wash dishes
+and sweep and make beds. My cousin was a gentle, sweet girl, blue-eyed
+and fair, and altogether attractive. She talked to me about grown-up
+things, and I liked it. When her friends came to visit her she did not
+mind having me about, although my skirts were so short.
+
+My helping hand was extended also to my smaller cousins, Mendele and
+Perele. I played lotto with Mendele and let him beat me; I found him
+when he was lost, and I helped him play tricks on our elders. Perele,
+the baby, was at times my special charge, and I think she did not
+suffer in my hands. I was a good nurse, though my methods were
+somewhat original.
+
+Uncle Solomon was often away on business, and in his absence Cousin
+Hirshel was my hero. Hirshel was only a little older than I, but he
+was a pupil in the high school, and wore the student's uniform, and
+knew nearly as much as my uncle, I thought. When he buckled on his
+satchel of books in the morning, and strode away straight as a
+soldier,--no heder boy ever walked like that,--I stood in the doorway
+and worshipped his retreating steps. I met him on his return in the
+late afternoon, and hung over him when he laid out his books for his
+lessons. Sometimes he had long Russian pieces to commit to memory. He
+would walk up and down repeating the lines out loud, and I learned as
+fast as he. He would let me hold the book while he recited, and a
+proud girl was I if I could correct him.
+
+My interest in his lessons amused him; he did not take me seriously.
+He looked much like his father, and twinkled his eyes at me in the
+same way and made fun of me, too. But sometimes he condescended to set
+me a lesson in spelling or arithmetic,--in reading I was as good as
+he,--and if I did well, he praised me and went and told the family
+about it; but lest I grow too proud of my achievements, he would sit
+down and do mysterious sums--I now believe it was algebra--to which I
+had no clue whatever, and which duly impressed me with a sense of my
+ignorance.
+
+There were other books in the house than school-books. The Hebrew
+books, of course, were there, as in other Jewish homes; but I was no
+longer devoted to the Psalms. There were a few books about in Russian
+and in Yiddish, that were neither works of devotion nor of
+instruction. These were story-books and poems. They were a great
+surprise to me and a greater delight. I read them hungrily, all there
+were--a mere handful, but to me an overwhelming treasure. Of all those
+books I remember by name only "Robinson Crusoe." I think I preferred
+the stories to the poems, though poetry was good to recite, walking up
+and down, like Cousin Hirshel. That was my introduction to secular
+literature, but I did not understand it at the time.
+
+When I had exhausted the books, I began on the old volumes of a
+Russian periodical which I found on a shelf in my room. There was a
+high stack of these paper volumes, and I was so hungry for books that
+I went at them greedily, fearing that I might not get through before I
+had to return to Polotzk.
+
+I read every spare minute of the day, and most of the night. I
+scarcely ever stopped at night until my lamp burned out. Then I would
+creep into bed beside Dinke, but often my head burned so from
+excitement that I did not sleep at once. And no wonder. The violent
+romances which rushed through the pages of that periodical were fit to
+inflame an older, more sophisticated brain than mine. I must believe
+that it was a thoroughly respectable magazine, because I found it in
+my Uncle Solomon's house; but the novels it printed were certainly
+sensational, if I dare judge from my lurid recollections. These
+romances, indeed, may have had their literary qualities, which I was
+too untrained to appreciate. I remember nothing but startling
+adventures of strange heroes and heroines, violent catastrophes in
+every chapter, beautiful maidens abducted by cruel Cossacks, inhuman
+mothers who poisoned their daughters for jealousy of their lovers; and
+all these unheard-of things happening in a strange world, the very
+language of which was unnatural to me. I was quick enough to fix
+meanings to new words, however, so keen was my interest in what I
+read. Indeed, when I recall the zest with which I devoured those
+fearful pages, the thrill with which I followed the heartless mother
+or the abused maiden in her adventures, my heart beating in my throat
+when my little lamp began to flicker; and then, myself, big-eyed and
+shivery in the dark, stealing to bed like a guilty ghost,--when I
+remember all this, I have an unpleasant feeling, as of one hearing of
+another's debauch; and I would be glad to shake the little bony
+culprit that I was then.
+
+My uncle was away so much of the time that I doubt if he knew how I
+spent my nights. My aunt, poor hard-worked housewife, knew too little
+of books to direct my reading. My cousins were not enough older than
+myself to play mentors to me. Besides all this, I think it was tacitly
+agreed, at my uncle's as at home, that Mashke was best let alone in
+such matters. So I burnt my midnight lamp, and filled my mind with a
+conglomeration of images entirely unsuited to my mental digestion; and
+no one can say what they would have bred in me, besides headache and
+nervousness, had they not been so soon dispelled and superseded by a
+host of strong new impressions. For these readings ended with my
+visit, which was closely followed by the preparations for our
+emigration.
+
+On the whole, then, I do not feel that I was seriously harmed by my
+wild reading. I have not been told that my taste was corrupted, and my
+morals, I believe, have also escaped serious stricture. I would even
+say that I have never been hurt by any revelation, however distorted
+or untimely, that I found in books, good or poor; that I have never
+read an idle book that was entirely useless; and that I have never
+quite lost whatever was significant to my spirit in any book, good or
+bad, even though my conscious memory can give no account of it.
+
+One lived, at Uncle Solomon's, not only one's own life, but the life
+of all around. My uncle, when he returned after a short absence, had
+stories to tell and adventures to describe; and I learned that one
+might travel considerably and see things unknown even in Vitebsk,
+without going as far as America. My cousins sometimes went to the
+theatre, and I listened with rapture to their account of what they had
+seen, and I learned the songs they had heard. Once Cousin Hirshel went
+to see a giant, who exhibited himself for three kopecks, and came home
+with such marvellous accounts of his astonishing proportions, and his
+amazing feats of strength, that little Mendele cried for envy, and I
+had to play lotto with him and let him beat me oh, so easily! till he
+felt himself a man again.
+
+And sometimes I had adventures of my own. I explored the city to some
+extent by myself, or else my cousins took me with them on their
+errands. There were so many fine people to see, such wonderful shops,
+such great distances to go. Once they took me to a bookstore. I saw
+shelves and shelves of books, and people buying them, and taking them
+away to keep. I was told that some people had in their own houses more
+books than were in the store. Was not that wonderful? It was a great
+city, Vitebsk; I never could exhaust its delights.
+
+Although I did not often think of my people at home, struggling
+desperately to live while I revelled in abundance and pleasure and
+excitement, I did do my little to help the family by giving lessons in
+lacemaking. As this was the only time in my life that I earned money
+by the work of my hands, I take care not to forget it and I like to
+give an account of it.
+
+I was always, as I have elsewhere admitted, very clumsy with my hands,
+counting five thumbs to the hand. Knitting and embroidery, at which my
+sister was so clever, I could never do with any degree of skill. The
+blue peacock with the red tail that I achieved in cross-stitch was not
+a performance of any grace. Neither was I very much downcast at my
+failures in this field; I was not an ambitious needlewoman. But when
+the fad for "Russian lace" was introduced into Polotzk by a family of
+sisters who had been expelled from St. Petersburg, and all feminine
+Polotzk, on both sides of the Dvina, dropped knitting and crochet
+needles and embroidery frames to take up pillow and bobbins, I, too,
+was carried away by the novelty, and applied myself heartily to learn
+the intricate art, with the result that I did master it. The Russian
+sisters charged enormous fees for lessons, and made a fortune out of
+the sale of patterns while they held the monopoly. Their pupils passed
+on the art at reduced fees, and their pupils' pupils charged still
+less; until even the humblest cottage rang with the pretty click of
+the bobbins, and my Cousin Rachel sold steel pins by the ounce,
+instead of by the dozen, and the women exchanged cardboard patterns
+from one end of town to the other.
+
+My teacher, who taught me without fee, being a friend of our
+prosperous days, lived "on the other side." It was winter, and many a
+time I crossed the frozen river, carrying a lace pillow as big as
+myself, till my hands were numb with cold. But I persisted, afraid as
+I was of cold; and when I came to Vitebsk I was glad of my one
+accomplishment. For Vitebsk had not yet seen "Russian lace," and I was
+an acceptable teacher of the new art, though I was such a mite,
+because there was no other. I taught my Cousin Dinke, of course, and I
+had a number of paying pupils. I gave lessons at my pupils' homes, and
+was very proud, going thus about town and being received as a person
+of importance. If my feet did not reach the floor when I sat in a
+chair, my hands knew their business for once; and I was such a
+conscientious and enthusiastic teacher that I had the satisfaction of
+seeing all my pupils execute difficult pieces before I left Vitebsk.
+
+I never have seen money that was half so bright to look at, half so
+pretty to clink, as the money I earned by these lessons. And it was
+easy to decide what to do with my wealth. I bought presents for
+everybody I knew. I remember to this day the pattern of the shawl I
+bought for my mother. When I came home and unpacked my treasures, I
+was the proudest girl in Polotzk.
+
+The proudest, but not the happiest. I found my family in such a
+pitiful state that all my joy was stifled by care, if only for a
+while.
+
+Unwilling to spoil my holiday, my mother had not written me how things
+had gone from bad to worse during my absence, and I was not prepared.
+Fetchke met me at the station, and conducted me to a more wretched
+hole than I had ever called home before.
+
+I went into the room alone, having been greeted outside by my mother
+and brother. It was evening, and the shabbiness of the apartment was
+all the gloomier for the light of a small kerosene lamp standing on
+the bare deal table. At one end of the table--is this Deborah? My
+little sister, dressed in an ugly gray jacket, sat motionless in the
+lamplight, her fair head drooping, her little hands folded on the edge
+of the table. At sight of her I grew suddenly old. It was merely that
+she was a shy little girl, unbecomingly dressed, and perhaps a little
+pale from underfeeding. But to me, at that moment, she was the
+personification of dejection, the living symbol of the fallen family
+state.
+
+Of course my sober mood did not last long. Even "fallen family state"
+could be interpreted in terms of money--absent money--and that, as
+once established, was a trifling matter. Hadn't I earned money myself?
+Heaps of it! Only look at this, and this, and this that I brought from
+Vitebsk, bought with my own money! No, I did not remain old. For many
+years more I was a very childish child.
+
+Perhaps I had spent my time in Vitebsk to better advantage than at the
+milliner's, from any point of view. When I returned to my native town
+I _saw_ things. I saw the narrowness, the stifling narrowness, of life
+in Polotzk. My books, my walks, my visits, as teacher, to many homes,
+had been so many doors opening on a wider world; so many horizons, one
+beyond the other. The boundaries of life had stretched, and I had
+filled my lungs with the thrilling air from a great Beyond. Child
+though I was, Polotzk, when I came back, was too small for me.
+
+And even Vitebsk, for all its peepholes into a Beyond, presently began
+to shrink in my imagination, as America loomed near. My father's
+letters warned us to prepare for the summons, and we lived in a quiver
+of expectation.
+
+Not that my father had grown suddenly rich. He was so far from rich
+that he was going to borrow every cent of the money for our
+third-class passage; but he had a business in view which he could
+carry on all the better for having the family with him; and, besides,
+we were borrowing right and left anyway, and to no definite purpose.
+With the children, he argued, every year in Russia was a year lost.
+They should be spending the precious years in school, in learning
+English, in becoming Americans. United in America, there were ten
+chances of our getting to our feet again to one chance in our
+scattered, aimless state.
+
+So at last I was going to America! Really, really going, at last! The
+boundaries burst. The arch of heaven soared. A million suns shone out
+for every star. The winds rushed in from outer space, roaring in my
+ears, "America! America!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE EXODUS
+
+
+On the day when our steamer ticket arrived, my mother did not go out
+with her basket, my brother stayed out of heder, and my sister salted
+the soup three times. I do not know what I did to celebrate the
+occasion. Very likely I played tricks on Deborah, and wrote a long
+letter to my father.
+
+Before sunset the news was all over Polotzk that Hannah Hayye had
+received a steamer ticket for America. Then they began to come. Friends
+and foes, distant relatives and new acquaintances, young and old, wise
+and foolish, debtors and creditors, and mere neighbors,--from every
+quarter of the city, from both sides of the Dvina, from over the
+Polota, from nowhere,--a steady stream of them poured into our street,
+both day and night, till the hour of our departure. And my mother gave
+audience. Her faded kerchief halfway off her head, her black ringlets
+straying, her apron often at her eyes, she received her guests in a
+rainbow of smiles and tears. She was the heroine of Polotzk, and she
+conducted herself appropriately. She gave her heart's thanks for the
+congratulations and blessings that poured in on her; ready tears for
+condolences; patient answers to monotonous questions; and handshakes
+and kisses and hugs she gave gratis.
+
+What did they not ask, the eager, foolish, friendly people? They
+wanted to handle the ticket, and mother must read them what is written
+on it. How much did it cost? Was it all paid for? Were we going to
+have a foreign passport or did we intend to steal across the border?
+Were we not all going to have new dresses to travel in? Was it sure
+that we could get koscher food on the ship? And with the questions
+poured in suggestions, and solid chunks of advice were rammed in by
+nimble prophecies. Mother ought to make a pilgrimage to a "Good
+Jew"--say, the Rebbe of Lubavitch--to get his blessing on our journey.
+She must be sure and pack her prayer books and Bible, and twenty
+pounds of zwieback at the least. If they did serve trefah on the ship,
+she and the four children would have to starve, unless she carried
+provisions from home.--Oh, she must take all the featherbeds!
+Featherbeds are scarce in America. In America they sleep on hard
+mattresses, even in winter. Haveh Mirel, Yachne the dressmaker's
+daughter, who emigrated to New York two years ago, wrote her mother
+that she got up from childbed with sore sides, because she had no
+featherbed.--Mother mustn't carry her money in a pocketbook. She must
+sew it into the lining of her jacket. The policemen in Castle Garden
+take all their money from the passengers as they land, unless the
+travellers deny having any.
+
+And so on, and so on, till my poor mother was completely bewildered.
+And as the day set for our departure approached, the people came
+oftener and stayed longer, and rehearsed my mother in long messages
+for their friends in America, praying that she deliver them promptly
+on her arrival, and without fail, and might God bless her for her
+kindness, and she must be sure and write them how she found their
+friends.
+
+Hayye Dvoshe, the wig-maker, for the eleventh time repeating herself,
+to my mother, still patiently attentive, thus:--
+
+"Promise me, I beg you. I don't sleep nights for thinking of him.
+Emigrated to America eighteen months ago, fresh and well and strong,
+with twenty-five ruble in his pocket, besides his steamer ticket, with
+new phylacteries, and a silk skull-cap, and a suit as good as
+new,--made it only three years before,--everything respectable, there
+could be nothing better;--sent one letter, how he arrived in Castle
+Garden, how well he was received by his uncle's son-in-law, how he was
+conducted to the baths, how they bought him an American suit,
+everything good, fine, pleasant;--wrote how his relative promised him
+a position in his business--a clothing merchant is he--makes
+gold,--and since then not a postal card, not a word, just as if he had
+vanished, as if the earth had swallowed him. _Oi, weh!_ what haven't I
+imagined, what haven't I dreamed, what haven't I lamented! Already
+three letters have I sent--the last one, you know, you yourself wrote
+for me, Hannah Hayye, dear--and no answer. Lost, as if in the sea!"
+
+And after the application of a corner of her shawl to eyes and nose,
+Hayye Dvoshe, continuing:--
+
+"So you will go into the newspaper, and ask them what has become of my
+Moeshele, and if he isn't in Castle Garden, maybe he went up to
+Balti-moreh,--it's in the neighborhood, you know,--and you can tell
+them, for a mark, that he has a silk handkerchief with his monogram in
+Russian, that his betrothed embroidered for him before the engagement
+was broken. And may God grant you an easy journey, and may you arrive
+in a propitious hour, and may you find your husband well, and strong,
+and rich, and may you both live to lead your children to the wedding
+canopy, and may America shower gold on you. Amen."
+
+The weeks skipped, the days took wing, an hour was a flash of thought;
+so brimful of events was the interval before our departure. And no one
+was more alive than I to the multiple significance of the daily drama.
+My mother, full of grief at the parting from home and family and all
+things dear, anxious about the journey, uncertain about the future,
+but ready, as ever, to take up what new burdens awaited her; my
+sister, one with our mother in every hope and apprehension; my
+brother, rejoicing in his sudden release from heder; and the little
+sister, vaguely excited by mysteries afoot; the uncles and aunts and
+devoted neighbors, sad and solemn over their coming loss; and my
+father away over in Boston, eager and anxious about us in Polotzk,--an
+American citizen impatient to start his children on American
+careers,--I knew the minds of every one of these, and I lived their
+days and nights with them after an apish fashion of my own.
+
+But at bottom I was aloof from them all. What made me silent and
+big-eyed was the sense of being in the midst of a tremendous
+adventure. From morning till night I was all attention. I must credit
+myself with some pang of parting; I certainly felt the thrill of
+expectation; but keener than these was my delight in the progress of
+the great adventure. It was delightful just to be myself. I rejoiced,
+with the younger children, during the weeks of packing and
+preparation, in the relaxation of discipline and the general
+demoralization of our daily life. It was pleasant to be petted and
+spoiled by favorite cousins and stuffed with belated sweets by
+unfavorite ones. It was distinctly interesting to catch my mother
+weeping in corner cupboards over precious rubbish that could by no
+means be carried to America. It was agreeable to have my Uncle Moses
+stroke my hair and regard me with affectionate eyes, while he told me
+that I would soon forget him, and asked me, so coaxingly, to write him
+an account of our journey. It was delicious to be notorious through
+the length and breadth of Polotzk; to be stopped and questioned at
+every shop-door, when I ran out to buy two kopecks' worth of butter;
+to be treated with respect by my former playmates, if ever I found
+time to mingle with them; to be pointed at by my enemies, as I passed
+them importantly on the street. And all my delight and pride and
+interest were steeped in a super-feeling, the sense that it was I,
+Mashke, _I myself_, that was moving and acting in the midst of unusual
+events. Now that I was sure of America, I was in no hurry to depart,
+and not impatient to arrive. I was willing to linger over every detail
+of our progress, and so cherish the flavor of the adventure.
+
+The last night in Polotzk we slept at my uncle's house, having
+disposed of all our belongings, to the last three-legged stool, except
+such as we were taking with us. I could go straight to the room where
+I slept with my aunt that night, if I were suddenly set down in
+Polotzk. But I did not really sleep. Excitement kept me awake, and my
+aunt snored hideously. In the morning I was going away from Polotzk,
+forever and ever. I was going on a wonderful journey. I was going to
+America. How could I sleep?
+
+My uncle gave out a false bulletin, with the last batch that the
+gossips carried away in the evening. He told them that we were not
+going to start till the second day. This he did in the hope of
+smuggling us quietly out, and so saving us the wear and tear of a
+public farewell. But his ruse failed of success. Half of Polotzk was
+at my uncle's gate in the morning, to conduct us to the railway
+station, and the other half was already there before we arrived.
+
+The procession resembled both a funeral and a triumph. The women wept
+over us, reminding us eloquently of the perils of the sea, of the
+bewilderment of a foreign land, of the torments of homesickness that
+awaited us. They bewailed my mother's lot, who had to tear herself
+away from blood relations to go among strangers; who had to face
+gendarmes, ticket agents, and sailors, unprotected by a masculine
+escort; who had to care for four young children in the confusion of
+travel, and very likely feed them trefah or see them starve on the
+way. Or they praised her for a brave pilgrim, and expressed confidence
+in her ability to cope with gendarmes and ticket agents, and blessed
+her with every other word, and all but carried her in their arms.
+
+At the station the procession disbanded and became a mob. My uncle and
+my tall cousins did their best to protect us, but we wanderers were
+almost torn to pieces. They did get us into a car at last, but the
+riot on the station platform continued unquelled. When the warning
+bell rang out, it was drowned in a confounding babel of
+voices,--fragments of the oft-repeated messages, admonitions,
+lamentations, blessings, farewells. "Don't forget!"--"Take care of--"
+"Keep your tickets--" "Moeshele--newspapers!" "Garlick is best!" "Happy
+journey!" "God help you!" "Good-bye! Good-bye!" "Remember--"
+
+The last I saw of Polotzk was an agitated mass of people, waving
+colored handkerchiefs and other frantic bits of calico, madly
+gesticulating, falling on each other's necks, gone wild altogether.
+Then the station became invisible, and the shining tracks spun out
+from sky to sky. I was in the middle of the great, great world, and
+the longest road was mine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Memory may take a rest while I copy from a contemporaneous document
+the story of the great voyage. In accordance with my promise to my
+uncle, I wrote, during my first months in America, a detailed account
+of our adventures between Polotzk and Boston. Ink was cheap, and the
+epistle, in Yiddish, occupied me for many hot summer hours. It was a
+great disaster, therefore, to have a lamp upset on my writing-table,
+when I was near the end, soaking the thick pile of letter sheets in
+kerosene. I was obliged to make a fair copy for my uncle, and my
+father kept the oily, smelly original. After a couple of years'
+teasing, he induced me to translate the letter into English, for the
+benefit of a friend who did not know Yiddish; for the benefit of the
+present narrative, which was not thought of thirteen years ago. I can
+hardly refrain from moralizing as I turn to the leaves of my childish
+manuscript, grateful at last for the calamity of the overturned lamp.
+
+Our route lay over the German border, with Hamburg for our port. On
+the way to the frontier we stopped for a farewell visit in Vilna,
+where my mother had a brother. Vilna is slighted in my description. I
+find special mention of only two things, the horse-cars and the
+bookstores.
+
+On a gray wet morning in early April we set out for the frontier. This
+was the real beginning of our journey, and all my faculties of
+observation were alert. I took note of everything,--the weather, the
+trains, the bustle of railroad stations, our fellow passengers, and
+the family mood at every stage of our progress.
+
+The bags and bundles which composed our travelling outfit were much
+more bulky than valuable. A trifling sum of money, the steamer ticket,
+and the foreign passport were the magic agents by means of which we
+hoped to span the five thousand miles of earth and water between us
+and my father. The passport was supposed to pass us over the frontier
+without any trouble, but on account of the prevalence of cholera in
+some parts of the country, the poorer sort of travellers, such as
+emigrants, were subjected, at this time, to more than ordinary
+supervision and regulation.
+
+At Versbolovo, the last station on the Russian side, we met the first
+of our troubles. A German physician and several gendarmes boarded the
+train and put us through a searching examination as to our health,
+destination, and financial resources. As a result of the inquisition
+we were informed that we would not be allowed to cross the frontier
+unless we exchanged our third-class steamer ticket for second-class,
+which would require two hundred rubles more than we possessed. Our
+passport was taken from us, and we were to be turned back on our
+journey.
+
+My letter describes the situation:--
+
+    We were homeless, houseless, and friendless in a strange place.
+    We had hardly money enough to last us through the voyage for
+    which we had hoped and waited for three long years. We had
+    suffered much that the reunion we longed for might come about;
+    we had prepared ourselves to suffer more in order to bring it
+    about, and had parted with those we loved, with places that were
+    dear to us in spite of what we passed through in them, never
+    again to see them, as we were convinced--all for the same dear
+    end. With strong hopes and high spirits that hid the sad
+    parting, we had started on our long journey. And now we were
+    checked so unexpectedly but surely, the blow coming from where
+    we little expected it, being, as we believed, safe in that
+    quarter. When my mother had recovered enough to speak, she began
+    to argue with the gendarme, telling him our story and begging
+    him to be kind. The children were frightened and all but I
+    cried. I was only wondering what would happen.
+
+Moved by our distress, the German officers gave us the best advice
+they could. We were to get out at the station of Kibart on the Russian
+side, and apply to one Herr Schidorsky, who might help us on our way.
+
+The letter goes on:--
+
+    We are in Kibart, at the depot. The least important particular,
+    even, of that place, I noticed and remembered. How the
+    porter--he was an ugly, grinning man--carried in our things and
+    put them away in the southern corner of the big room, on the
+    floor; how we sat down on a settee near them, a yellow settee;
+    how the glass roof let in so much light that we had to shade our
+    eyes because the car had been dark and we had been crying; how
+    there were only a few people besides ourselves there, and how I
+    began to count them and stopped when I noticed a sign over the
+    head of the fifth person--a little woman with a red nose and a
+    pimple on it--and tried to read the German, with the aid of the
+    Russian translation below. I noticed all this and remembered it,
+    as if there were nothing else in the world for me to think of.
+
+The letter dwells gratefully on the kindness of Herr Schidorsky, who
+became the agent of our salvation. He procured my mother a pass to
+Eidtkuhnen, the German frontier station, where his older brother, as
+chairman of a well-known emigrant aid association, arranged for our
+admission into Germany. During the negotiations, which took several
+days, the good man of Kibart entertained us in his own house, shabby
+emigrants though we were. The Schidorsky brothers were Jews, but it is
+not on that account that their name has been lovingly remembered for
+fifteen years in my family.
+
+On the German side our course joined that of many other emigrant
+groups, on their way to Hamburg and other ports. We were a clumsy
+enough crowd, with wide, unsophisticated eyes, with awkward bundles
+hugged in our arms, and our hearts set on America.
+
+The letter to my uncle faithfully describes every stage of our
+bustling progress. Here is a sample scene of many that I recorded:--
+
+    There was a terrible confusion in the baggage-room where we were
+    directed to go. Boxes, baskets, bags, valises, and great,
+    shapeless things belonging to no particular class, were thrown
+    about by porters and other men, who sorted them and put tickets
+    on all but those containing provisions, while others were opened
+    and examined in haste. At last our turn came, and our things,
+    along with those of all other American-bound travellers, were
+    taken away to be steamed and smoked and other such processes
+    gone through. We were told to wait till notice should be given
+    us of something else to be done.
+
+The phrases "we were told to do this" and "told to do that" occur
+again and again in my narrative, and the most effective handling of
+the facts could give no more vivid picture of the proceedings. We
+emigrants were herded at the stations, packed in the cars, and driven
+from place to place like cattle.
+
+    At the expected hour we all tried to find room in a car
+    indicated by the conductor. We tried, but could only find enough
+    space on the floor for our baggage, on which we made-believe
+    sitting comfortably. For now we were obliged to exchange the
+    comparative comforts of a third-class passenger train for the
+    certain discomforts of a fourth-class one. There were only four
+    narrow benches in the whole car, and about twice as many people
+    were already seated on these as they were probably supposed to
+    accommodate. All other space, to the last inch, was crowded by
+    passengers or their luggage. It was very hot and close and
+    altogether uncomfortable, and still at every new station fresh
+    passengers came crowding in, and actually made room, spare as it
+    was, for themselves. It became so terrible that all glared madly
+    at the conductor as he allowed more people to come into that
+    prison, and trembled at the announcement of every station. I
+    cannot see even now how the officers could allow such a thing;
+    it was really dangerous.
+
+The following is my attempt to describe a flying glimpse of a
+metropolis:--
+
+    Towards evening we came into Berlin. I grow dizzy even now when
+    I think of our whirling through that city. It seemed we were
+    going faster and faster all the time, but it was only the whirl
+    of trains passing in opposite directions and close to us that
+    made it seem so. The sight of crowds of people such as we had
+    never seen before, hurrying to and fro, in and out of great
+    depots that danced past us, helped to make it more so. Strange
+    sights, splendid buildings, shops, people, and animals, all
+    mingled in one great, confused mass of a disposition to
+    continually move in a great hurry, wildly, with no other aim but
+    to make one's head go round and round, in following its dreadful
+    motions. Round and round went my head. It was nothing but
+    trains, depots, crowds,--crowds, depots, trains,--again and
+    again, with no beginning, no end, only a mad dance! Faster and
+    faster we go, faster still, and the noise increases with the
+    speed. Bells, whistles, hammers, locomotives shrieking madly,
+    men's voices, peddlers' cries, horses' hoofs, dogs'
+    barkings--all united in doing their best to drown every other
+    sound but their own, and made such a deafening uproar in the
+    attempt that nothing could keep it out.
+
+The plight of the bewildered emigrant on the way to foreign parts is
+always pitiful enough, but for us who came from plague-ridden Russia
+the terrors of the way were doubled.
+
+    In a great lonely field, opposite a solitary house within a
+    large yard, our train pulled up at last, and a conductor
+    commanded the passengers to make haste and get out. He need not
+    have told us to hurry; we were glad enough to be free again
+    after such a long imprisonment in the uncomfortable car. All
+    rushed to the door. We breathed more freely in the open field,
+    but the conductor did not wait for us to enjoy our freedom. He
+    hurried us into the one large room which made up the house, and
+    then into the yard. Here a great many men and women, dressed in
+    white, received us, the women attending to the women and girls
+    of the passengers, and the men to the others.
+
+    This was another scene of bewildering confusion, parents losing
+    their children, and little ones crying; baggage being thrown
+    together in one corner of the yard, heedless of contents, which
+    suffered in consequence; those white-clad Germans shouting
+    commands, always accompanied with "Quick! Quick!"--the confused
+    passengers obeying all orders like meek children, only
+    questioning now and then what was going to be done with them.
+
+    And no wonder if in some minds stories arose of people being
+    captured by robbers, murderers, and the like. Here we had been
+    taken to a lonely place where only that house was to be seen;
+    our things were taken away, our friends separated from us; a man
+    came to inspect us, as if to ascertain our full value;
+    strange-looking people driving us about like dumb animals,
+    helpless and unresisting; children we could not see crying in a
+    way that suggested terrible things; ourselves driven into a
+    little room where a great kettle was boiling on a little stove;
+    our clothes taken off, our bodies rubbed with a slippery
+    substance that might be any bad thing; a shower of warm water
+    let down on us without warning; again driven to another little
+    room where we sit, wrapped in woollen blankets till large,
+    coarse bags are brought in, their contents turned out, and we
+    see only a cloud of steam, and hear the women's orders to dress
+    ourselves,--"Quick! Quick!"--or else we'll miss--something we
+    cannot hear. We are forced to pick out our clothes from among
+    all the others, with the steam blinding us; we choke, cough,
+    entreat the women to give us time; they persist, "Quick!
+    Quick!--or you'll miss the train!"--Oh, so we really won't be
+    murdered! They are only making us ready for the continuing of
+    our journey, cleaning us of all suspicions of dangerous
+    sickness. Thank God!
+
+In Polotzk, if the cholera broke out, as it did once or twice in every
+generation, we made no such fuss as did these Germans. Those who died
+of the sickness were buried, and those who lived ran to the synagogues
+to pray. We travellers felt hurt at the way the Germans treated us. My
+mother nearly died of cholera once, but she was given a new name, a
+lucky one, which saved her; and that was when she was a small girl.
+None of us were sick now, yet hear how we were treated! Those
+gendarmes and nurses always shouted their commands at us from a
+distance, as fearful of our touch as if we had been lepers.
+
+We arrived in Hamburg early one morning, after a long night in the
+crowded cars. We were marched up to a strange vehicle, long and
+narrow and high, drawn by two horses and commanded by a mute driver.
+We were piled up on this wagon, our baggage was thrown after us, and
+we started on a sight-seeing tour across the city of Hamburg. The
+sights I faithfully enumerate for the benefit of my uncle include
+little carts drawn by dogs, and big cars that run of themselves, later
+identified as electric cars.
+
+The humorous side of our adventures did not escape me. Again and again
+I come across a laugh in the long pages of the historic epistle. The
+description of the ride through Hamburg ends with this:--
+
+    The sight-seeing was not all on our side. I noticed many people
+    stopping to look at us as if amused, though most passed by us as
+    though used to such sights. We did make a queer appearance all
+    in a long row, up above people's heads. In fact, we looked like
+    a flock of giant fowls roosting, only wide awake.
+
+The smiles and shivers fairly crowded each other in some parts of our
+career.
+
+    Suddenly, when everything interesting seemed at an end, we all
+    recollected how long it was since we had started on our funny
+    ride. Hours, we thought, and still the horses ran. Now we rode
+    through quieter streets where there were fewer shops and more
+    wooden houses. Still the horses seemed to have but just started.
+    I looked over our perch again. Something made me think of a
+    description I had read of criminals being carried on long
+    journeys in uncomfortable things--like this? Well, it was
+    strange--this long, long drive, the conveyance, no word of
+    explanation; and all, though going different ways, being packed
+    off together. We were strangers; the driver knew it. He might
+    take us anywhere--how could we tell? I was frightened again as
+    in Berlin. The faces around me confessed the same.
+
+    Yes, we are frightened. We are very still. Some Polish women
+    over there have fallen asleep, and the rest of us look such a
+    picture of woe, and yet so funny, it is a sight to see and
+    remember.
+
+Our mysterious ride came to an end on the outskirts of the city, where
+we were once more lined up, cross-questioned, disinfected, labelled,
+and pigeonholed. This was one of the occasions when we suspected that
+we were the victims of a conspiracy to extort money from us; for here,
+as at every repetition of the purifying operations we had undergone, a
+fee was levied on us, so much per head. My mother, indeed, seeing her
+tiny hoard melting away, had long since sold some articles from our
+baggage to a fellow passenger richer than she, but even so she did not
+have enough money to pay the fee demanded of her in Hamburg. Her
+statement was not accepted, and we all suffered the last indignity of
+having our persons searched.
+
+This last place of detention turned out to be a prison. "Quarantine"
+they called it, and there was a great deal of it--two weeks of it. Two
+weeks within high brick walls, several hundred of us herded in half a
+dozen compartments,--numbered compartments,--sleeping in rows, like
+sick people in a hospital; with roll-call morning and night, and short
+rations three times a day; with never a sign of the free world beyond
+our barred windows; with anxiety and longing and homesickness in our
+hearts, and in our ears the unfamiliar voice of the invisible ocean,
+which drew and repelled us at the same time. The fortnight in
+quarantine was not an episode; it was an epoch, divisible into eras,
+periods, events.
+
+    The greatest event was the arrival of some ship to take some of
+    the waiting passengers. When the gates were opened and the lucky
+    ones said good-bye, those left behind felt hopeless of ever
+    seeing the gates open for them. It was both pleasant and
+    painful, for the strangers grew to be fast friends in a day, and
+    really rejoiced in each other's fortune; but the regretful envy
+    could not be helped either.
+
+Our turn came at last. We were conducted through the gate of
+departure, and after some hours of bewildering manoeuvres, described
+in great detail in the report to my uncle, we found ourselves--we five
+frightened pilgrims from Polotzk--on the deck of a great big steamship
+afloat on the strange big waters of the ocean.
+
+For sixteen days the ship was our world. My letter dwells solemnly on
+the details of the life at sea, as if afraid to cheat my uncle of the
+smallest circumstance. It does not shrink from describing the torments
+of seasickness; it notes every change in the weather. A rough night is
+described, when the ship pitched and rolled so that people were thrown
+from their berths; days and nights when we crawled through dense fogs,
+our foghorn drawing answering warnings from invisible ships. The
+perils of the sea were not minimized in the imaginations of us
+inexperienced voyagers. The captain and his officers ate their
+dinners, smoked their pipes and slept soundly in their turns, while we
+frightened emigrants turned our faces to the wall and awaited our
+watery graves.
+
+All this while the seasickness lasted. Then came happy hours on deck,
+with fugitive sunshine, birds atop the crested waves, band music and
+dancing and fun. I explored the ship, made friends with officers and
+crew, or pursued my thoughts in quiet nooks. It was my first
+experience of the ocean, and I was profoundly moved.
+
+    Oh, what solemn thoughts I had! How deeply I felt the greatness,
+    the power of the scene! The immeasurable distance from horizon
+    to horizon; the huge billows forever changing their shapes--now
+    only a wavy and rolling plain, now a chain of great mountains,
+    coming and going farther away; then a town in the distance,
+    perhaps, with spires and towers and buildings of gigantic
+    dimensions; and mostly a vast mass of uncertain shapes, knocking
+    against each other in fury, and seething and foaming in their
+    anger; the gray sky, with its mountains of gloomy clouds,
+    flying, moving with the waves, as it seemed, very near them; the
+    absence of any object besides the one ship; and the deep, solemn
+    groans of the sea, sounding as if all the voices of the world
+    had been turned into sighs and then gathered into that one
+    mournful sound--so deeply did I feel the presence of these
+    things, that the feeling became one of awe, both painful and
+    sweet, and stirring and warming, and deep and calm and grand.
+
+    I would imagine myself all alone on the ocean, and Robinson
+    Crusoe was very real to me. I was alone sometimes. I was aware
+    of no human presence; I was conscious only of sea and sky and
+    something I did not understand. And as I listened to its solemn
+    voice, I felt as if I had found a friend, and knew that I loved
+    the ocean. It seemed as if it were within as well as without,
+    part of myself; and I wondered how I had lived without it, and
+    if I could ever part with it.
+
+And so suffering, fearing, brooding, rejoicing we crept nearer and
+nearer to the coveted shore, until, on a glorious May morning, six
+weeks after our departure from Polotzk, our eyes beheld the Promised
+Land, and my father received us in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+
+Having made such good time across the ocean, I ought to be able to
+proceed no less rapidly on _terra firma_, where, after all, I am more
+at home. And yet here is where I falter. Not that I hesitated, even
+for the space of a breath, in my first steps in America. There was no
+time to hesitate. The most ignorant immigrant, on landing proceeds to
+give and receive greetings, to eat, sleep and rise, after the manner
+of his own country; wherein he is corrected, admonished, and laughed
+at, whether by interested friends or the most indifferent strangers;
+and his American experience is thus begun. The process is spontaneous
+on all sides, like the education of the child by the family circle.
+But while the most stupid nursery maid is able to contribute her part
+toward the result, we do not expect an analysis of the process to be
+furnished by any member of the family, least of all by the engaging
+infant. The philosophical maiden aunt alone, or some other witness
+equally psychological and aloof, is able to trace the myriad efforts
+by which the little Johnnie or Nellie acquires a secure hold on the
+disjointed parts of the huge plaything, life.
+
+Now I was not exactly an infant when I was set down, on a May day some
+fifteen years ago, in this pleasant nursery of America. I had long
+since acquired the use of my faculties, and had collected some bits of
+experience practical and emotional, and had even learned to give an
+account of them. Still, I had very little perspective, and my
+observations and comparisons were superficial. I was too much carried
+away to analyze the forces that were moving me. My Polotzk I knew well
+before I began to judge it and experiment with it. America was
+bewilderingly strange, unimaginably complex, delightfully unexplored.
+I rushed impetuously out of the cage of my provincialism and looked
+eagerly about the brilliant universe. My question was, What have we
+here?--not, What does this mean? That query came much later. When I
+now become retrospectively introspective, I fall into the predicament
+of the centipede in the rhyme, who got along very smoothly until he
+was asked which leg came after which, whereupon he became so rattled
+that he couldn't take a step. I know I have come on a thousand feet,
+on wings, winds and American machines,--I have leaped and run and
+climbed and crawled,--but to tell which step came after which I find a
+puzzling matter. Plenty of maiden aunts were present during my second
+infancy, in the guise of immigrant officials, school-teachers,
+settlement workers, and sundry other unprejudiced and critical
+observers. Their statistics I might properly borrow to fill the gaps
+in my recollections, but I am prevented by my sense of harmony. The
+individual, we know, is a creature unknown to the statistician,
+whereas I undertook to give the personal view of everything. So I am
+bound to unravel, as well as I can, the tangle of events, outer and
+inner, which made up the first breathless years of my American life.
+
+During his three years of probation, my father had made a number of
+false starts in business. His history for that period is the history
+of thousands who come to America, like him, with pockets empty, hands
+untrained to the use of tools, minds cramped by centuries of
+repression in their native land. Dozens of these men pass under your
+eyes every day, my American friend, too absorbed in their honest
+affairs to notice the looks of suspicion which you cast at them, the
+repugnance with which you shrink from their touch. You see them
+shuffle from door to door with a basket of spools and buttons, or
+bending over the sizzling irons in a basement tailor shop, or
+rummaging in your ash can, or moving a pushcart from curb to curb, at
+the command of the burly policeman. "The Jew peddler!" you say, and
+dismiss him from your premises and from your thoughts, never dreaming
+that the sordid drama of his days may have a moral that concerns you.
+What if the creature with the untidy beard carries in his bosom his
+citizenship papers? What if the cross-legged tailor is supporting a
+boy in college who is one day going to mend your state constitution
+for you? What if the ragpicker's daughters are hastening over the
+ocean to teach your children in the public schools? Think, every time
+you pass the greasy alien on the street, that he was born thousands of
+years before the oldest native American; and he may have something to
+communicate to you, when you two shall have learned a common language.
+Remember that his very physiognomy is a cipher the key to which it
+behooves you to search for most diligently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the time we joined my father, he had surveyed many avenues of
+approach toward the coveted citadel of fortune. One of these,
+heretofore untried, he now proposed to essay, armed with new courage,
+and cheered on by the presence of his family. In partnership with an
+energetic little man who had an English chapter in his history, he
+prepared to set up a refreshment booth on Crescent Beach. But while he
+was completing arrangements at the beach we remained in town, where we
+enjoyed the educational advantages of a thickly populated
+neighborhood; namely, Wall Street, in the West End of Boston.
+
+Anybody who knows Boston knows that the West and North Ends are the
+wrong ends of that city. They form the tenement district, or, in the
+newer phrase, the slums of Boston. Anybody who is acquainted with the
+slums of any American metropolis knows that that is the quarter where
+poor immigrants foregather, to live, for the most part, as unkempt,
+half-washed, toiling, unaspiring foreigners; pitiful in the eyes of
+social missionaries, the despair of boards of health, the hope of ward
+politicians, the touchstone of American democracy. The well-versed
+metropolitan knows the slums as a sort of house of detention for poor
+aliens, where they live on probation till they can show a certificate
+of good citizenship.
+
+He may know all this and yet not guess how Wall Street, in the West
+End, appears in the eyes of a little immigrant from Polotzk. What
+would the sophisticated sight-seer say about Union Place, off Wall
+Street, where my new home waited for me? He would say that it is no
+place at all, but a short box of an alley. Two rows of three-story
+tenements are its sides, a stingy strip of sky is its lid, a littered
+pavement is the floor, and a narrow mouth its exit.
+
+But I saw a very different picture on my introduction to Union Place.
+I saw two imposing rows of brick buildings, loftier than any dwelling
+I had ever lived in. Brick was even on the ground for me to tread on,
+instead of common earth or boards. Many friendly windows stood open,
+filled with uncovered heads of women and children. I thought the
+people were interested in us, which was very neighborly. I looked up
+to the topmost row of windows, and my eyes were filled with the May
+blue of an American sky!
+
+In our days of affluence in Russia we had been accustomed to
+upholstered parlors, embroidered linen, silver spoons and
+candlesticks, goblets of gold, kitchen shelves shining with copper and
+brass. We had featherbeds heaped halfway to the ceiling; we had
+clothes presses dusky with velvet and silk and fine woollen. The three
+small rooms into which my father now ushered us, up one flight of
+stairs, contained only the necessary beds, with lean mattresses; a few
+wooden chairs; a table or two; a mysterious iron structure, which
+later turned out to be a stove; a couple of unornamental kerosene
+lamps; and a scanty array of cooking-utensils and crockery. And yet we
+were all impressed with our new home and its furniture. It was not
+only because we had just passed through our seven lean years, cooking
+in earthen vessels, eating black bread on holidays and wearing cotton;
+it was chiefly because these wooden chairs and tin pans were American
+chairs and pans that they shone glorious in our eyes. And if there was
+anything lacking for comfort or decoration we expected it to be
+presently supplied--at least, we children did. Perhaps my mother
+alone, of us newcomers, appreciated the shabbiness of the little
+apartment, and realized that for her there was as yet no laying down
+of the burden of poverty.
+
+Our initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new
+soil. My father found occasion to instruct or correct us even on
+the way from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded
+together in a rickety cab. He told us not to lean out of the windows,
+not to point, and explained the word "greenhorn." We did not want to
+be "greenhorns," and gave the strictest attention to my father's
+instructions. I do not know when my parents found opportunity to
+review together the history of Polotzk in the three years past, for we
+children had no patience with the subject; my mother's narrative was
+constantly interrupted by irrelevant questions, interjections, and
+explanations.
+
+   [Illustration: UNION PLACE (BOSTON) WHERE MY NEW HOME WAITED
+   FOR ME]
+
+The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father
+produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking,
+from little tin cans that had printing all over them. He attempted to
+introduce us to a queer, slippery kind of fruit, which he called
+"banana," but had to give it up for the time being. After the meal, he
+had better luck with a curious piece of furniture on runners, which he
+called "rocking-chair." There were five of us newcomers, and we found
+five different ways of getting into the American machine of perpetual
+motion, and as many ways of getting out of it. One born and bred to
+the use of a rocking-chair cannot imagine how ludicrous people can
+make themselves when attempting to use it for the first time. We
+laughed immoderately over our various experiments with the novelty,
+which was a wholesome way of letting off steam after the unusual
+excitement of the day.
+
+In our flat we did not think of such a thing as storing the coal in
+the bathtub. There was no bathtub. So in the evening of the first day
+my father conducted us to the public baths. As we moved along in a
+little procession, I was delighted with the illumination of the
+streets. So many lamps, and they burned until morning, my father
+said, and so people did not need to carry lanterns. In America, then,
+everything was free, as we had heard in Russia. Light was free; the
+streets were as bright as a synagogue on a holy day. Music was free;
+we had been serenaded, to our gaping delight, by a brass band of many
+pieces, soon after our installation on Union Place.
+
+Education was free. That subject my father had written about
+repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence
+of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not
+even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to
+promise us when he sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter. On
+our second day I was thrilled with the realization of what this
+freedom of education meant. A little girl from across the alley came
+and offered to conduct us to school. My father was out, but we five
+between us had a few words of English by this time. We knew the word
+school. We understood. This child, who had never seen us till
+yesterday, who could not pronounce our names, who was not much better
+dressed than we, was able to offer us the freedom of the schools of
+Boston! No application made, no questions asked, no examinations,
+rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees. The doors stood open
+for every one of us. The smallest child could show us the way.
+
+This incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance
+of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete
+proof--almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand
+it.
+
+It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not
+to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of
+the term, he said, and we were going to move to Crescent Beach in a
+week or so. We had to wait until the opening of the schools in
+September. What a loss of precious time--from May till September!
+
+Not that the time was really lost. Even the interval on Union Place
+was crowded with lessons and experiences. We had to visit the stores
+and be dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to learn
+the mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube;
+we had to learn to trade with the fruit peddler through the window,
+and not to be afraid of the policeman; and, above all, we had to learn
+English.
+
+The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a
+group by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen
+them from those early days till now, I should still have remembered
+them with gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of my American
+teachers, I must begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and
+taught us our first steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the
+cookstove, the woman who showed her how to make the fire was an angel
+of deliverance. A fairy godmother to us children was she who led us to
+a wonderful country called "uptown," where, in a dazzlingly beautiful
+palace called a "department store," we exchanged our hateful homemade
+European costumes, which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the
+children on the street, for real American machine-made garments, and
+issued forth glorified in each other's eyes.
+
+With our despised immigrant clothing we shed also our impossible
+Hebrew names. A committee of our friends, several years ahead of us in
+American experience, put their heads together and concocted American
+names for us all. Those of our real names that had no pleasing
+American equivalents they ruthlessly discarded, content if they
+retained the initials. My mother, possessing a name that was not
+easily translatable, was punished with the undignified nickname of
+Annie. Fetchke, Joseph, and Deborah issued as Frieda, Joseph, and
+Dora, respectively. As for poor me, I was simply cheated. The name
+they gave me was hardly new. My Hebrew name being Maryashe in full,
+Mashke for short, Russianized into Marya (_Mar-ya_), my friends said
+that it would hold good in English as _Mary_; which was very
+disappointing, as I longed to possess a strange-sounding American name
+like the others.
+
+I am forgetting the consolation I had, in this matter of names, from
+the use of my surname, which I have had no occasion to mention until
+now. I found on my arrival that my father was "Mr. Antin" on the
+slightest provocation, and not, as in Polotzk, on state occasions
+alone. And so I was "Mary Antin," and I felt very important to answer
+to such a dignified title. It was just like America that even plain
+people should wear their surnames on week days.
+
+As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and
+so clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to
+Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household
+goods, my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way,
+and I am sure he was not ashamed of us. So much we had achieved toward
+our Americanization during the two weeks since our landing.
+
+Crescent Beach is a name that is printed in very small type on the
+maps of the environs of Boston, but a life-size strip of sand curves
+from Winthrop to Lynn; and that is historic ground in the annals of my
+family. The place is now a popular resort for holiday crowds, and is
+famous under the name of Revere Beach. When the reunited Antins made
+their stand there, however, there were no boulevards, no stately
+bath-houses, no hotels, no gaudy amusement places, no illuminations,
+no showmen, no tawdry rabble. There was only the bright clean sweep of
+sand, the summer sea, and the summer sky. At high tide the whole
+Atlantic rushed in, tossing the seaweeds in his mane; at low tide he
+rushed out, growling and gnashing his granite teeth. Between tides a
+baby might play on the beach, digging with pebbles and shells, till it
+lay asleep on the sand. The whole sun shone by day, troops of stars by
+night, and the great moon in its season.
+
+Into this grand cycle of the seaside day I came to live and learn and
+play. A few people came with me, as I have already intimated; but the
+main thing was that _I_ came to live on the edge of the sea--I, who
+had spent my life inland, believing that the great waters of the world
+were spread out before me in the Dvina. My idea of the human world had
+grown enormously during the long journey; my idea of the earth had
+expanded with every day at sea; my idea of the world outside the earth
+now budded and swelled during my prolonged experience of the wide and
+unobstructed heavens.
+
+Not that I got any inkling of the conception of a multiple world. I
+had had no lessons in cosmogony, and I had no spontaneous revelation
+of the true position of the earth in the universe. For me, as for my
+fathers, the sun set and rose, and I did not feel the earth rushing
+through space. But I lay stretched out in the sun, my eyes level with
+the sea, till I seemed to be absorbed bodily by the very materials of
+the world around me; till I could not feel my hand as separate from
+the warm sand in which it was buried. Or I crouched on the beach at
+full moon, wondering, wondering, between the two splendors of the sky
+and the sea. Or I ran out to meet the incoming storm, my face full in
+the wind, my being a-tingle with an awesome delight to the tips of my
+fog-matted locks flying behind; and stood clinging to some stake or
+upturned boat, shaken by the roar and rumble of the waves. So
+clinging, I pretended that I was in danger, and was deliciously
+frightened; I held on with both hands, and shook my head, exulting in
+the tumult around me, equally ready to laugh or sob. Or else I sat, on
+the stillest days, with my back to the sea, not looking at all, but
+just listening to the rustle of the waves on the sand; not thinking at
+all, but just breathing with the sea.
+
+Thus courting the influence of sea and sky and variable weather, I was
+bound to have dreams, hints, imaginings. It was no more than this,
+perhaps: that the world as I knew it was not large enough to contain
+all that I saw and felt; that the thoughts that flashed through my
+mind, not half understood, unrelated to my utterable thoughts,
+concerned something for which I had as yet no name. Every imaginative
+growing child has these flashes of intuition, especially one that
+becomes intimate with some one aspect of nature. With me it was the
+growing time, that idle summer by the sea, and I grew all the faster
+because I had been so cramped before. My mind, too, had so recently
+been worked upon by the impressive experience of a change of country
+that I was more than commonly alive to impressions, which are the
+seeds of ideas.
+
+Let no one suppose that I spent my time entirely, or even chiefly, in
+inspired solitude. By far the best part of my day was spent in
+play--frank, hearty, boisterous play, such as comes natural to
+American children. In Polotzk I had already begun to be considered too
+old for play, excepting set games or organized frolics. Here I found
+myself included with children who still played, and I willingly
+returned to childhood. There were plenty of playfellows. My father's
+energetic little partner had a little wife and a large family. He kept
+them in the little cottage next to ours; and that the shanty survived
+the tumultuous presence of that brood is a wonder to me to-day. The
+young Wilners included an assortment of boys, girls, and twins, of
+every possible variety of age, size, disposition, and sex. They
+swarmed in and out of the cottage all day long, wearing the door-sill
+hollow, and trampling the ground to powder. They swung out of windows
+like monkeys, slid up the roof like flies, and shot out of trees like
+fowls. Even a small person like me couldn't go anywhere without being
+run over by a Wilner; and I could never tell which Wilner it was
+because none of them ever stood still long enough to be identified;
+and also because I suspected that they were in the habit of
+interchanging conspicuous articles of clothing, which was very
+confusing.
+
+You would suppose that the little mother must have been utterly lost,
+bewildered, trodden down in this horde of urchins; but you are
+mistaken. Mrs. Wilner was a positively majestic little person. She
+ruled her brood with the utmost coolness and strictness. She had even
+the biggest boy under her thumb, frequently under her palm. If they
+enjoyed the wildest freedom outdoors, indoors the young Wilners lived
+by the clock. And so at five o'clock in the evening, on seven days in
+the week, my father's partner's children could be seen in two long
+rows around the supper table. You could tell them apart on this
+occasion, because they all had their faces washed. And this is the
+time to count them: there are twelve little Wilners at table.
+
+I managed to retain my identity in this multitude somehow, and while I
+was very much impressed with their numbers, I even dared to pick and
+choose my friends among the Wilners. One or two of the smaller boys I
+liked best of all, for a game of hide-and-seek or a frolic on the
+beach. We played in the water like ducks, never taking the trouble to
+get dry. One day I waded out with one of the boys, to see which of us
+dared go farthest. The tide was extremely low, and we had not wet our
+knees when we began to look back to see if familiar objects were still
+in sight. I thought we had been wading for hours, and still the water
+was so shallow and quiet. My companion was marching straight ahead, so
+I did the same. Suddenly a swell lifted us almost off our feet, and we
+clutched at each other simultaneously. There was a lesser swell, and
+little waves began to run, and a sigh went up from the sea. The tide
+was turning--perhaps a storm was on the way--and we were miles,
+dreadful miles from dry land.
+
+Boy and girl turned without a word, four determined bare legs
+ploughing through the water, four scared eyes straining toward the
+land. Through an eternity of toil and fear they kept dumbly on, death
+at their heels, pride still in their hearts. At last they reach
+high-water mark--six hours before full tide.
+
+Each has seen the other afraid, and each rejoices in the knowledge.
+But only the boy is sure of his tongue.
+
+"You was scared, warn't you?" he taunts.
+
+The girl understands so much, and is able to reply:--
+
+"You can schwimmen, I not."
+
+"Betcher life I can schwimmen," the other mocks.
+
+And the girl walks off, angry and hurt.
+
+"An' I can walk on my hands," the tormentor calls after her. "Say, you
+greenhorn, why don'tcher look?"
+
+The girl keeps straight on, vowing that she would never walk with that
+rude boy again, neither by land nor sea, not even though the waters
+should part at his bidding.
+
+I am forgetting the more serious business which had brought us to
+Crescent Beach. While we children disported ourselves like mermaids
+and mermen in the surf, our respective fathers dispensed cold
+lemonade, hot peanuts, and pink popcorn, and piled up our respective
+fortunes, nickel by nickel, penny by penny. I was very proud of my
+connection with the public life of the beach. I admired greatly our
+shining soda fountain, the rows of sparkling glasses, the pyramids of
+oranges, the sausage chains, the neat white counter, and the bright
+array of tin spoons. It seemed to me that none of the other
+refreshment stands on the beach--there were a few--were half so
+attractive as ours. I thought my father looked very well in a long
+white apron and shirt sleeves. He dished out ice cream with
+enthusiasm, so I supposed he was getting rich. It never occurred to me
+to compare his present occupation with the position for which he had
+been originally destined; or if I thought about it, I was just as well
+content, for by this time I had by heart my father's saying, "America
+is not Polotzk." All occupations were respectable, all men were equal,
+in America.
+
+If I admired the soda fountain and the sausage chains, I almost
+worshipped the partner, Mr. Wilner. I was content to stand for an hour
+at a time watching him make potato chips. In his cook's cap and apron,
+with a ladle in his hand and a smile on his face, he moved about with
+the greatest agility, whisking his raw materials out of nowhere,
+dipping into his bubbling kettle with a flourish, and bringing forth
+the finished product with a caper. Such potato chips were not to be had
+anywhere else on Crescent Beach. Thin as tissue paper, crisp as dry
+snow, and salt as the sea--such thirst-producing, lemonade-selling,
+nickel-bringing potato chips only Mr. Wilner could make. On holidays,
+when dozens of family parties came out by every train from town, he
+could hardly keep up with the demand for his potato chips. And with a
+waiting crowd around him our partner was at his best. He was as voluble
+as he was skilful, and as witty as he was voluble; at least so I
+guessed from the laughter that frequently drowned his voice. I could
+not understand his jokes, but if I could get near enough to watch his
+lips and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could
+talk so fast, and in English, was marvel enough, but that this prodigy
+should belong to _our_ establishment was a fact to thrill me. I had
+never seen anything like Mr. Wilner, except a wedding jester; but then
+he spoke common Yiddish. So proud was I of the talent and good taste
+displayed at our stand that if my father beckoned to me in the crowd
+and sent me on an errand, I hoped the people noticed that I, too, was
+connected with the establishment.
+
+And all this splendor and glory and distinction came to a sudden end.
+There was some trouble about a license--some fee or fine--there was a
+storm in the night that damaged the soda fountain and other
+fixtures--there was talk and consultation between the houses of Antin
+and Wilner--and the promising partnership was dissolved. No more would
+the merry partner gather the crowd on the beach; no more would the
+twelve young Wilners gambol like mermen and mermaids in the surf. And
+the less numerous tribe of Antin must also say farewell to the jolly
+seaside life; for men in such humble business as my father's carry
+their families, along with their other earthly goods, wherever they
+go, after the manner of the gypsies. We had driven a feeble stake into
+the sand. The jealous Atlantic, in conspiracy with the Sunday law, had
+torn it out. We must seek our luck elsewhere.
+
+In Polotzk we had supposed that "America" was practically synonymous
+with "Boston." When we landed in Boston, the horizon was pushed back,
+and we annexed Crescent Beach. And now, espying other lands of
+promise, we took possession of the province of Chelsea, in the name of
+our necessity.
+
+In Chelsea, as in Boston, we made our stand in the wrong end of the
+town. Arlington Street was inhabited by poor Jews, poor Negroes, and a
+sprinkling of poor Irish. The side streets leading from it were
+occupied by more poor Jews and Negroes. It was a proper locality for a
+man without capital to do business. My father rented a tenement with a
+store in the basement. He put in a few barrels of flour and of sugar,
+a few boxes of crackers, a few gallons of kerosene, an assortment of
+soap of the "save the coupon" brands; in the cellar, a few barrels of
+potatoes, and a pyramid of kindling-wood; in the showcase, an alluring
+display of penny candy. He put out his sign, with a gilt-lettered
+warning of "Strictly Cash," and proceeded to give credit
+indiscriminately. That was the regular way to do business on Arlington
+Street. My father, in his three years' apprenticeship, had learned the
+tricks of many trades. He knew when and how to "bluff." The legend of
+"Strictly Cash" was a protection against notoriously irresponsible
+customers; while none of the "good" customers, who had a record for
+paying regularly on Saturday, hesitated to enter the store with empty
+purses.
+
+If my father knew the tricks of the trade, my mother could be counted
+on to throw all her talent and tact into the business. Of course she
+had no English yet, but as she could perform the acts of weighing,
+measuring, and mental computation of fractions mechanically, she was
+able to give her whole attention to the dark mysteries of the
+language, as intercourse with her customers gave her opportunity. In
+this she made such rapid progress that she soon lost all sense of
+disadvantage, and conducted herself behind the counter very much as if
+she were back in her old store in Polotzk. It was far more cosey than
+Polotzk--at least, so it seemed to me; for behind the store was the
+kitchen, where, in the intervals of slack trade, she did her cooking
+and washing. Arlington Street customers were used to waiting while the
+storekeeper salted the soup or rescued a loaf from the oven.
+
+Once more Fortune favored my family with a thin little smile, and my
+father, in reply to a friendly inquiry, would say, "One makes a
+living," with a shrug of the shoulders that added "but nothing to boast
+of." It was characteristic of my attitude toward bread-and-butter
+matters that this contented me, and I felt free to devote myself to the
+conquest of my new world. Looking back to those critical first years,
+I see myself always behaving like a child let loose in a garden to play
+and dig and chase the butterflies. Occasionally, indeed, I was stung by
+the wasp of family trouble; but I knew a healing ointment--my faith in
+America. My father had come to America to make a living. America, which
+was free and fair and kind, must presently yield him what he sought. I
+had come to America to see a new world, and I followed my own ends with
+the utmost assiduity; only, as I ran out to explore, I would look back
+to see if my house were in order behind me--if my family still kept its
+head above water.
+
+In after years, when I passed as an American among Americans, if I was
+suddenly made aware of the past that lay forgotten,--if a letter from
+Russia, or a paragraph in the newspaper, or a conversation overheard
+in the street-car, suddenly reminded me of what I might have been,--I
+thought it miracle enough that I, Mashke, the granddaughter of Raphael
+the Russian, born to a humble destiny, should be at home in an
+American metropolis, be free to fashion my own life, and should dream
+my dreams in English phrases. But in the beginning my admiration was
+spent on more concrete embodiments of the splendors of America; such
+as fine houses, gay shops, electric engines and apparatus, public
+buildings, illuminations, and parades. My early letters to my Russian
+friends were filled with boastful descriptions of these glories of my
+new country. No native citizen of Chelsea took such pride and delight
+in its institutions as I did. It required no fife and drum corps, no
+Fourth of July procession, to set me tingling with patriotism. Even
+the common agents and instruments of municipal life, such as the
+letter carrier and the fire engine, I regarded with a measure of
+respect. I know what I thought of people who said that Chelsea was a
+very small, dull, unaspiring town, with no discernible excuse for a
+separate name or existence.
+
+The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the
+bright September morning when I entered the public school. That day I
+must always remember, even if I live to be so old that I cannot tell
+my name. To most people their first day at school is a memorable
+occasion. In my case the importance of the day was a hundred times
+magnified, on account of the years I had waited, the road I had come,
+and the conscious ambitions I entertained.
+
+I am wearily aware that I am speaking in extreme figures, in
+superlatives. I wish I knew some other way to render the mental life
+of the immigrant child of reasoning age. I may have been ever so much
+an exception in acuteness of observation, powers of comparison, and
+abnormal self-consciousness; none the less were my thoughts and
+conduct typical of the attitude of the intelligent immigrant child
+toward American institutions. And what the child thinks and feels is a
+reflection of the hopes, desires, and purposes of the parents who
+brought him overseas, no matter how precocious and independent the
+child may be. Your immigrant inspectors will tell you what poverty the
+foreigner brings in his baggage, what want in his pockets. Let the
+overgrown boy of twelve, reverently drawing his letters in the baby
+class, testify to the noble dreams and high ideals that may be hidden
+beneath the greasy caftan of the immigrant. Speaking for the Jews, at
+least, I know I am safe in inviting such an investigation.
+
+Who were my companions on my first day at school? Whose hand was in
+mine, as I stood, overcome with awe, by the teacher's desk, and
+whispered my name as my father prompted? Was it Frieda's steady,
+capable hand? Was it her loyal heart that throbbed, beat for beat with
+mine, as it had done through all our childish adventures? Frieda's
+heart did throb that day, but not with my emotions. My heart pulsed
+with joy and pride and ambition; in her heart longing fought with
+abnegation. For I was led to the schoolroom, with its sunshine and its
+singing and the teacher's cheery smile; while she was led to the
+workshop, with its foul air, care-lined faces, and the foreman's stern
+command. Our going to school was the fulfilment of my father's best
+promises to us, and Frieda's share in it was to fashion and fit the
+calico frocks in which the baby sister and I made our first appearance
+in a public schoolroom.
+
+I remember to this day the gray pattern of the calico, so
+affectionately did I regard it as it hung upon the wall--my
+consecration robe awaiting the beatific day. And Frieda, I am sure,
+remembers it, too, so longingly did she regard it as the crisp,
+starchy breadths of it slid between her fingers. But whatever were her
+longings, she said nothing of them; she bent over the sewing-machine
+humming an Old-World melody. In every straight, smooth seam, perhaps,
+she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched
+the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of
+rebellion made her straighten up for an instant, the next instant she
+was bending to adjust a ruffle to the best advantage. And when the
+momentous day arrived, and the little sister and I stood up to be
+arrayed, it was Frieda herself who patted and smoothed my stiff new
+calico; who made me turn round and round, to see that I was perfect;
+who stooped to pull out a disfiguring basting-thread. If there was
+anything in her heart besides sisterly love and pride and good-will,
+as we parted that morning, it was a sense of loss and a woman's
+acquiescence in her fate; for we had been close friends, and now our
+ways would lie apart. Longing she felt, but no envy. She did not
+grudge me what she was denied. Until that morning we had been children
+together, but now, at the fiat of her destiny, she became a woman,
+with all a woman's cares; whilst I, so little younger than she, was
+bidden to dance at the May festival of untroubled childhood.
+
+I wish, for my comfort, that I could say that I had some notion of the
+difference in our lots, some sense of the injustice to her, of the
+indulgence to me. I wish I could even say that I gave serious thought
+to the matter. There had always been a distinction between us rather
+out of proportion to the difference in our years. Her good health and
+domestic instincts had made it natural for her to become my mother's
+right hand, in the years preceding the emigration, when there were no
+more servants or dependents. Then there was the family tradition that
+Mary was the quicker, the brighter of the two, and that hers could be
+no common lot. Frieda was relied upon for help, and her sister for
+glory. And when I failed as a milliner's apprentice, while Frieda made
+excellent progress at the dressmaker's, our fates, indeed, were
+sealed. It was understood, even before we reached Boston, that she
+would go to work and I to school. In view of the family prejudices, it
+was the inevitable course. No injustice was intended. My father sent
+us hand in hand to school, before he had ever thought of America. If,
+in America, he had been able to support his family unaided, it would
+have been the culmination of his best hopes to see all his children at
+school, with equal advantages at home. But when he had done his best,
+and was still unable to provide even bread and shelter for us all, he
+was compelled to make us children self-supporting as fast as it was
+practicable. There was no choosing possible; Frieda was the oldest,
+the strongest, the best prepared, and the only one who was of legal
+age to be put to work.
+
+My father has nothing to answer for. He divided the world between his
+children in accordance with the laws of the country and the compulsion
+of his circumstances. I have no need of defending him. It is myself
+that I would like to defend, and I cannot. I remember that I accepted
+the arrangements made for my sister and me without much reflection,
+and everything that was planned for my advantage I took as a matter of
+course. I was no heartless monster, but a decidedly self-centred
+child. If my sister had seemed unhappy it would have troubled me; but
+I am ashamed to recall that I did not consider how little it was that
+contented her. I was so preoccupied with my own happiness that I did
+not half perceive the splendid devotion of her attitude towards me,
+the sweetness of her joy in my good luck. She not only stood by
+approvingly when I was helped to everything; she cheerfully waited on
+me herself. And I took everything from her hand as if it were my due.
+
+The two of us stood a moment in the doorway of the tenement house on
+Arlington Street, that wonderful September morning when I first went
+to school. It was I that ran away, on winged feet of joy and
+expectation; it was she whose feet were bound in the treadmill of
+daily toil. And I was so blind that I did not see that the glory lay
+on her, and not on me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Father himself conducted us to school. He would not have delegated
+that mission to the President of the United States. He had awaited the
+day with impatience equal to mine, and the visions he saw as he
+hurried us over the sun-flecked pavements transcended all my dreams.
+Almost his first act on landing on American soil, three years before,
+had been his application for naturalization. He had taken the
+remaining steps in the process with eager promptness, and at the
+earliest moment allowed by the law, he became a citizen of the United
+States. It is true that he had left home in search of bread for his
+hungry family, but he went blessing the necessity that drove him to
+America. The boasted freedom of the New World meant to him far more
+than the right to reside, travel, and work wherever he pleased; it
+meant the freedom to speak his thoughts, to throw off the shackles of
+superstition, to test his own fate, unhindered by political or
+religious tyranny. He was only a young man when he landed--thirty-two;
+and most of his life he had been held in leading-strings. He was
+hungry for his untasted manhood.
+
+Three years passed in sordid struggle and disappointment. He was not
+prepared to make a living even in America, where the day laborer eats
+wheat instead of rye. Apparently the American flag could not protect
+him against the pursuing Nemesis of his limitations; he must expiate
+the sins of his fathers who slept across the seas. He had been endowed
+at birth with a poor constitution, a nervous, restless temperament,
+and an abundance of hindering prejudices. In his boyhood his body was
+starved, that his mind might be stuffed with useless learning. In his
+youth this dearly gotten learning was sold, and the price was the
+bread and salt which he had not been trained to earn for himself.
+Under the wedding canopy he was bound for life to a girl whose
+features were still strange to him; and he was bidden to multiply
+himself, that sacred learning might be perpetuated in his sons, to the
+glory of the God of his fathers. All this while he had been led about
+as a creature without a will, a chattel, an instrument. In his
+maturity he awoke, and found himself poor in health, poor in purse,
+poor in useful knowledge, and hampered on all sides. At the first nod
+of opportunity he broke away from his prison, and strove to atone for
+his wasted youth by a life of useful labor; while at the same time he
+sought to lighten the gloom of his narrow scholarship by freely
+partaking of modern ideas. But his utmost endeavor still left him far
+from his goal. In business, nothing prospered with him. Some fault of
+hand or mind or temperament led him to failure where other men found
+success. Wherever the blame for his disabilities be placed, he reaped
+their bitter fruit. "Give me bread!" he cried to America. "What will
+you do to earn it?" the challenge came back. And he found that he was
+master of no art, of no trade; that even his precious learning was of
+no avail, because he had only the most antiquated methods of
+communicating it.
+
+So in his primary quest he had failed. There was left him the
+compensation of intellectual freedom. That he sought to realize in
+every possible way. He had very little opportunity to prosecute his
+education, which, in truth, had never been begun. His struggle for a
+bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public evening
+school; but he lost nothing of what was to be learned through reading,
+through attendance at public meetings, through exercising the rights
+of citizenship. Even here he was hindered by a natural inability to
+acquire the English language. In time, indeed, he learned to read, to
+follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write
+correctly, and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this
+day.
+
+If education, culture, the higher life were shining things to be
+worshipped from afar, he had still a means left whereby he could draw
+one step nearer to them. He could send his children to school, to
+learn all those things that he knew by fame to be desirable. The
+common school, at least, perhaps high school; for one or two, perhaps
+even college! His children should be students, should fill his house
+with books and intellectual company; and thus he would walk by proxy
+in the Elysian Fields of liberal learning. As for the children
+themselves, he knew no surer way to their advancement and happiness.
+
+So it was with a heart full of longing and hope that my father led us
+to school on that first day. He took long strides in his eagerness,
+the rest of us running and hopping to keep up.
+
+At last the four of us stood around the teacher's desk; and my father,
+in his impossible English, gave us over in her charge, with some
+broken word of his hopes for us that his swelling heart could no
+longer contain. I venture to say that Miss Nixon was struck by
+something uncommon in the group we made, something outside of Semitic
+features and the abashed manner of the alien. My little sister was as
+pretty as a doll, with her clear pink-and-white face, short golden
+curls, and eyes like blue violets when you caught them looking up. My
+brother might have been a girl, too, with his cherubic contours of
+face, rich red color, glossy black hair, and fine eyebrows. Whatever
+secret fears were in his heart, remembering his former teachers, who
+had taught with the rod, he stood up straight and uncringing before
+the American teacher, his cap respectfully doffed. Next to him stood a
+starved-looking girl with eyes ready to pop out, and short dark curls
+that would not have made much of a wig for a Jewish bride.
+
+All three children carried themselves rather better than the common
+run of "green" pupils that were brought to Miss Nixon. But the figure
+that challenged attention to the group was the tall, straight father,
+with his earnest face and fine forehead, nervous hands eloquent in
+gesture, and a voice full of feeling. This foreigner, who brought his
+children to school as if it were an act of consecration, who regarded
+the teacher of the primer class with reverence, who spoke of visions,
+like a man inspired, in a common schoolroom, was not like other
+aliens, who brought their children in dull obedience to the law; was
+not like the native fathers, who brought their unmanageable boys, glad
+to be relieved of their care. I think Miss Nixon guessed what my
+father's best English could not convey. I think she divined that by
+the simple act of delivering our school certificates to her he took
+possession of America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+INITIATION
+
+
+It is not worth while to refer to voluminous school statistics to see
+just how many "green" pupils entered school last September, not
+knowing the days of the week in English, who next February will be
+declaiming patriotic verses in honor of George Washington and Abraham
+Lincoln, with a foreign accent, indeed, but with plenty of enthusiasm.
+It is enough to know that this hundred-fold miracle is common to the
+schools in every part of the United States where immigrants are
+received. And if I was one of Chelsea's hundred in 1894, it was only
+to be expected, since I was one of the older of the "green" children,
+and had had a start in my irregular schooling in Russia, and was
+carried along by a tremendous desire to learn, and had my family to
+cheer me on.
+
+I was not a bit too large for my little chair and desk in the baby
+class, but my mind, of course, was too mature by six or seven years
+for the work. So as soon as I could understand what the teacher said
+in class, I was advanced to the second grade. This was within a week
+after Miss Nixon took me in hand. But I do not mean to give my dear
+teacher all the credit for my rapid progress, nor even half the
+credit. I shall divide it with her on behalf of my race and my family.
+I was Jew enough to have an aptitude for language in general, and to
+bend my mind earnestly to my task; I was Antin enough to read each
+lesson with my heart, which gave me an inkling of what was coming
+next, and so carried me along by leaps and bounds. As for the teacher,
+she could best explain what theory she followed in teaching us
+foreigners to read. I can only describe the method, which was so
+simple that I wish holiness could be taught in the same way.
+
+There were about half a dozen of us beginners in English, in age from
+six to fifteen. Miss Nixon made a special class of us, and aided us so
+skilfully and earnestly in our endeavors to "see-a-cat," and
+"hear-a-dog-bark," and "look-at-the-hen," that we turned over page
+after page of the ravishing history, eager to find out how the common
+world looked, smelled, and tasted in the strange speech. The teacher
+knew just when to let us help each other out with a word in our own
+tongue,--it happened that we were all Jews,--and so, working all
+together, we actually covered more ground in a lesson than the native
+classes, composed entirely of the little tots.
+
+But we stuck--stuck fast--at the definite article; and sometimes the
+lesson resolved itself into a species of lingual gymnastics, in which
+we all looked as if we meant to bite our tongues off. Miss Nixon was
+pretty, and she must have looked well with her white teeth showing in
+the act; but at the time I was too solemnly occupied to admire her
+looks. I did take great pleasure in her smile of approval, whenever I
+pronounced well; and her patience and perseverance in struggling with
+us over that thick little word are becoming to her even now, after
+fifteen years. It is not her fault if any of us to-day give a buzzing
+sound to the dreadful English _th_.
+
+I shall never have a better opportunity to make public declaration of
+my love for the English language. I am glad that American history
+runs, chapter for chapter, the way it does; for thus America came to
+be the country I love so dearly. I am glad, most of all, that the
+Americans began by being Englishmen, for thus did I come to inherit
+this beautiful language in which I think. It seems to me that in any
+other language happiness is not so sweet, logic is not so clear. I am
+not sure that I could believe in my neighbors as I do if I thought
+about them in un-English words. I could almost say that my conviction
+of immortality is bound up with the English of its promise. And as I
+am attached to my prejudices, I must love the English language!
+
+Whenever the teachers did anything special to help me over my private
+difficulties, my gratitude went out to them, silently. It meant so
+much to me that they halted the lesson to give me a lift, that I needs
+must love them for it. Dear Miss Carrol, of the second grade, would be
+amazed to hear what small things I remember, all because I was so
+impressed at the time with her readiness and sweetness in taking
+notice of my difficulties.
+
+Says Miss Carrol, looking straight at me:--
+
+"If Johnnie has three marbles, and Charlie has twice as many, how many
+marbles has Charlie?"
+
+I raise my hand for permission to speak.
+
+"Teacher, I don't know vhat is tvice."
+
+Teacher beckons me to her, and whispers to me the meaning of the
+strange word, and I am able to write the sum correctly. It's all in
+the day's work with her; with me, it is a special act of kindness and
+efficiency.
+
+She whom I found in the next grade became so dear a friend that I can
+hardly name her with the rest, though I mention none of them lightly.
+Her approval was always dear to me, first because she was "Teacher,"
+and afterwards, as long as she lived, because she was my Miss
+Dillingham. Great was my grief, therefore, when, shortly after my
+admission to her class, I incurred discipline, the first, and next to
+the last, time in my school career.
+
+The class was repeating in chorus the Lord's Prayer, heads bowed on
+desks. I was doing my best to keep up by the sound; my mind could not
+go beyond the word "hallowed," for which I had not found the meaning.
+In the middle of the prayer a Jewish boy across the aisle trod on my
+foot to get my attention. "You must not say that," he admonished in a
+solemn whisper; "it's Christian." I whispered back that it wasn't, and
+went on to the "Amen." I did not know but what he was right, but the
+name of Christ was not in the prayer, and I was bound to do everything
+that the class did. If I had any Jewish scruples, they were lagging
+away behind my interest in school affairs. How American this was: two
+pupils side by side in the schoolroom, each holding to his own
+opinion, but both submitting to the common law; for the boy at least
+bowed his head as the teacher ordered.
+
+But all Miss Dillingham knew of it was that two of her pupils
+whispered during morning prayer, and she must discipline them. So I
+was degraded from the honor row to the lowest row, and it was many a
+day before I forgave that young missionary; it was not enough for my
+vengeance that he suffered punishment with me. Teacher, of course,
+heard us both defend ourselves, but there was a time and a place for
+religious arguments, and she meant to help us remember that point.
+
+I remember to this day what a struggle we had over the word "water,"
+Miss Dillingham and I. It seemed as if I could not give the sound of
+_w_; I said "vater" every time. Patiently my teacher worked with me,
+inventing mouth exercises for me, to get my stubborn lips to produce
+that _w_; and when at last I could say "village" and "water" in rapid
+alternation, without misplacing the two initials, that memorable word
+was sweet on my lips. For we had conquered, and Teacher was pleased.
+
+Getting a language in this way, word by word, has a charm that may be
+set against the disadvantages. It is like gathering a posy blossom by
+blossom. Bring the bouquet into your chamber, and these nasturtiums
+stand for the whole flaming carnival of them tumbling over the fence
+out there; these yellow pansies recall the velvet crescent of color
+glowing under the bay window; this spray of honeysuckle smells like
+the wind-tossed masses of it on the porch, ripe and bee-laden; the
+whole garden in a glass tumbler. So it is with one who gathers words,
+loving them. Particular words remain associated with important
+occasions in the learner's mind. I could thus write a history of my
+English vocabulary that should be at the same time an account of my
+comings and goings, my mistakes and my triumphs, during the years of
+my initiation.
+
+If I was eager and diligent, my teachers did not sleep. As fast as my
+knowledge of English allowed, they advanced me from grade to grade,
+without reference to the usual schedule of promotions. My father was
+right, when he often said, in discussing my prospects, that ability
+would be promptly recognized in the public schools. Rapid as was my
+progress, on account of the advantages with which I started, some of
+the other "green" pupils were not far behind me; within a grade or
+two, by the end of the year. My brother, whose childhood had been one
+hideous nightmare, what with the stupid rebbe, the cruel whip, and the
+general repression of life in the Pale, surprised my father by the
+progress he made under intelligent, sympathetic guidance. Indeed, he
+soon had a reputation in the school that the American boys envied; and
+all through the school course he more than held his own with pupils of
+his age. So much for the right and wrong way of doing things.
+
+There is a record of my early progress in English much better than my
+recollections, however accurate and definite these may be. I have
+several reasons for introducing it here. First, it shows what the
+Russian Jew can do with an adopted language; next, it proves that
+vigilance of our public-school teachers of which I spoke; and last, I
+am proud of it! That is an unnecessary confession, but I could not be
+satisfied to insert the record here, with my vanity unavowed.
+
+This is the document, copied from an educational journal, a tattered
+copy of which lies in my lap as I write--treasured for fifteen years,
+you see, by my vanity.
+
+    EDITOR "PRIMARY EDUCATION":--
+
+    This is the uncorrected paper of a Russian child twelve years
+    old, who had studied English only four months. She had never,
+    until September, been to school even in her own country and has
+    heard English spoken _only_ at school. I shall be glad if the
+    paper of my pupil and the above explanation may appear in your
+    paper.
+
+    M.S. DILLINGHAM.
+
+    CHELSEA, MASS.
+
+    SNOW
+
+    Snow is frozen moisture which comes from the clouds. Now the
+    snow is coming down in feather-flakes, which makes nice
+    snow-balls. But there is still one kind of snow more. This kind
+    of snow is called snow-crystals, for it comes down in little
+    curly balls. These snow-crystals aren't quiet as good for
+    snow-balls as feather-flakes, for they (the snow-crystals) are
+    dry: so they can't keep together as feather-flakes do.
+
+    The snow is dear to some children for they like sleighing.
+
+    As I said at the top--the snow comes from the clouds.
+
+    Now the trees are bare, and no flowers are to see in the fields
+    and gardens, (we all know why) and the whole world seems like
+    asleep without the happy birds songs which left us till spring.
+    But the snow which drove away all these pretty and happy things,
+    try, (as I think) not to make us at all unhappy; they covered up
+    the branches of the trees, the fields, the gardens and houses,
+    and the whole world looks like dressed in a beautiful
+    white--instead of green--dress, with the sky looking down on it
+    with a pale face.
+
+    And so the people can find some joy in it, too, without the
+    happy summer.
+
+    MARY ANTIN.
+
+And now that it stands there, with _her_ name over it, I am ashamed of
+my flippant talk about vanity. More to me than all the praise I could
+hope to win by the conquest of fifty languages is the association of
+this dear friend with my earliest efforts at writing; and it pleases
+me to remember that to her I owe my very first appearance in print.
+Vanity is the least part of it, when I remember how she called me to
+her desk, one day after school was out, and showed me my
+composition--my own words, that I had written out of my own
+head--printed out, clear black and white, with my name at the end!
+Nothing so wonderful had ever happened to me before. My whole
+consciousness was suddenly transformed. I suppose that was the moment
+when I became a writer. I always loved to write,--I wrote letters
+whenever I had an excuse,--yet it had never occurred to me to sit down
+and write my thoughts for no person in particular, merely to put the
+word on paper. But now, as I read my own words, in a delicious
+confusion, the idea was born. I stared at my name: MARY ANTIN. Was
+that really I? The printed characters composing it seemed strange to
+me all of a sudden. If that was my name, and those were the words out
+of my own head, what relation did it all have to _me_, who was alone
+there with Miss Dillingham, and the printed page between us? Why, it
+meant that I could write again, and see my writing printed for people
+to read! I could write many, many, many things: I could write a book!
+The idea was so huge, so bewildering, that my mind scarcely could
+accommodate it.
+
+I do not know what my teacher said to me; probably very little. It was
+her way to say only a little, and look at me, and trust me to
+understand. Once she had occasion to lecture me about living a shut-up
+life; she wanted me to go outdoors. I had been repeatedly scolded and
+reproved on that score by other people, but I had only laughed, saying
+that I was too happy to change my ways. But when Miss Dillingham spoke
+to me, I saw that it was a serious matter; and yet she only said a few
+words, and looked at me with that smile of hers that was only half a
+smile, and the rest a meaning. Another time she had a great question
+to ask me, touching my life to the quick. She merely put her question,
+and was silent; but I knew what answer she expected, and not being
+able to give it then, I went away sad and reproved. Years later I had
+my triumphant answer, but she was no longer there to receive it; and
+so her eyes look at me, from the picture on the mantel there, with a
+reproach I no longer merit.
+
+I ought to go back and strike out all that talk about vanity. What
+reason have I to be vain, when I reflect how at every step I was
+petted, nursed, and encouraged? I did not even discover my own talent.
+It was discovered first by my father in Russia, and next by my friend
+in America. What did I ever do but write when they told me to write? I
+suppose my grandfather who drove a spavined horse through lonely
+country lanes sat in the shade of crisp-leaved oaks to refresh himself
+with a bit of black bread; and an acorn falling beside him, in the
+immense stillness, shook his heart with the echo, and left him
+wondering. I suppose my father stole away from the synagogue one long
+festival day, and stretched himself out in the sun-warmed grass, and
+lost himself in dreams that made the world of men unreal when he
+returned to them. And so what is there left for me to do, who do not
+have to drive a horse nor interpret ancient lore, but put my
+grandfather's question into words and set to music my father's dream?
+The tongue am I of those who lived before me, as those that are to
+come will be the voice of my unspoken thoughts. And so who shall be
+applauded if the song be sweet, if the prophecy be true?
+
+I never heard of any one who was so watched and coaxed, so passed
+along from hand to helping hand, as was I. I always had friends. They
+sprang up everywhere, as if they had stood waiting for me to come. So
+here was my teacher, the moment she saw that I could give a good
+paraphrase of her talk on "Snow," bent on finding out what more I
+could do. One day she asked me if I had ever written poetry. I had
+not, but I went home and tried. I believe it was more snow, and I
+know it was wretched. I wish I could produce a copy of that early
+effusion; it would prove that my judgment is not severe. Wretched it
+was,--worse, a great deal, than reams of poetry that is written by
+children about whom there is no fuss made. But Miss Dillingham was not
+discouraged. She saw that I had no idea of metre, so she proceeded to
+teach me. We repeated miles of poetry together, smooth lines that sang
+themselves, mostly out of Longfellow. Then I would go home and
+write--oh, about the snow in our back yard!--but when Miss Dillingham
+came to read my verses, they limped and they lagged and they dragged,
+and there was no tune that would fit them.
+
+At last came the moment of illumination: I saw where my trouble lay. I
+had supposed that my lines matched when they had an equal number of
+syllables, taking no account of accent. Now I knew better; now I could
+write poetry! The everlasting snow melted at last, and the mud puddles
+dried in the spring sun, and the grass on the common was green, and
+still I wrote poetry! Again I wish I had some example of my springtime
+rhapsodies, the veriest rubbish of the sort that ever a child
+perpetrated. Lizzie McDee, who had red hair and freckles, and a
+Sunday-school manner on weekdays, and was below me in the class, did a
+great deal better. We used to compare verses; and while I do not
+remember that I ever had the grace to own that she was the better
+poet, I do know that I secretly wondered why the teachers did not
+invite her to stay after school and study poetry, while they took so
+much pains with me. But so it was always with me: somebody did
+something for me all the time.
+
+Making fair allowance for my youth, retarded education, and
+strangeness to the language, it must still be admitted that I never
+wrote good verse. But I loved to read it. My half-hours with Miss
+Dillingham were full of delight for me, quite apart from my new-born
+ambition to become a writer. What, then, was my joy, when Miss
+Dillingham, just before locking up her desk one evening, presented me
+with a volume of Longfellow's poems! It was a thin volume of
+selections, but to me it was a bottomless treasure. I had never owned
+a book before. The sense of possession alone was a source of bliss,
+and this book I already knew and loved. And so Miss Dillingham, who
+was my first American friend, and who first put my name in print, was
+also the one to start my library. Deep is my regret when I consider
+that she was gone before I had given much of an account of all her
+gifts of love and service to me.
+
+About the middle of the year I was promoted to the grammar school.
+Then it was that I walked on air. For I said to myself that I was a
+_student_ now, in earnest, not merely a school-girl learning to spell
+and cipher. I was going to learn out-of-the-way things, things that
+had nothing to do with ordinary life--things to _know_. When I walked
+home afternoons, with the great big geography book under my arm, it
+seemed to me that the earth was conscious of my step. Sometimes I
+carried home half the books in my desk, not because I should need
+them, but because I loved to hold them; and also because I loved to be
+seen carrying books. It was a badge of scholarship, and I was proud of
+it. I remembered the days in Vitebsk when I used to watch my cousin
+Hirshel start for school in the morning, every thread of his student's
+uniform, every worn copybook in his satchel, glorified in my envious
+eyes. And now I was myself as he: aye, greater than he; for I knew
+English, and I could write poetry.
+
+If my head was not turned at this time it was because I was so busy
+from morning till night. My father did his best to make me vain and
+silly. He made much of me to every chance caller, boasting of my
+progress at school, and of my exalted friends, the teachers. For a
+school-teacher was no ordinary mortal in his eyes; she was a superior
+being, set above the common run of men by her erudition and devotion
+to higher things. That a school-teacher could be shallow or petty, or
+greedy for pay, was a thing that he could not have been brought to
+believe, at this time. And he was right, if he could only have stuck
+to it in later years, when a new-born pessimism, fathered by his
+perception that in America, too, some things needed mending, threw him
+to the opposite extreme of opinion, crying that nothing in the
+American scheme of society or government was worth tinkering.
+
+He surely was right in his first appraisal of the teacher. The mean
+sort of teachers are not teachers at all; they are self-seekers who
+take up teaching as a business, to support themselves and keep their
+hands white. These same persons, did they keep store or drive a milk
+wagon or wash babies for a living, would be respectable. As
+trespassers on a noble profession, they are worth no more than the
+books and slates and desks over which they preside; so much furniture,
+to be had by the gross. They do not love their work. They contribute
+nothing to the higher development of their pupils. They busy
+themselves, not with research into the science of teaching, but with
+organizing political demonstrations to advance the cause of selfish
+candidates for public office, who promise them rewards. The true
+teachers are of another strain. Apostles all of an ideal, they go to
+their work in a spirit of love and inquiry, seeking not comfort, not
+position, not old-age pensions, but truth that is the soul of wisdom,
+the joy of big-eyed children, the food of hungry youth.
+
+They were true teachers who used to come to me on Arlington Street, so
+my father had reason to boast of the distinction brought upon his
+house. For the school-teacher in her trim, unostentatious dress was an
+uncommon visitor in our neighborhood; and the talk that passed in the
+bare little "parlor" over the grocery store would not have been
+entirely comprehensible to our next-door neighbor.
+
+In the grammar school I had as good teaching as I had had in the
+primary. It seems to me in retrospect that it was as good, on the
+whole, as the public school ideals of the time made possible. When I
+recall how I was taught geography, I see, indeed, that there was room
+for improvement occasionally both in the substance and in the method
+of instruction. But I know of at least one teacher of Chelsea who
+realized this; for I met her, eight years later, at a great
+metropolitan university that holds a summer session for the benefit of
+school-teachers who want to keep up with the advance in their science.
+Very likely they no longer teach geography entirely within doors, and
+by rote, as I was taught. Fifteen years is plenty of time for
+progress.
+
+When I joined the first grammar grade, the class had had a half-year's
+start of me, but it was not long before I found my place near the
+head. In all branches except geography it was genuine progress. I
+overtook the youngsters in their study of numbers, spelling, reading,
+and composition. In geography I merely made a bluff, but I did not
+know it. Neither did my teacher. I came up to such tests as she put
+me.
+
+The lesson was on Chelsea, which was right: geography, like charity,
+should begin at home. Our text ran on for a paragraph or so on the
+location, boundaries, natural features, and industries of the town,
+with a bit of local history thrown in. We were to learn all these
+interesting facts, and be prepared to write them out from memory the
+next day. I went home and learned--learned every word of the text,
+every comma, every footnote. When the teacher had read my paper she
+marked it "EE." "E" was for "excellent," but my paper was absolutely
+perfect, and must be put in a class by itself. The teacher exhibited
+my paper before the class, with some remarks about the diligence that
+could overtake in a week pupils who had had half a year's start. I
+took it all as modestly as I could, never doubting that I was indeed a
+very bright little girl, and getting to be very learned to boot. I was
+"perfect" in geography, a most erudite subject.
+
+But what was the truth? The words that I repeated so accurately on my
+paper had about as much meaning to me as the words of the Psalms I
+used to chant in Hebrew. I got an idea that the city of Chelsea, and
+the world in general, was laid out flat, like the common, and shaved
+off at the ends, to allow the north, south, east, and west to snuggle
+up close, like the frame around a picture. If I looked at the map, I
+was utterly bewildered; I could find no correspondence between the
+picture and the verbal explanations. With words I was safe; I could
+learn any number of words by heart, and sometime or other they would
+pop out of the medley, clothed with meaning. Chelsea, I read, was
+bounded on all sides--"bounded" appealed to my imagination--by various
+things that I had never identified, much as I had roamed about the
+town. I immediately pictured these remote boundaries as a six-foot
+fence in a good state of preservation, with the Mystic River, the
+towns of Everett and Revere, and East Boston Creek, rejoicing, on the
+south, west, north, and east of it, respectively, that they had got
+inside; while the rest of the world peeped in enviously through a knot
+hole. In the middle of this cherished area piano factories--or was it
+shoe factories?--proudly reared their chimneys, while the population
+promenaded on a _rope walk_, saluted at every turn by the benevolent
+inmates of the Soldiers' Home on the top of Powderhorn Hill.
+
+Perhaps the fault was partly mine, because I always would reduce
+everything to a picture. Partly it may have been because I had not had
+time to digest the general definitions and explanations at the
+beginning of the book. Still, I can take but little of the blame, when
+I consider how I fared through my geography, right to the end of the
+grammar-school course. I did in time disentangle the symbolism of the
+orange revolving on a knitting-needle from the astronomical facts in
+the case, but it took years of training under a master of the subject
+to rid me of my distrust of the map as a representation of the earth.
+To this day I sometimes blunder back to my early impression that any
+given portion of the earth's surface is constructed upon a skeleton
+consisting of two crossed bars, terminating in arrowheads which pin
+the cardinal points into place; and if I want to find any desired
+point of the compass, I am inclined to throw myself flat on my nose,
+my head due north, and my outstretched arms seeking the east and west
+respectively.
+
+For in the schoolroom, as far as the study of the map went, we began
+with the symbol and stuck to the symbol. No teacher of geography I
+ever had, except the master I referred to, took the pains to ascertain
+whether I had any sense of the facts for which the symbols stood.
+Outside the study of maps, geography consisted of statistics: tables
+of population, imports and exports, manufactures, and degrees of
+temperature; dimensions of rivers, mountains, and political states;
+with lists of minerals, plants, and plagues native to any given part
+of the globe. The only part of the whole subject that meant anything
+to me was the description of the aspect of foreign lands, and the
+manners and customs of their peoples. The relation of physiography to
+human history--what might be called the moral of geography--was not
+taught at all, or was touched upon in an unimpressive manner. The
+prevalence of this defect in the teaching of school geography is borne
+out by the surprise of the college freshman, who remarked to the
+professor of geology that it was curious to note how all the big
+rivers and harbors on the Atlantic coastal plain occurred in the
+neighborhood of large cities! A little instruction in the elements of
+chartography--a little practice in the use of the compass and the
+spirit level, a topographical map of the town common, an excursion
+with a road map--would have given me a fat round earth in place of my
+paper ghost; would have illumined the one dark alley in my school
+life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"MY COUNTRY"
+
+
+The public school has done its best for us foreigners, and for the
+country, when it has made us into good Americans. I am glad it is mine
+to tell how the miracle was wrought in one case. You should be glad to
+hear of it, you born Americans; for it is the story of the growth of
+your country; of the flocking of your brothers and sisters from the
+far ends of the earth to the flag you love; of the recruiting of your
+armies of workers, thinkers, and leaders. And you will be glad to hear
+of it, my comrades in adoption; for it is a rehearsal of your own
+experience, the thrill and wonder of which your own hearts have felt.
+
+How long would you say, wise reader, it takes to make an American? By
+the middle of my second year in school I had reached the sixth grade.
+When, after the Christmas holidays, we began to study the life of
+Washington, running through a summary of the Revolution, and the early
+days of the Republic, it seemed to me that all my reading and study
+had been idle until then. The reader, the arithmetic, the song book,
+that had so fascinated me until now, became suddenly sober exercise
+books, tools wherewith to hew a way to the source of inspiration. When
+the teacher read to us out of a big book with many bookmarks in it, I
+sat rigid with attention in my little chair, my hands tightly clasped
+on the edge of my desk; and I painfully held my breath, to prevent
+sighs of disappointment escaping, as I saw the teacher skip the parts
+between bookmarks. When the class read, and it came my turn, my voice
+shook and the book trembled in my hands. I could not pronounce the
+name of George Washington without a pause. Never had I prayed, never
+had I chanted the songs of David, never had I called upon the Most
+Holy, in such utter reverence and worship as I repeated the simple
+sentences of my child's story of the patriot. I gazed with adoration
+at the portraits of George and Martha Washington, till I could see
+them with my eyes shut. And whereas formerly my self-consciousness had
+bordered on conceit, and I thought myself an uncommon person, parading
+my schoolbooks through the streets, and swelling with pride when a
+teacher detained me in conversation, now I grew humble all at once,
+seeing how insignificant I was beside the Great.
+
+As I read about the noble boy who would not tell a lie to save himself
+from punishment, I was for the first time truly repentant of my sins.
+Formerly I had fasted and prayed and made sacrifice on the Day of
+Atonement, but it was more than half play, in mimicry of my elders. I
+had no real horror of sin, and I knew so many ways of escaping
+punishment. I am sure my family, my neighbors, my teachers in
+Polotzk--all my world, in fact--strove together, by example and
+precept, to teach me goodness. Saintliness had a new incarnation in
+about every third person I knew. I did respect the saints, but I could
+not help seeing that most of them were a little bit stupid, and that
+mischief was much more fun than piety. Goodness, as I had known it,
+was respectable, but not necessarily admirable. The people I really
+admired, like my Uncle Solomon, and Cousin Rachel, were those who
+preached the least and laughed the most. My sister Frieda was
+perfectly good, but she did not think the less of me because I played
+tricks. What I loved in my friends was not inimitable. One could be
+downright good if one really wanted to. One could be learned if one
+had books and teachers. One could sing funny songs and tell anecdotes
+if one travelled about and picked up such things, like one's uncles
+and cousins. But a human being strictly good, perfectly wise, and
+unfailingly valiant, all at the same time, I had never heard or
+dreamed of. This wonderful George Washington was as inimitable as he
+was irreproachable. Even if I had never, never told a lie, I could not
+compare myself to George Washington; for I was not brave--I was afraid
+to go out when snowballs whizzed--and I could never be the First
+President of the United States.
+
+So I was forced to revise my own estimate of myself. But the twin of
+my new-born humility, paradoxical as it may seem, was a sense of
+dignity I had never known before. For if I found that I was a person
+of small consequence, I discovered at the same time that I was more
+nobly related than I had ever supposed. I had relatives and friends
+who were notable people by the old standards,--I had never been
+ashamed of my family,--but this George Washington, who died long
+before I was born, was like a king in greatness, and he and I were
+Fellow Citizens. There was a great deal about Fellow Citizens in the
+patriotic literature we read at this time; and I knew from my father
+how he was a Citizen, through the process of naturalization, and how I
+also was a citizen, by virtue of my relation to him. Undoubtedly I was
+a Fellow Citizen, and George Washington was another. It thrilled me to
+realize what sudden greatness had fallen on me; and at the same time
+it sobered me, as with a sense of responsibility. I strove to conduct
+myself as befitted a Fellow Citizen.
+
+Before books came into my life, I was given to stargazing and
+daydreaming. When books were given me, I fell upon them as a glutton
+pounces on his meat after a period of enforced starvation. I lived
+with my nose in a book, and took no notice of the alternations of the
+sun and stars. But now, after the advent of George Washington and the
+American Revolution, I began to dream again. I strayed on the common
+after school instead of hurrying home to read. I hung on fence rails,
+my pet book forgotten under my arm, and gazed off to the
+yellow-streaked February sunset, and beyond, and beyond. I was no
+longer the central figure of my dreams; the dry weeds in the lane
+crackled beneath the tread of Heroes.
+
+What more could America give a child? Ah, much more! As I read how the
+patriots planned the Revolution, and the women gave their sons to die
+in battle, and the heroes led to victory, and the rejoicing people set
+up the Republic, it dawned on me gradually what was meant by _my
+country_. The people all desiring noble things, and striving for them
+together, defying their oppressors, giving their lives for each
+other--all this it was that made _my country_. It was not a thing that
+I _understood_; I could not go home and tell Frieda about it, as I
+told her other things I learned at school. But I knew one could say
+"my country" and _feel_ it, as one felt "God" or "myself." My teacher,
+my schoolmates, Miss Dillingham, George Washington himself could not
+mean more than I when they said "my country," after I had once felt
+it. For the Country was for all the Citizens, and _I was a Citizen_.
+And when we stood up to sing "America," I shouted the words with all
+my might. I was in very earnest proclaiming to the world my love for
+my new-found country.
+
+    "I love thy rocks and rills.
+    Thy woods and templed hills."
+
+Boston Harbor, Crescent Beach, Chelsea Square--all was hallowed ground
+to me. As the day approached when the school was to hold exercises in
+honor of Washington's Birthday, the halls resounded at all hours with
+the strains of patriotic songs; and I, who was a model of the
+attentive pupil, more than once lost my place in the lesson as I
+strained to hear, through closed doors, some neighboring class
+rehearsing "The Star-Spangled Banner." If the doors happened to open,
+and the chorus broke out unveiled--
+
+    "O! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
+    O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?"--
+
+delicious tremors ran up and down my spine, and I was faint with
+suppressed enthusiasm.
+
+Where had been my country until now? What flag had I loved? What
+heroes had I worshipped? The very names of these things had been
+unknown to me. Well I knew that Polotzk was not my country. It was
+_goluth_--exile. On many occasions in the year we prayed to God to
+lead us out of exile. The beautiful Passover service closed with the
+words, "Next year, may we be in Jerusalem." On childish lips, indeed,
+those words were no conscious aspiration; we repeated the Hebrew
+syllables after our elders, but without their hope and longing. Still
+not a child among us was too young to feel in his own flesh the lash
+of the oppressor. We knew what it was to be Jews in exile, from the
+spiteful treatment we suffered at the hands of the smallest urchin
+who crossed himself; and thence we knew that Israel had good reason to
+pray for deliverance. But the story of the Exodus was not history to
+me in the sense that the story of the American Revolution was. It was
+more like a glorious myth, a belief in which had the effect of cutting
+me off from the actual world, by linking me with a world of phantoms.
+Those moments of exaltation which the contemplation of the Biblical
+past afforded us, allowing us to call ourselves the children of
+princes, served but to tinge with a more poignant sense of
+disinheritance the long humdrum stretches of our life. In very truth
+we were a people without a country. Surrounded by mocking foes and
+detractors, it was difficult for me to realize the persons of my
+people's heroes or the events in which they moved. Except in moments
+of abstraction from the world around me, I scarcely understood that
+Jerusalem was an actual spot on the earth, where once the Kings of the
+Bible, real people, like my neighbors in Polotzk, ruled in puissant
+majesty. For the conditions of our civil life did not permit us to
+cultivate a spirit of nationalism. The freedom of worship that was
+grudgingly granted within the narrow limits of the Pale by no means
+included the right to set up openly any ideal of a Hebrew State, any
+hero other than the Czar. What we children picked up of our ancient
+political history was confused with the miraculous story of the
+Creation, with the supernatural legends and hazy associations of Bible
+lore. As to our future, we Jews in Polotzk had no national
+expectations; only a life-worn dreamer here and there hoped to die in
+Palestine. If Fetchke and I sang, with my father, first making sure of
+our audience, "Zion, Zion, Holy Zion, not forever is it lost," we did
+not really picture to ourselves Judaea restored.
+
+So it came to pass that we did not know what _my country_ could mean
+to a man. And as we had no country, so we had no flag to love. It was
+by no far-fetched symbolism that the banner of the House of Romanoff
+became the emblem of our latter-day bondage in our eyes. Even a child
+would know how to hate the flag that we were forced, on pain of severe
+penalties, to hoist above our housetops, in celebration of the advent
+of one of our oppressors. And as it was with country and flag, so it
+was with heroes of war. We hated the uniform of the soldier, to the
+last brass button. On the person of a Gentile, it was the symbol of
+tyranny; on the person of a Jew, it was the emblem of shame.
+
+So a little Jewish girl in Polotzk was apt to grow up hungry-minded
+and empty-hearted; and if, still in her outreaching youth, she was set
+down in a land of outspoken patriotism, she was likely to love her new
+country with a great love, and to embrace its heroes in a great
+worship. Naturalization, with us Russian Jews, may mean more than the
+adoption of the immigrant by America. It may mean the adoption of
+America by the immigrant.
+
+On the day of the Washington celebration I recited a poem that I had
+composed in my enthusiasm. But "composed" is not the word. The process
+of putting on paper the sentiments that seethed in my soul was really
+very discomposing. I dug the words out of my heart, squeezed the
+rhymes out of my brain, forced the missing syllables out of their
+hiding-places in the dictionary. May I never again know such travail
+of the spirit as I endured during the fevered days when I was engaged
+on the poem. It was not as if I wanted to say that snow was white or
+grass was green. I could do that without a dictionary. It was a
+question now of the loftiest sentiments, of the most abstract truths,
+the names of which were very new in my vocabulary. It was necessary to
+use polysyllables, and plenty of them; and where to find rhymes for
+such words as "tyranny," "freedom," and "justice," when you had less
+than two years' acquaintance with English! The name I wished to
+celebrate was the most difficult of all. Nothing but "Washington"
+rhymed with "Washington." It was a most ambitious undertaking, but my
+heart could find no rest till it had proclaimed itself to the world;
+so I wrestled with my difficulties, and spared not ink, till
+inspiration perched on my penpoint, and my soul gave up its best.
+
+When I had done, I was myself impressed with the length, gravity, and
+nobility of my poem. My father was overcome with emotion as he read
+it. His hands trembled as he held the paper to the light, and the mist
+gathered in his eyes. My teacher, Miss Dwight, was plainly astonished
+at my performance, and said many kind things, and asked many
+questions; all of which I took very solemnly, like one who had been in
+the clouds and returned to earth with a sign upon him. When Miss
+Dwight asked me to read my poem to the class on the day of
+celebration, I readily consented. It was not in me to refuse a chance
+to tell my schoolmates what I thought of George Washington.
+
+I was not a heroic figure when I stood up in front of the class to
+pronounce the praises of the Father of his Country. Thin, pale, and
+hollow, with a shadow of short black curls on my brow, and the staring
+look of prominent eyes, I must have looked more frightened than
+imposing. My dress added no grace to my appearance. "Plaids" were in
+fashion, and my frock was of a red-and-green "plaid" that had a
+ghastly effect on my complexion. I hated it when I thought of it, but
+on the great day I did not know I had any dress on. Heels clapped
+together, and hands glued to my sides, I lifted up my voice in praise
+of George Washington. It was not much of a voice; like my hollow
+cheeks, it suggested consumption. My pronunciation was faulty, my
+declamation flat. But I had the courage of my convictions. I was face
+to face with twoscore Fellow Citizens, in clean blouses and extra
+frills. I must tell them what George Washington had done for their
+country--for _our_ country--for me.
+
+I can laugh now at the impossible metres, the grandiose phrases, the
+verbose repetitions of my poem. Years ago I must have laughed at it,
+when I threw my only copy into the wastebasket. The copy I am now
+turning over was loaned me by Miss Dwight, who faithfully preserved it
+all these years, for the sake, no doubt, of what I strove to express
+when I laboriously hitched together those dozen and more ungraceful
+stanzas. But to the forty Fellow Citizens sitting in rows in front of
+me it was no laughing matter. Even the bad boys sat in attitudes of
+attention, hypnotized by the solemnity of my demeanor. If they got any
+inkling of what the hail of big words was about, it must have been
+through occult suggestion. I fixed their eighty eyes with my single
+stare, and gave it to them, stanza after stanza, with such emphasis as
+the lameness of the lines permitted.
+
+    He whose courage, will, amazing bravery,
+      Did free his land from a despot's rule,
+    From man's greatest evil, almost slavery,
+      And all that's taught in tyranny's school.
+    Who gave his land its liberty,
+      Who was he?
+
+    'T was he who e'er will be our pride.
+      Immortal Washington,
+    Who always did in truth confide.
+      We hail our Washington!
+
+   [Illustration: TWOSCORE OF MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--PUBLIC SCHOOL,
+   CHELSEA]
+
+The best of the verses were no better than these, but the children
+listened. They had to. Presently I gave them news, declaring that
+Washington
+
+    Wrote the famous Constitution; sacred's the hand
+    That this blessed guide to man had given, which says, "One
+    And all of mankind are alike, excepting none."
+
+This was received in respectful silence, possibly because the other
+Fellow Citizens were as hazy about historical facts as I at this
+point. "Hurrah for Washington!" they understood, and "Three cheers for
+the Red, White, and Blue!" was only to be expected on that occasion.
+But there ran a special note through my poem--a thought that only
+Israel Rubinstein or Beckie Aronovitch could have fully understood,
+besides myself. For I made myself the spokesman of the "luckless sons
+of Abraham," saying--
+
+    Then we weary Hebrew children at last found rest
+    In the land where reigned Freedom, and like a nest
+    To homeless birds your land proved to us, and therefore
+    Will we gratefully sing your praise evermore.
+
+The boys and girls who had never been turned away from any door
+because of their father's religion sat as if fascinated in their
+places. But they woke up and applauded heartily when I was done,
+following the example of Miss Dwight, who wore the happy face which
+meant that one of her pupils had done well.
+
+The recitation was repeated, by request, before several other classes,
+and the applause was equally prolonged at each repetition. After the
+exercises I was surrounded, praised, questioned, and made much of, by
+teachers as well as pupils. Plainly I had not poured my praise of
+George Washington into deaf ears. The teachers asked me if anybody had
+helped me with the poem. The girls invariably asked, "Mary Antin, how
+could you think of all those words?" None of them thought of the
+dictionary!
+
+If I had been satisfied with my poem in the first place, the applause
+with which it was received by my teachers and schoolmates convinced me
+that I had produced a very fine thing indeed. So the person, whoever
+it was,--perhaps my father--who suggested that my tribute to
+Washington ought to be printed, did not find me difficult to persuade.
+When I had achieved an absolutely perfect copy of my verses, at the
+expense of a dozen sheets of blue-ruled note paper, I crossed the
+Mystic River to Boston and boldly invaded Newspaper Row.
+
+It never occurred to me to send my manuscript by mail. In fact, it has
+never been my way to send a delegate where I could go myself.
+Consciously or unconsciously, I have always acted on the motto of a
+wise man who was one of the dearest friends that Boston kept for me
+until I came. "Personal presence moves the world," said the great Dr.
+Hale; and I went in person to beard the editor in his armchair.
+
+From the ferry slip to the offices of the "Boston Transcript" the way
+was long, strange, and full of perils; but I kept resolutely on up
+Hanover Street, being familiar with that part of my route, till I came
+to a puzzling corner. There I stopped, utterly bewildered by the
+tangle of streets, the roar of traffic, the giddy swarm of
+pedestrians. With the precious manuscript tightly clasped, I balanced
+myself on the curbstone, afraid to plunge into the boiling vortex of
+the crossing. Every time I made a start, a clanging street car
+snatched up the way. I could not even pick out my street; the
+unobtrusive street signs were lost to my unpractised sight, in the
+glaring confusion of store signs and advertisements. If I accosted a
+pedestrian to ask the way, I had to speak several times before I was
+heard. Jews, hurrying by with bearded chins on their bosoms and eyes
+intent, shrugged their shoulders at the name "Transcript," and
+shrugged till they were out of sight. Italians sauntering behind their
+fruit carts answered my inquiry with a lift of the head that made
+their earrings gleam, and a wave of the hand that referred me to all
+four points of the compass at once. I was trying to catch the eye of
+the tall policeman who stood grandly in the middle of the crossing, a
+stout pillar around which the waves of traffic broke, when deliverance
+bellowed in my ear.
+
+"Herald, Globe, Record, _Tra-avel-er_! Eh? Whatcher want, sis?" The
+tall newsboy had to stoop to me. "Transcript? Sure!" And in half a
+twinkling he had picked me out a paper from his bundle. When I
+explained to him, he good-naturedly tucked the paper in again, piloted
+me across, unravelled the end of Washington Street for me, and with
+much pointing out of landmarks, headed me for my destination, my nose
+seeking the spire of the Old South Church.
+
+I found the "Transcript" building a waste of corridors tunnelled by a
+maze of staircases. On the glazed-glass doors were many signs with the
+names or nicknames of many persons: "City Editor"; "Beggars and
+Peddlers not Allowed." The nameless world not included in these
+categories was warned off, forbidden to be or do: "Private--No
+Admittance"; "Don't Knock." And the various inhospitable legends on
+the doors and walls were punctuated by frequent cuspidors on the
+floor. There was no sign anywhere of the welcome which I, as an
+author, expected to find in the home of a newspaper.
+
+I was descending from the top story to the street for the seventh
+time, trying to decide what kind of editor a patriotic poem belonged
+to, when an untidy boy carrying broad paper streamers and whistling
+shrilly, in defiance of an express prohibition on the wall, bustled
+through the corridor and left a door ajar. I slipped in behind him,
+and found myself in a room full of editors.
+
+I was a little surprised at the appearance of the editors. I had
+imagined my editor would look like Mr. Jones, the principal of my
+school, whose coat was always buttoned, and whose finger nails were
+beautiful. These people were in shirt sleeves, and they smoked, and
+they didn't politely turn in their revolving chairs when I came in,
+and ask, "What can I do for you?"
+
+The room was noisy with typewriters, and nobody heard my "Please, can
+you tell me." At last one of the machines stopped, and the operator
+thought he heard something in the pause. He looked up through his own
+smoke. I guess he thought he saw something, for he stared. It troubled
+me a little to have him stare so. I realized suddenly that the hand in
+which I carried my manuscript was moist, and I was afraid it would
+make marks on the paper. I held out the manuscript to the editor,
+explaining that it was a poem about George Washington, and would he
+please print it in the "Transcript."
+
+There was something queer about that particular editor. The way he
+stared and smiled made me feel about eleven inches high, and my voice
+kept growing smaller and smaller as I neared the end of my speech.
+
+At last he spoke, laying down his pipe, and sitting back at his ease.
+
+"So you have brought us a poem, my child?"
+
+"It's about George Washington," I repeated impressively. "Don't you
+want to read it?"
+
+"I should be delighted, my dear, but the fact is--"
+
+He did not take my paper. He stood up and called across the room.
+
+"Say, Jack! here is a young lady who has brought us a poem--about
+George Washington.--Wrote it yourself, my dear?--Wrote it all herself.
+What shall we do with her?"
+
+Mr. Jack came over, and another man. My editor made me repeat my
+business, and they all looked interested, but nobody took my paper
+from me. They put their hands into their pockets, and my hand kept
+growing clammier all the time. The three seemed to be consulting, but
+I could not understand what they said, or why Mr. Jack laughed.
+
+A fourth man, who had been writing busily at a desk near by, broke in
+on the consultation.
+
+"That's enough, boys," he said, "that's enough. Take the young lady to
+Mr. Hurd."
+
+Mr. Hurd, it was found, was away on a vacation, and of several other
+editors in several offices, to whom I was referred, none proved to be
+the proper editor to take charge of a poem about George Washington. At
+last an elderly editor suggested that as Mr. Hurd would be away for
+some time, I would do well to give up the "Transcript" and try the
+"Herald," across the way.
+
+A little tired by my wanderings, and bewildered by the complexity of
+the editorial system, but still confident about my mission, I picked
+my way across Washington Street and found the "Herald" offices. Here I
+had instant good luck. The first editor I addressed took my paper and
+invited me to a seat. He read my poem much more quickly than I could
+myself, and said it was very nice, and asked me some questions, and
+made notes on a slip of paper which he pinned to my manuscript. He
+said he would have my piece printed very soon, and would send me a
+copy of the issue in which it appeared. As I was going, I could not
+help giving the editor my hand, although I had not experienced any
+handshaking in Newspaper Row. I felt that as author and editor we were
+on a very pleasant footing, and I gave him my hand in token of
+comradeship.
+
+I had regained my full stature and something over, during this cordial
+interview, and when I stepped out into the street and saw the crowd
+intently studying the bulletin board I swelled out of all proportion.
+For I told myself that I, Mary Antin, was one of the inspired
+brotherhood who made newspapers so interesting. I did not know whether
+my poem would be put upon the bulletin board; but at any rate, it
+would be in the paper, with my name at the bottom, like my story about
+"Snow" in Miss Dillingham's school journal. And all these people in
+the streets, and more, thousands of people--all Boston!--would read my
+poem, and learn my name, and wonder who I was. I smiled to myself in
+delicious amusement when a man deliberately put me out of his path, as
+I dreamed my way through the jostling crowd; if he only _knew_ whom
+he was treating so unceremoniously!
+
+When the paper with my poem in it arrived, the whole house pounced
+upon it at once. I was surprised to find that my verses were not all
+over the front page. The poem was a little hard to find, if anything,
+being tucked away in the middle of the voluminous sheet. But when we
+found it, it looked wonderful, just like real poetry, not at all as if
+somebody we knew had written it. It occupied a gratifying amount of
+space, and was introduced by a flattering biographical sketch of the
+author--the _author_!--the material for which the friendly editor had
+artfully drawn from me during that happy interview. And my name, as I
+had prophesied, was at the bottom!
+
+When the excitement in the house had subsided, my father took all the
+change out of the cash drawer and went to buy up the "Herald." He did
+not count the pennies. He just bought "Heralds," all he could lay his
+hands on, and distributed them gratis to all our friends, relatives,
+and acquaintances; to all who could read, and to some who could not.
+For weeks he carried a clipping from the "Herald" in his breast
+pocket, and few were the occasions when he did not manage to introduce
+it into the conversation. He treasured that clipping as for years he
+had treasured the letters I wrote him from Polotzk.
+
+Although my father bought up most of the issue containing my poem, a
+few hundred copies were left to circulate among the general public,
+enough to spread the flame of my patriotic ardor and to enkindle a
+thousand sluggish hearts. Really, there was something more solemn than
+vanity in my satisfaction. Pleased as I was with my notoriety--and
+nobody but I knew how exceedingly pleased--I had a sober feeling about
+it all. I enjoyed being praised and admired and envied; but what gave
+a divine flavor to my happiness was the idea that I had publicly borne
+testimony to the goodness of my exalted hero, to the greatness of my
+adopted country. I did not discount the homage of Arlington Street,
+because I did not properly rate the intelligence of its population. I
+took the admiration of my schoolmates without a grain of salt; it was
+just so much honey to me. I could not know that what made me great in
+the eyes of my neighbors was that "there was a piece about me in the
+paper"; it mattered very little to them what the "piece" was about. I
+thought they really admired my sentiments. On the street, in the
+schoolyard, I was pointed out. The people said, "That's Mary Antin.
+She had her name in the paper." _I_ thought they said, "This is she
+who loves her country and worships George Washington."
+
+To repeat, I was well aware that I was something of a celebrity, and
+took all possible satisfaction in the fact; yet I gave my schoolmates
+no occasion to call me "stuck-up." My vanity did not express itself in
+strutting or wagging the head. I played tag and puss-in-the-corner in
+the schoolyard, and did everything that was comrade-like. But in the
+schoolroom I conducted myself gravely, as befitted one who was
+preparing for the noble career of a poet.
+
+I am forgetting Lizzie McDee. I am trying to give the impression that
+I behaved with at least outward modesty during my schoolgirl triumphs,
+whereas Lizzie could testify that she knew Mary Antin as a vain
+boastful, curly-headed little Jew. For I had a special style of
+deportment for Lizzie. If there was any girl in the school besides me
+who could keep near the top of the class all the year through, and
+give bright answers when the principal or the school committee popped
+sudden questions, and write rhymes that almost always rhymed, _I_ was
+determined that that ambitious person should not soar unduly in her
+own estimation. So I took care to show Lizzie all my poetry, and when
+she showed me hers I did not admire it too warmly. Lizzie, as I have
+already said, was in a Sunday-school mood even on week days; her
+verses all had morals. My poems were about the crystal snow, and the
+ocean blue, and sweet spring, and fleecy clouds; when I tried to drag
+in a moral it kicked so that the music of my lines went out in a
+groan. So I had a sweet revenge when Lizzie, one day, volunteered to
+bolster up the eloquence of Mr. Jones, the principal, who was
+lecturing the class for bad behavior, by comparing the bad boy in the
+schoolroom to the rotten apple that spoils the barrelful. The groans,
+coughs, a-hem's, feet shufflings, and paper pellets that filled the
+room as Saint Elizabeth sat down, even in the principal's presence,
+were sweet balm to my smart of envy; I didn't care if I didn't know
+how to moralize.
+
+When my teacher had visitors I was aware that I was the show pupil of
+the class. I was always made to recite, my compositions were passed
+around, and often I was called up on the platform--oh, climax of
+exaltation!--to be interviewed by the distinguished strangers; while
+the class took advantage of the teacher's distraction, to hold
+forbidden intercourse on matters not prescribed in the curriculum.
+When I returned to my seat, after such public audience with the great,
+I looked to see if Lizzie McDee was taking notice; and Lizzie, who was
+a generous soul, her Sunday-school airs notwithstanding, generally
+smiled, and I forgave her her rhymes.
+
+Not but what I paid a price for my honors. With all my self-possession
+I had a certain capacity for shyness. Even when I arose to recite
+before the customary audience of my class I suffered from incipient
+stage fright, and my voice trembled over the first few words. When
+visitors were in the room I was even more troubled; and when I was
+made the special object of their attention my triumph was marred by
+acute distress. If I was called up to speak to the visitors, forty
+pairs of eyes pricked me in the back as I went. I stumbled in the
+aisle, and knocked down things that were not at all in my way; and my
+awkwardness increasing my embarrassment I would gladly have changed
+places with Lizzie or the bad boy in the back row; anything, only to
+be less conspicuous. When I found myself shaking hands with an august
+School-Committeeman, or a teacher from New York, the remnants of my
+self-possession vanished in awe; and it was in a very husky voice that
+I repeated, as I was asked, my name, lineage, and personal history. On
+the whole, I do not think that the School-Committeeman found a very
+forward creature in the solemn-faced little girl with the tight curls
+and the terrible red-and-green "plaid."
+
+These awful audiences did not always end with the handshaking.
+Sometimes the great personages asked me to write to them, and
+exchanged addresses with me. Some of these correspondences continued
+through years, and were the source of much pleasure, on one side at
+least. And Arlington Street took notice when I received letters with
+important-looking or aristocratic-looking letterheads. Lizzie McDee
+also took notice. _I_ saw to that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MIRACLES
+
+
+It was not always in admiration that the finger was pointed at me. One
+day I found myself the centre of an excited group in the middle of the
+schoolyard, with a dozen girls interrupting each other to express
+their disapproval of me. For I had coolly told them, in answer to a
+question, that I did not believe in God.
+
+How had I arrived at such a conviction? How had I come, from praying
+and fasting and Psalm-singing, to extreme impiety? Alas! my
+backsliding had cost me no travail of spirit. Always weak in my faith,
+playing at sanctity as I played at soldiers, just as I was in the mood
+or not, I had neglected my books of devotion and given myself up to
+profane literature at the first opportunity, in Vitebsk; and I never
+took up my prayer book again. On my return to Polotzk, America loomed
+so near that my imagination was fully occupied, and I did not revive
+the secret experiments with which I used to test the nature and
+intention of Deity. It was more to me that I was going to America than
+that I might not be going to Heaven. And when we joined my father, and
+I saw that he did not wear the sacred fringes, and did not put on the
+phylacteries and pray, I was neither surprised nor shocked,
+remembering the Sabbath night when he had with his own hand turned out
+the lamp. When I saw him go out to work on Sabbath exactly as on a
+week day, I understood why God had not annihilated me with his
+lightnings that time when I purposely carried something in my pocket
+on Sabbath: there was no God, and there was no sin. And I ran out to
+play, pleased to find that I was free, like other little girls in the
+street, instead of being hemmed about with prohibitions and
+obligations at every step. And yet if the golden truth of Judaism had
+not been handed me in the motley rags of formalism, I might not have
+been so ready to put away my religion.
+
+It was Rachel Goldstein who provoked my avowal of atheism. She asked
+if I wasn't going to stay out of school during Passover, and I said
+no. Wasn't I a Jew? she wanted to know. No, I wasn't; I was a
+Freethinker. What was that? I didn't believe in God. Rachel was
+horrified. Why, Kitty Maloney believed in God, and Kitty was only a
+Catholic! She appealed to Kitty.
+
+"Kitty Maloney! Come over here. Don't you believe in God?--There, now,
+Mary Antin!--Mary Antin says she doesn't believe in God!"
+
+Rachel Goldstein's horror is duplicated. Kitty Maloney, who used to
+mock Rachel's Jewish accent, instantly becomes her voluble ally, and
+proceeds to annihilate me by plying me with crucial questions.
+
+"You don't believe in God? Then who made you, Mary Antin?"
+
+"Nature made me."
+
+"_Nature_ made you! What's that?"
+
+"It's--everything. It's the trees--no, it's what makes the trees grow.
+_That's_ what it is."
+
+"But _God_ made the trees, Mary Antin," from Rachel and Kitty in
+chorus. "Maggie O'Reilly! Listen to Mary Antin. She says there isn't
+any God. She says the trees made her!"
+
+Rachel and Kitty and Maggie, Sadie and Annie and Beckie, made a circle
+around me, and pressed me with questions, and mocked me, and
+threatened me with hell flames and utter extinction. I held my ground
+against them all obstinately enough, though my argument was
+exceedingly lame. I glibly repeated phrases I had heard my father use,
+but I had no real understanding of his atheistic doctrines. I had been
+surprised into this dispute. I had no spontaneous interest in the
+subject; my mind was occupied with other things. But as the number of
+my opponents grew, and I saw how unanimously they condemned me, my
+indifference turned into a heat of indignation. The actual point at
+issue was as little as ever to me, but I perceived that a crowd of
+Free Americans were disputing the right of a Fellow Citizen to have
+any kind of God she chose. I knew, from my father's teaching, that
+this persecution was contrary to the Constitution of the United
+States, and I held my ground as befitted the defender of a cause.
+George Washington would not have treated me as Rachel Goldstein and
+Kitty Maloney were doing! "This is a free country," I reminded them in
+the middle of the argument.
+
+The excitement in the yard amounted to a toy riot. When the school
+bell rang and the children began to file in, I stood out there as long
+as any of my enemies remained, although it was my habit to go to my
+room very promptly. And as the foes of American Liberty crowded and
+pushed in the line, whispering to those who had not heard that a
+heretic had been discovered in their midst, the teacher who kept the
+line in the corridor was obliged to scold and pull the noisy ones into
+order; and Sadie Cohen told her, in tones of awe, what the commotion
+was about.
+
+Miss Bland waited till the children had filed in before she asked me,
+in a tone encouraging confidence, to give my version of the story.
+This I did, huskily but fearlessly; and the teacher, who was a woman
+of tact, did not smile or commit herself in any way. She was sorry
+that the children had been rude to me, but she thought they would not
+trouble me any more if I let the subject drop. She made me understand,
+somewhat as Miss Dillingham had done on the occasion of my whispering
+during prayer, that it was proper American conduct to avoid religious
+arguments on school territory. I felt honored by this private
+initiation into the doctrine of the separation of Church and State,
+and I went to my seat with a good deal of dignity, my alarm about the
+safety of the Constitution allayed by the teacher's calmness.
+
+This is not so strictly the story of the second generation that I may
+not properly give a brief account of how it fared with my mother when
+my father undertook to purge his house of superstition. The process of
+her emancipation, it is true, was not obvious to me at the time, but
+what I observed of her outward conduct has been interpreted by my
+subsequent experience; so that to-day I understand how it happens that
+all the year round my mother keeps the same day of rest as her Gentile
+neighbors; but when the ram's horn blows on the Day of Atonement,
+calling upon Israel to cleanse its heart from sin and draw nearer to
+the God of its fathers, her soul is stirred as of old, and she needs
+must join in the ancient service. It means, I have come to know, that
+she has dropped the husk and retained the kernel of Judaism; but years
+were required for this process of instinctive selection.
+
+My father, in his ambition to make Americans of us, was rather
+headlong and strenuous in his methods. To my mother, on the eve of
+departure for the New World, he wrote boldly that progressive Jews in
+America did not spend their days in praying; and he urged her to leave
+her wig in Polotzk, as a first step of progress. My mother, like the
+majority of women in the Pale, had all her life taken her religion on
+authority; so she was only fulfilling her duty to her husband when she
+took his hint, and set out upon her journey in her own hair. Not that
+it was done without reluctance; the Jewish faith in her was deeply
+rooted, as in the best of Jews it always is. The law of the Fathers
+was binding to her, and the outward symbols of obedience inseparable
+from the spirit. But the breath of revolt against orthodox externals
+was at this time beginning to reach us in Polotzk from the greater
+world, notably from America. Sons whose parents had impoverished
+themselves by paying the fine for non-appearance for military duty, in
+order to save their darlings from the inevitable sins of violated
+Judaism while in the service, sent home portraits of themselves with
+their faces shaved; and the grieved old fathers and mothers, after
+offering up special prayers for the renegades, and giving charity in
+their name, exhibited the significant portraits on their parlor
+tables. My mother's own nephew went no farther than Vilna, ten hours'
+journey from Polotzk, to learn to cut his beard; and even within our
+town limits young women of education were beginning to reject the wig
+after marriage. A notorious example was the beautiful daughter of
+Lozhe the Rav, who was not restrained by her father's conspicuous
+relation to Judaism from exhibiting her lovely black curls like a
+maiden; and it was a further sign of the times that the rav did not
+disown his daughter. What wonder, then, that my poor mother, shaken
+by these foreshadowings of revolution in our midst, and by the express
+authority of her husband, gave up the emblem of matrimonial chastity
+with but a passing struggle? Considering how the heavy burdens which
+she had borne from childhood had never allowed her time to think for
+herself at all, but had obliged her always to tread blindly in the
+beaten paths, I think it greatly to her credit that in her puzzling
+situation she did not lose her poise entirely. Bred to submission,
+submit she must; and when she perceived a conflict of authorities, she
+prepared to accept the new order of things under which her children's
+future was to be formed; wherein she showed her native adaptability,
+the readiness to fall into line, which is one of the most charming
+traits of her gentle, self-effacing nature.
+
+My father gave my mother very little time to adjust herself. He was
+only three years from the Old World with its settled prejudices.
+Considering his education, he had thought out a good deal for himself,
+but his line of thinking had not as yet brought him to include woman
+in the intellectual emancipation for which he himself had been so
+eager even in Russia. This was still in the day when he was astonished
+to learn that women had written books--had used their minds, their
+imaginations, unaided. He still rated the mental capacity of the
+average woman as only a little above that of the cattle she tended. He
+held it to be a wife's duty to follow her husband in all things. He
+could do all the thinking for the family, he believed; and being
+convinced that to hold to the outward forms of orthodox Judaism was to
+be hampered in the race for Americanization, he did not hesitate to
+order our family life on unorthodox lines. There was no conscious
+despotism in this; it was only making manly haste to realize an ideal
+the nobility of which there was no one to dispute.
+
+My mother, as we know, had not the initial impulse to depart from
+ancient usage that my father had in his habitual scepticism. He had
+always been a nonconformist in his heart; she bore lovingly the yoke
+of prescribed conduct. Individual freedom, to him, was the only
+tolerable condition of life; to her it was confusion. My mother,
+therefore, gradually divested herself, at my father's bidding, of the
+mantle of orthodox observance; but the process cost her many a pang,
+because the fabric of that venerable garment was interwoven with the
+fabric of her soul.
+
+My father did not attempt to touch the fundamentals of her faith. He
+certainly did not forbid her to honor God by loving her neighbor,
+which is perhaps not far from being the whole of Judaism. If his loud
+denials of the existence of God influenced her to reconsider her
+creed, it was merely an incidental result of the freedom of expression
+he was so eager to practise, after his life of enforced hypocrisy. As
+the opinions of a mere woman on matters so abstract as religion did
+not interest him in the least, he counted it no particular triumph if
+he observed that my mother weakened in her faith as the years went by.
+He allowed her to keep a Jewish kitchen as long as she pleased, but he
+did not want us children to refuse invitations to the table of our
+Gentile neighbors. He would have no bar to our social intercourse with
+the world around us, for only by freely sharing the life of our
+neighbors could we come into our full inheritance of American freedom
+and opportunity. On the holy days he bought my mother a ticket for the
+synagogue, but the children he sent to school. On Sabbath eve my
+mother might light the consecrated candles, but he kept the store open
+until Sunday morning. My mother might believe and worship as she
+pleased, up to the point where her orthodoxy began to interfere with
+the American progress of the family.
+
+The price that all of us paid for this disorganization of our family
+life has been levied on every immigrant Jewish household where the
+first generation clings to the traditions of the Old World, while the
+second generation leads the life of the New. Nothing more pitiful
+could be written in the annals of the Jews; nothing more inevitable;
+nothing more hopeful. Hopeful, yes; alike for the Jew and for the
+country that has given him shelter. For Israel is not the only party
+that has put up a forfeit in this contest. The nations may well sit by
+and watch the struggle, for humanity has a stake in it. I say this,
+whose life has borne witness, whose heart is heavy with revelations it
+has not made. And I speak for thousands; oh, for thousands!
+
+My gray hairs are too few for me to let these pages trespass the limit
+I have set myself. That part of my life which contains the climax of
+my personal drama I must leave to my grandchildren to record. My
+father might speak and tell how, in time, he discovered that in his
+first violent rejection of everything old and established he cast from
+him much that he afterwards missed. He might tell to what extent he
+later retraced his steps, seeking to recover what he had learned to
+value anew; how it fared with his avowed irreligion when put to the
+extreme test; to what, in short, his emancipation amounted. And he,
+like myself, would speak for thousands. My grandchildren, for all I
+know, may have a graver task than I have set them. Perhaps they may
+have to testify that the faith of Israel is a heritage that no heir in
+the direct line has the power to alienate from his successors. Even I,
+with my limited perspective, think it doubtful if the conversion of
+the Jew to any alien belief or disbelief is ever thoroughly
+accomplished. What positive affirmation of the persistence of Judaism
+in the blood my descendants may have to make, I may not be present to
+hear.
+
+It would be superfluous to state that none of these hints and
+prophecies troubled me at the time when I horrified the schoolyard by
+denying the existence of God, on the authority of my father; and
+defended my right to my atheism, on the authority of the Constitution.
+I considered myself absolutely, eternally, delightfully emancipated
+from the yoke of indefensible superstitions. I was wild with
+indignation and pity when I remembered how my poor brother had been
+cruelly tormented because he did not want to sit in heder and learn
+what was after all false or useless. I knew now why poor Reb' Lebe had
+been unable to answer my questions; it was because the truth was not
+whispered outside America. I was very much in love with my
+enlightenment, and eager for opportunities to give proof of it.
+
+It was Miss Dillingham, she who helped me in so many ways, who
+unconsciously put me to an early test, the result of which gave me a
+shock that I did not get over for many a day. She invited me to tea
+one day, and I came in much trepidation. It was my first entrance into
+a genuine American household; my first meal at a Gentile--yes, a
+Christian--board. Would I know how to behave properly? I do not know
+whether I betrayed my anxiety; I am certain only that I was all eyes
+and ears, that nothing should escape me which might serve to guide
+me. This, after all, was a normal state for me to be in, so I suppose
+I looked natural, no matter how much I stared. I had been accustomed
+to consider my table manners irreproachable, but America was not
+Polotzk, as my father was ever saying; so I proceeded very cautiously
+with my spoons and forks. I was cunning enough to try to conceal my
+uncertainty; by being just a little bit slow, I did not get to any
+given spoon until the others at table had shown me which it was.
+
+All went well, until a platter was passed with a kind of meat that was
+strange to me. Some mischievous instinct told me that it was
+ham--forbidden food; and I, the liberal, the free, was afraid to touch
+it! I had a terrible moment of surprise, mortification, self-contempt;
+but I helped myself to a slice of ham, nevertheless, and hung my head
+over my plate to hide my confusion. I was furious with myself for my
+weakness. I to be afraid of a pink piece of pig's flesh, who had
+defied at least two religions in defence of free thought! And I began
+to reduce my ham to indivisible atoms, determined to eat more of it
+than anybody at the table.
+
+Alas! I learned that to eat in defence of principles was not so easy
+as to talk. I ate, but only a newly abnegated Jew can understand with
+what squirming, what protesting of the inner man, what exquisite
+abhorrence of myself. That Spartan boy who allowed the stolen fox
+hidden in his bosom to consume his vitals rather than be detected in
+the theft, showed no such miracle of self-control as did I, sitting
+there at my friend's tea-table, eating unjewish meat.
+
+And to think that so ridiculous a thing as a scrap of meat should be
+the symbol and test of things so august! To think that in the mental
+life of a half-grown child should be reflected the struggles and
+triumphs of ages! Over and over and over again I discover that I am a
+wonderful thing, being human; that I am the image of the universe,
+being myself; that I am the repository of all the wisdom in the world,
+being alive and sane at the beginning of this twentieth century. The
+heir of the ages am I, and all that has been is in me, and shall
+continue to be in my immortal self.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A CHILD'S PARADISE
+
+
+All this while that I was studying and exploring in the borderland
+between the old life and the new; leaping at conclusions, and
+sometimes slipping; finding inspiration in common things, and
+interpretations in dumb things; eagerly scaling the ladder of
+learning, my eyes on star-diademmed peaks of ambition; building up
+friendships that should support my youth and enrich my womanhood;
+learning to think much of myself, and much more of my world,--while I
+was steadily gathering in my heritage, sowed in the dim past, and
+ripened in the sun of my own day, what was my sister doing?
+
+Why, what she had always done: keeping close to my mother's side on
+the dreary marches of a humdrum life; sensing sweet gardens of
+forbidden joy, but never turning from the path of duty. I cannot
+believe but that her sacrifices tasted as dust and ashes to her at
+times; for Frieda was a mere girl, whose childhood, on the whole, had
+been gray, while her appetite for happy things was as great as any
+normal girl's. She had a fine sense for what was best in the life
+about her, though she could not articulate her appreciation. She
+longed to possess the good things, but her position in the family
+forbidding possession, she developed a talent for vicarious enjoyment
+which I never in this life hope to imitate. And her simple mind did
+not busy itself with self-analysis. She did not even know why she was
+happy; she thought life was good to her. Still, there must have been
+moments when she perceived that the finer things were not in
+themselves unattainable, but were kept from her by a social tyranny.
+This I can only surmise, as in our daily intercourse she never gave a
+sign of discontent.
+
+We continued to have part of our life in common for some time after
+she went to work. We formed ourselves into an evening school, she and
+I and the two youngsters, for the study of English and arithmetic. As
+soon as the supper dishes were put away, we gathered around the
+kitchen table, with books borrowed from school, and pencils supplied
+by my father with eager willingness. I was the teacher, the others the
+diligent pupils; and the earnestness with which we labored was worthy
+of the great things we meant to achieve. Whether the results were
+commensurate with our efforts I cannot say. I only know that Frieda's
+cheeks flamed with the excitement of reading English monosyllables;
+and her eyes shone like stars on a moonless night when I explained to
+her how she and I and George Washington were Fellow Citizens together.
+
+Inspired by our studious evenings, what Frieda Antin would not be glad
+to sit all day bent over the needle, that the family should keep on
+its feet, and Mary continue at school? The morning ride on the
+ferryboat, when spring winds dimpled the river, may have stirred her
+heart with nameless longings, but when she took her place at the
+machine her lot was glorified to her, and she wanted to sing; for the
+girls, the foreman, the boss, all talked about Mary Antin, whose poems
+were printed in an American newspaper. Wherever she went on her humble
+business, she was sure to hear her sister's name. For, with
+characteristic loyalty, the whole Jewish community claimed kinship
+with me, simply because I was a Jew; and they made much of my small
+triumphs, and pointed to me with pride, just as they always do when a
+Jew distinguishes himself in any worthy way. Frieda, going home from
+work at sunset, when rosy buds beaded the shining stems, may have felt
+the weariness of those who toil for bread; but when we opened our
+books after supper, her spirit revived afresh, and it was only when
+the lamp began to smoke that she thought of taking rest.
+
+At bedtime she and I chatted as we used to do when we were little
+girls in Polotzk; only now, instead of closing our eyes to see
+imaginary wonders, according to a bedtime game of ours, we exchanged
+anecdotes about the marvellous adventures of our American life. My
+contributions on these occasions were boastful accounts, I have no
+doubt, of what I did at school, and in the company of school-committee
+men, editors, and other notables; and Frieda's delight in my
+achievements was the very flower of her fine sympathy. As formerly,
+when I had been naughty and I invited her to share in my repentance,
+she used to join me in spiritual humility and solemnly dedicate
+herself to a better life; so now, when I was full of pride and
+ambition, she, too, felt the crown on her brows, and heard the
+applause of future generations murmuring in her ear. And so partaking
+of her sister's glory, what Frieda Antin would not say that her
+portion was sufficient reward for a youth of toil?
+
+I did not, like my sister, earn my bread in those days; but let us say
+that I earned my salt, by sweeping, scrubbing, and scouring, on
+Saturdays, when there was no school. My mother's housekeeping was
+necessarily irregular, as she was pretty constantly occupied in the
+store; so there was enough for us children to do to keep the bare
+rooms shining. Even here Frieda did the lion's share; it used to take
+me all Saturday to accomplish what Frieda would do with half a dozen
+turns of her capable hands. I did not like housework, but I loved
+order; so I polished windows with a will, and even got some fun out of
+scrubbing, by laying out the floor in patterns and tracing them all
+around the room in a lively flurry of soapsuds.
+
+There is a joy that comes from doing common things well, especially if
+they seem hard to us. When I faced a day's housework I was half
+paralyzed with a sense of inability, and I wasted precious minutes
+walking around it, to see what a very hard task I had. But having
+pitched in and conquered, it gave me an exquisite pleasure to survey
+my work. My hair tousled and my dress tucked up, streaked arms bare to
+the elbow, I would step on my heels over the damp, clean boards, and
+pass my hand over chair rounds and table legs, to prove that no dust
+was left. I could not wait to put my dress in order before running out
+into the street to see how my windows shone. Every workman who carries
+a dinner pail has these moments of keen delight in the product of his
+drudgery. Men of genius, likewise, in their hours of relaxation from
+their loftier tasks, prove this universal rule. I know a man who fills
+a chair at a great university. I have seen him hold a roomful of
+otherwise restless youths spellbound for an hour, while he discoursed
+about the respective inhabitants of the earth and sea at a time when
+nothing walked on fewer than four legs. And I have seen this scholar,
+his ponderous tomes shelved for a space, turning over and over with
+cherishing hands a letter-box that he had made out of card-board and
+paste, and exhibiting it proudly to his friends. For the hand was the
+first instrument of labor, that distinctive accomplishment by which
+man finally raised himself above his cousins, the lower animals; and a
+respect for the work of the hand survives as an instinct in all of us.
+
+The stretch of weeks from June to September, when the schools were
+closed, would have been hard to fill in had it not been for the public
+library. At first I made myself a calendar of the vacation months, and
+every morning I tore off a day, and comforted myself with the
+decreasing number of vacation days. But after I discovered the public
+library I was not impatient for the reopening of school. The library
+did not open till one o'clock in the afternoon, and each reader was
+allowed to take out only one book at a time. Long before one o'clock I
+was to be seen on the library steps, waiting for the door of paradise
+to open. I spent hours in the reading-room, pleased with the
+atmosphere of books, with the order and quiet of the place, so unlike
+anything on Arlington Street. The sense of these things permeated my
+consciousness even when I was absorbed in a book, just as the rustle
+of pages turned and the tiptoe tread of the librarian reached my ear,
+without distracting my attention. Anything so wonderful as a library
+had never been in my life. It was even better than school in some
+ways. One could read and read, and learn and learn, as fast as one
+knew how, without being obliged to stop for stupid little girls and
+inattentive little boys to catch up with the lesson. When I went home
+from the library I had a book under my arm; and I would finish it
+before the library opened next day, no matter till what hours of the
+night I burned my little lamp.
+
+What books did I read so diligently? Pretty nearly everything that
+came to my hand. I dare say the librarian helped me select my books,
+but, curiously enough, I do not remember. Something must have directed
+me, for I read a great many of the books that are written for
+children. Of these I remember with the greatest delight Louisa
+Alcott's stories. A less attractive series of books was of the Sunday
+School type. In volume after volume a very naughty little girl by the
+name of Lulu was always going into tempers, that her father might have
+opportunity to lecture her and point to her angelic little sister,
+Gracie, as an example of what she should be; after which they all felt
+better and prayed. Next to Louisa Alcott's books in my esteem were
+boys' books of adventure, many of them by Horatio Alger; and I read
+all, I suppose, of the Rollo books, by Jacob Abbott.
+
+But that was not all. I read every kind of printed rubbish that came
+into the house, by design or accident. A weekly story paper of a worse
+than worthless character, that circulated widely in our neighborhood
+because subscribers were rewarded with a premium of a diamond ring,
+warranted I don't know how many karats, occupied me for hours. The
+stories in this paper resembled, in breathlessness of plot, abundance
+of horrors, and improbability of characters, the things I used to read
+in Vitebsk. The text was illustrated by frequent pictures, in which
+the villain generally had his hands on the heroine's throat, while the
+hero was bursting in through a graceful drapery to the rescue of his
+beloved. If a bundle came into the house wrapped in a stained old
+newspaper, I laboriously smoothed out the paper and read it through. I
+enjoyed it all, and found fault with nothing that I read. And, as in
+the case of the Vitebsk readings, I cannot find that I suffered any
+harm. Of course, reading so many better books, there came a time when
+the diamond-ring story paper disgusted me; but in the beginning my
+appetite for print was so enormous that I could let nothing pass
+through my hands unread, while my taste was so crude that nothing
+printed could offend me.
+
+Good reading matter came into the house from one other source besides
+the library. The Yiddish newspapers of the day were excellent, and my
+father subscribed to the best of them. Since that time Yiddish
+journalism has sadly degenerated, through imitation of the vicious
+"yellow journals" of the American press.
+
+There was one book in the library over which I pored very often, and
+that was the encyclopaedia. I turned usually to the names of famous
+people, beginning, of course, with George Washington. Oftenest of all
+I read the biographical sketches of my favorite authors, and felt that
+the worthies must have been glad to die just to have their names and
+histories printed out in the book of fame. It seemed to me the
+apotheosis of glory to be even briefly mentioned in an encyclopaedia.
+And there grew in me an enormous ambition that devoured all my other
+ambitions, which was no less than this: that I should live to know
+that after my death my name would surely be printed in the
+encyclopaedia. It was such a prodigious thing to expect that I kept the
+idea a secret even from myself, just letting it lie where it sprouted,
+in an unexplored corner of my busy brain. But it grew on me in spite
+of myself, till finally I could not resist the temptation to study out
+the exact place in the encyclopaedia where my name would belong. I saw
+that it would come not far from "Alcott, Louisa M."; and I covered my
+face with my hands, to hide the silly, baseless joy in it. I practised
+saying my name in the encyclopaedic form, "Antin, Mary"; and I realized
+that it sounded chopped off, and wondered if I might not annex a
+middle initial. I wanted to ask my teacher about it, but I was afraid
+I might betray my reasons. For, infatuated though I was with the idea
+of the greatness I might live to attain, I knew very well that thus
+far my claims to posthumous fame were ridiculously unfounded, and I
+did not want to be laughed at for my vanity.
+
+Spirit of all childhood! Forgive me, forgive me, for so lightly
+betraying a child's dream-secrets. I that smile so scoffingly to-day
+at the unsophisticated child that was myself, have I found any nobler
+thing in life than my own longing to be noble? Would I not rather be
+consumed by ambitions that can never be realized than live in stupid
+acceptance of my neighbor's opinion of me? The statue in the public
+square is less a portrait of a mortal individual than a symbol of the
+immortal aspiration of humanity. So do not laugh at the little boy
+playing at soldiers, if he tells you he is going to hew the world into
+good behavior when he gets to be a man. And do, by all means, write my
+name in the book of fame, saying, She was one who aspired. For that,
+in condensed form, is the story of the lives of the great.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Summer days are long, and the evenings, we know, are as long as the
+lamp-wick. So, with all my reading, I had time to play; and, with all
+my studiousness, I had the will to play. My favorite playmates were
+boys. It was but mild fun to play theatre in Bessie Finklestein's
+back yard, even if I had leading parts, which I made impressive by
+recitations in Russian, no word of which was intelligible to my
+audience. It was far better sport to play hide-and-seek with the boys,
+for I enjoyed the use of my limbs--what there was of them. I was so
+often reproached and teased for being little, that it gave me great
+satisfaction to beat a five-foot boy to the goal.
+
+Once a great, hulky colored boy, who was the torment of the
+neighborhood, treated me roughly while I was playing on the street. My
+father, determined to teach the rascal a lesson for once, had him
+arrested and brought to court. The boy was locked up overnight, and he
+emerged from his brief imprisonment with a respect for the rights and
+persons of his neighbors. But the moral of this incident lies not
+herein. What interested me more than my revenge on a bully was what I
+saw of the way in which justice was actually administered in the
+United States. Here we were gathered in the little courtroom, bearded
+Arlington Street against wool-headed Arlington Street; accused and
+accuser, witnesses, sympathizers, sight-seers, and all. Nobody
+cringed, nobody was bullied, nobody lied who didn't want to. We were
+all free, and all treated equally, just as it said in the
+Constitution! The evil-doer was actually punished, and not the victim,
+as might very easily happen in a similar case in Russia. "Liberty and
+justice for all." Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!
+
+There was one occasion in the week when I was ever willing to put away
+my book, no matter how entrancing were its pages. That was on Saturday
+night, when Bessie Finklestein called for me; and Bessie and I, with
+arms entwined, called for Sadie Rabinowitch; and Bessie and Sadie and
+I, still further entwined, called for Annie Reilly; and Bessie, etc.,
+etc., inextricably wound up, marched up Broadway, and took possession
+of all we saw, heard, guessed, or desired, from end to end of that
+main thoroughfare of Chelsea.
+
+Parading all abreast, as many as we were, only breaking ranks to let
+people pass; leaving the imprints of our noses and fingers on
+plate-glass windows ablaze with electric lights and alluring with
+display; inspecting tons of cheap candy, to find a few pennies' worth
+of the most enduring kind, the same to be sucked and chewed by the
+company, turn and turn about, as we continued our promenade; loitering
+wherever a crowd gathered, or running for a block or so to cheer on
+the fire-engine or police ambulance; getting into everybody's way, and
+just keeping clear of serious mischief,--we were only girls,--we
+enjoyed ourselves as only children can whose fathers keep a basement
+grocery store, whose mothers do their own washing, and whose sisters
+operate a machine for five dollars a week. Had we been boys, I suppose
+Bessie and Sadie and the rest of us would have been a "gang," and
+would have popped into the Chinese laundry to tease "Chinky Chinaman,"
+and been chased by the "cops" from comfortable doorsteps, and had a
+"bully" time of it. Being what we were, we called ourselves a "set,"
+and we had a "lovely" time, as people who passed us on Broadway could
+not fail to see. And hear. For we were at the giggling age, and
+Broadway on Saturday night was full of giggles for us. We stayed out
+till all hours, too; for Arlington Street had no strict domestic
+programme, not even in the nursery, the inmates of which were as
+likely to be found in the gutter as in their cots, at any time this
+side of one o'clock in the morning.
+
+There was an element in my enjoyment that was yielded neither by the
+sights, the adventures, nor the chewing-candy. I had a keen feeling
+for the sociability of the crowd. All plebeian Chelsea was abroad, and
+a bourgeois population is nowhere unneighborly. Women shapeless with
+bundles, their hats awry over thin, eager faces, gathered in knots on
+the edge of the curb, boasting of their bargains. Little girls in
+curlpapers and little boys in brimless hats clung to their skirts,
+whining for pennies, only to be silenced by absent-minded cuffs. A few
+disconsolate fathers strayed behind these family groups, the rest
+being distributed between the barber shops and the corner lamp-posts.
+I understood these people, being one of them, and I liked them, and I
+found it all delightfully sociable.
+
+Saturday night is the workman's wife's night, but that does not
+entirely prevent my lady from going abroad, if only to leave an order
+at the florist's. So it happened that Bellingham Hill and Washington
+Avenue, the aristocratic sections of Chelsea, mingled with Arlington
+Street on Broadway, to the further enhancement of my enjoyment of the
+occasion. For I always loved a mixed crowd. I loved the contrasts, the
+high lights and deep shadows, and the gradations that connect the two,
+and make all life one. I saw many, many things that I was not aware of
+seeing at the time. I only found out afterwards what treasures my
+brain had stored up, when, coming to the puzzling places in life,
+light and meaning would suddenly burst on me, the hidden fruit of some
+experience that had not impressed me at the time.
+
+How many times, I wonder, did I brush past my destiny on Broadway,
+foolishly staring after it, instead of going home to pray? I wonder
+did a stranger collide with me, and put me patiently out of his way,
+wondering why such a mite was not at home and abed at ten o'clock in
+the evening, and never dreaming that one day he might have to reckon
+with me? Did some one smile down on my childish glee, I wonder,
+unwarned of a day when we should weep together? I wonder--I wonder. A
+million threads of life and love and sorrow was the common street; and
+whether we would or not, we entangled ourselves in a common maze,
+without paying the homage of a second glance to those who would some
+day master us; too dull to pick that face from out the crowd which one
+day would bend over us in love or pity or remorse. What company of
+skipping, laughing little girls is to be reproached for careless
+hours, when men and women on every side stepped heedlessly into the
+traps of fate? Small sin it was to annoy my neighbor by getting in his
+way, as I stared over my shoulder, if a grown man knew no better than
+to drop a word in passing that might turn the course of another's
+life, as a boulder rolled down from the mountain-side deflects the
+current of a brook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MANNA
+
+
+So went the life in Chelsea for the space of a year or so. Then my
+father, finding a discrepancy between his assets and liabilities on
+the wrong side of the ledger, once more struck tent, collected his
+flock, and set out in search of richer pastures.
+
+There was a charming simplicity about these proceedings. Here to-day,
+apparently rooted; there to-morrow, and just as much at home. Another
+basement grocery, with a freshly painted sign over the door; the broom
+in the corner, the loaf on the table--these things made home for us.
+There were rather more Negroes on Wheeler Street, in the lower South
+End of Boston, than there had been on Arlington Street, which promised
+more numerous outstanding accounts; but they were a neighborly folk,
+and they took us strangers in--sometimes very badly. Then there was
+the school three blocks away, where "America" was sung to the same
+tune as in Chelsea, and geography was made as dark a mystery. It was
+impossible not to feel at home.
+
+And presently, lest anything be lacking to our domestic bliss, there
+was a new baby in a borrowed crib; and little Dora had only a few more
+turns to take with her battered doll carriage before a life-size
+vehicle with a more animated dolly was turned over to her constant
+care.
+
+The Wheeler Street neighborhood is not a place where a refined young
+lady would care to find herself alone, even in the cheery daylight. If
+she came at all, she would be attended by a trusty escort. She
+would not get too close to people on the doorsteps, and she would
+shrink away in disgust and fear from a blear-eyed creature careering
+down the sidewalk on many-jointed legs. The delicate damsel would
+hasten home to wash and purify and perfume herself till the foul
+contact of Wheeler Street was utterly eradicated, and her wonted
+purity restored. And I do not blame her. I only wish that she would
+bring a little soap and water and perfumery into Wheeler Street next
+time she comes; for some people there may be smothering in the filth
+which they abhor as much as she, but from which they cannot, like her,
+run away.
+
+   [Illustration: WHEELER STREET, IN THE LOWER SOUTH END OF BOSTON]
+
+Many years after my escape from Wheeler Street I returned to see if
+the place was as bad as I remembered it. I found the narrow street
+grown even narrower, the sidewalk not broad enough for two to walk
+abreast, the gutter choked with dust and refuse, the dingy row of
+tenements on either side unspeakably gloomy. I discovered, what I had
+not realized before, that Wheeler Street was a crooked lane connecting
+a corner saloon on Shawmut Avenue with a block of houses of ill repute
+on Corning Street. It had been the same in my day, but I had not
+understood much, and I lived unharmed.
+
+On this later visit I walked slowly up one side of the street, and
+down the other, remembering many things. It was eleven o'clock in the
+evening, and sounds of squabbling coming through doors and windows
+informed my experienced ear that a part of Wheeler Street was going to
+bed. The grocery store in the basement of Number 11--my father's old
+store--was still open for business; and in the gutter in front of the
+store, to be sure, was a happy baby, just as there used to be.
+
+I was not alone on this tour of inspection. I was attended by a trusty
+escort. But I brought soap and water with me. I am applying them now.
+
+I found no fault with Wheeler Street when I was fourteen years old. On
+the contrary, I pronounced it good. We had never lived so near the car
+tracks before, and I delighted in the moonlike splendor of the arc
+lamp just in front of the saloon. The space illumined by this lamp and
+enlivened by the passage of many thirsty souls was the favorite
+playground for Wheeler Street youth. On our street there was not room
+to turn around; here the sidewalk spread out wider as it swung around
+to Shawmut Avenue.
+
+I played with the boys by preference, as in Chelsea. I learned to cut
+across the tracks in front of an oncoming car, and it was great fun to
+see the motorman's angry face turn scared, when he thought I was going
+to be shaved this time sure. It was amusing, too, to watch the side
+door of the saloon, which opened right opposite the grocery store, and
+see a drunken man put out by the bartender. The fellow would whine so
+comically, and cling to the doorpost so like a damp leaf to a twig,
+and blubber so like a red-faced baby, that it was really funny to see
+him.
+
+And there was Morgan Chapel. It was worth coming to Wheeler Street
+just for that. All the children of the neighborhood, except the most
+rowdyish, flocked to Morgan Chapel at least once a week. This was on
+Saturday evening, when a free entertainment was given, consisting of
+music, recitations, and other parlor accomplishments. The performances
+were exceedingly artistic, according to the impartial judgment of
+juvenile Wheeler Street. I can speak with authority for the crowd of
+us from Number 11. We hung upon the lips of the beautiful ladies who
+read or sang to us; and they in turn did their best, recognizing the
+quality of our approval. We admired the miraculously clean gentlemen
+who sang or played, as heartily as we applauded their performance.
+Sometimes the beautiful ladies were accompanied by ravishing little
+girls who stood up in a glory of golden curls, frilled petticoats, and
+silk stockings, to recite pathetic or comic pieces, with trained
+expression and practised gestures that seemed to us the perfection of
+the elocutionary art. We were all a little bit stage-struck after
+these entertainments; but what was more, we were genuinely moved by
+the glimpses of a fairer world than ours which we caught through the
+music and poetry; the world in which the beautiful ladies dwelt with
+the fairy children and the clean gentlemen.
+
+Brother Hotchkins, who managed these entertainments, knew what he was
+there for. His programmes were masterly. Classics of the lighter sort
+were judiciously interspersed with the favorite street songs of the
+day. Nothing that savored of the chapel was there: the hour was
+honestly devoted to entertainment. The total effect was an exquisitely
+balanced compound of pleasure, wonder, and longing. Knock-kneed men
+with purple noses, bristling chins, and no collars, who slouched in
+sceptically and sat tentatively on the edge of the rear settees at the
+beginning of the concert, moved nearer the front as the programme went
+on, and openly joined in the applause at the end. Scowling fellows who
+came in with defiant faces occasionally slunk out shamefaced; and both
+the knock-kneed and the defiant sometimes remained to hear Brother
+Tompkins pray and preach. And it was all due to Brother Hotchkins's
+masterly programme. The children behaved very well, for the most part;
+the few "toughs" who came in on purpose to make trouble were promptly
+expelled by Brother Hotchkins and his lieutenants.
+
+I could not help admiring Brother Hotchkins, he was so eminently
+efficient in every part of the hall, at every stage of the
+proceedings. I always believed that he was the author of the alluring
+notices that occupied the bulletin board every Saturday, though I
+never knew it for a fact. The way he handled the bad boys was
+masterly. The way he introduced the performers was inimitable. The way
+he did everything was the best way. And yet I did not like Brother
+Hotchkins. I could not. He was too slim, too pale, too fair. His voice
+was too encouraging, his smile was too restrained. The man was a
+missionary, and it stuck out all over him. I could not abide a
+missionary. That was the Jew in me, the European Jew, trained by the
+cruel centuries of his outcast existence to distrust any one who spoke
+of God by any other name than _Adonai_. But I should have resented the
+suggestion that inherited distrust was the cause of my dislike for
+good Brother Hotchkins; for I considered myself freed from racial
+prejudices, by the same triumph of my infallible judgment which had
+lifted from me the yoke of credulity. An uncompromising atheist, such
+as I was at the age of fourteen, was bound to scorn all those who
+sought to implant religion in their fellow men, and thereby prolong
+the reign of superstition. Of course that was the explanation.
+
+Brother Hotchkins, happily unconscious of my disapproval of his
+complexion, arose at intervals behind the railing, to announce, from a
+slip of paper, that "the next number on our programme will be a
+musical selection by," etc., etc.; until he arrived at "I am sure you
+will all join me in thanking the ladies and gentlemen who have
+entertained us this evening." And as I moved towards the door with my
+companions, I would hear his voice raised for the inevitable "You are
+all invited to remain to a short prayer service, after which--" a
+little louder--"refreshments will be served in the vestry. I will ask
+Brother Tompkins to--" The rest was lost in the shuffle of feet about
+the door and the roar of electric cars glancing past each other on
+opposite tracks. I always got out of the chapel before Brother
+Tompkins could do me any harm. As if there was anything he could steal
+from me, now that there was no God in my heart!
+
+If I were to go back to Morgan Chapel now, I should stay to hear
+Brother Tompkins, and as many other brethren as might have anything to
+say. I would sit very still in my corner seat and listen to the
+prayer, and silently join in the Amen. For I know now what Wheeler
+Street is, and I know what Morgan Chapel is there for, in the midst of
+those crooked alleys, those saloons, those pawnshops, those gloomy
+tenements. It is there to apply soap and water, and it is doing that
+all the time. I have learned, since my deliverance from Wheeler
+Street, that there is more than one road to any given goal. I should
+look with respect at Brother Hotchkins applying soap and water in his
+own way, convinced at last that my way is not the only way. Men must
+work with those tools to the use of which they are best fitted by
+nature. Brother Hotchkins must pray, and I must bear witness, and
+another must nurse a feeble infant. We are all honest workmen, and
+deserve standing-room in the workshop of sweating humanity. It is
+only the idle scoffers who stand by and jeer at our efforts to cleanse
+our house that should be kicked out of the door, as Brother Hotchkins
+turned out the rowdies.
+
+It was characteristic of the looseness of our family discipline at
+this time that nobody was seriously interested in our visits to Morgan
+Chapel. Our time was our own, after school duties and household tasks
+were done. Joseph sold newspapers after school; I swept and washed
+dishes; Dora minded the baby. For the rest, we amused ourselves as
+best we could. Father and mother were preoccupied with the store day
+and night; and not so much with weighing and measuring and making
+change as with figuring out how long it would take the outstanding
+accounts to ruin the business entirely. If my mother had scruples
+against her children resorting to a building with a cross on it, she
+did not have time to formulate them. If my father heard us talking
+about Morgan Chapel, he dismissed the subject with a sarcastic
+characterization, and wanted to know if we were going to join the
+Salvation Army next; but he did not seriously care, and he was willing
+that the children should have a good time. And if my parents had
+objected to Morgan Chapel, was the sidewalk in front of the saloon a
+better place for us children to spend the evening? They could not have
+argued with us very long, so they hardly argued at all.
+
+In Polotzk we had been trained and watched, our days had been
+regulated, our conduct prescribed. In America, suddenly, we were let
+loose on the street. Why? Because my father having renounced his
+faith, and my mother being uncertain of hers, they had no particular
+creed to hold us to. The conception of a system of ethics independent
+of religion could not at once enter as an active principle in their
+life; so that they could give a child no reason why to be truthful or
+kind. And as with religion, so it fared with other branches of our
+domestic education. Chaos took the place of system; uncertainty,
+inconsistency undermined discipline. My parents knew only that they
+desired us to be like American children; and seeing how their
+neighbors gave their children boundless liberty, they turned us also
+loose, never doubting but that the American way was the best way. In
+public deportment, in etiquette, in all matters of social intercourse,
+they had no standards to go by, seeing that America was not Polotzk.
+In their bewilderment and uncertainty they needs must trust us
+children to learn from such models as the tenements afforded. More
+than this, they must step down from their throne of parental
+authority, and take the law from their children's mouths; for they had
+no other means of finding out what was good American form. The result
+was that laxity of domestic organization, that inversion of normal
+relations which makes for friction, and which sometimes ends in
+breaking up a family that was formerly united and happy.
+
+This sad process of disintegration of home life may be observed in
+almost any immigrant family of our class and with our traditions and
+aspirations. It is part of the process of Americanization; an upheaval
+preceding the state of repose. It is the cross that the first and
+second generations must bear, an involuntary sacrifice for the sake of
+the future generations. These are the pains of adjustment, as racking
+as the pains of birth. And as the mother forgets her agonies in the
+bliss of clasping her babe to her breast, so the bent and heart-sore
+immigrant forgets exile and homesickness and ridicule and loss and
+estrangement, when he beholds his sons and daughters moving as
+Americans among Americans.
+
+On Wheeler Street there were no real homes. There were miserable flats
+of three or four rooms, or fewer, in which families that did not
+practise race suicide cooked, washed, and ate; slept from two to four
+in a bed, in windowless bedrooms; quarrelled in the gray morning, and
+made up in the smoky evening; tormented each other, supported each
+other, saved each other, drove each other out of the house. But there
+was no common life in any form that means life. There was no room for
+it, for one thing. Beds and cribs took up most of the floor space,
+disorder packed the interspaces. The centre table in the "parlor" was
+not loaded with books. It held, invariably, a photograph album and an
+ornamental lamp with a paper shade; and the lamp was usually out of
+order. So there was as little motive for a common life as there was
+room. The yard was only big enough for the perennial rubbish heap. The
+narrow sidewalk was crowded. What were the people to do with
+themselves? There were the saloons, the missions, the libraries, the
+cheap amusement places, and the neighborhood houses. People selected
+their resorts according to their tastes. The children, let it be
+thankfully recorded, flocked mostly to the clubs; the little girls to
+sew, cook, dance, and play games; the little boys to hammer and paste,
+mend chairs, debate, and govern a toy republic. All these, of course,
+are forms of baptism by soap and water.
+
+Our neighborhood went in search of salvation to Morgan Memorial Hall,
+Barnard Memorial, Morgan Chapel aforementioned, and some other clean
+places that lighted a candle in their window. My brother, my sister
+Dora, and I were introduced to some of the clubs by our young
+neighbors, and we were glad to go. For our home also gave us little
+besides meals in the kitchen and beds in the dark. What with the six
+of us, and the store, and the baby, and sometimes a "greener" or two
+from Polotzk, whom we lodged as a matter of course till they found a
+permanent home--what with such a company and the size of our tenement,
+we needed to get out almost as much as our neighbors' children. I say
+almost; for our parlor we managed to keep pretty clear, and the lamp
+on our centre table was always in order, and its light fell often on
+an open book. Still, it was part of the life of Wheeler Street to
+belong to clubs, so we belonged.
+
+I didn't care for sewing or cooking, so I joined a dancing-club; and
+even here I was a failure. I had been a very good dancer in Russia,
+but here I found all the steps different, and I did not have the
+courage to go out in the middle of the slippery floor and mince it and
+toe it in front of the teacher. When I retired to a corner and tried
+to play dominoes, I became suddenly shy of my partner; and I never
+could win a game of checkers, although formerly I used to beat my
+father at it. I tried to be friends with a little girl I had known in
+Chelsea, but she met my advances coldly. She lived on Appleton Street,
+which was too aristocratic to mix with Wheeler Street. Geraldine was
+studying elocution, and she wore a scarlet cape and hood, and she was
+going on the stage by and by. I acknowledged that her sense of
+superiority was well-founded, and retired farther into my corner, for
+the first time conscious of my shabbiness and lowliness.
+
+I looked on at the dancing until I could endure it no longer. Overcome
+by a sense of isolation and unfitness, I slipped out of the room,
+avoiding the teacher's eye, and went home to write melancholy poetry.
+
+What had come over me? Why was I, the confident, the ambitious,
+suddenly grown so shy and meek? Why was the candidate for encyclopaedic
+immortality overawed by a scarlet hood? Why did I, a very tomboy
+yesterday, suddenly find my playmates stupid, and hide-and-seek a
+bore? I did not know why. I only knew that I was lonely and troubled
+and sore; and I went home to write sad poetry.
+
+I shall never forget the pattern of the red carpet in our parlor,--we
+had achieved a carpet since Chelsea days,--because I lay for hours
+face down on the floor, writing poetry on a screechy slate. When I had
+perfected my verses, and copied them fair on the famous blue-lined
+note paper, and saw that I had made a very pathetic poem indeed, I
+felt better. And this happened over and over again. I gave up the
+dancing-club, I ceased to know the rowdy little boys, and I wrote
+melancholy poetry oftener, and felt better. The centre table became my
+study. I read much, and mooned between chapters, and wrote long
+letters to Miss Dillingham.
+
+For some time I wrote to her almost daily. That was when I found in my
+heart such depths of woe as I could not pack into rhyme. And finally
+there came a day when I could utter my trouble in neither verse nor
+prose, and I implored Miss Dillingham to come to me and hear my
+sorrowful revelations. But I did not want her to come to the house. In
+the house there was no privacy; I could not talk. Would she meet me on
+Boston Common at such and such a time?
+
+Would she? She was a devoted friend, and a wise woman. She met me on
+Boston Common. It was a gray autumn day--was it not actually
+drizzling?--and I was cold sitting on the bench; but I was thrilled
+through and through with the sense of the magnitude of my troubles,
+and of the romantic nature of the rendezvous. Who that was even half
+awake when he was growing up does not know what all these symptoms
+betokened? Miss Dillingham understood, and she wisely gave me no
+inkling of her diagnosis. She let me talk and kept a grave face. She
+did not belittle my troubles--I made specific charges against my home,
+members of my family, and life in general; she did not say that I
+would get over them, that every growing girl suffers from the blues;
+that I was, in brief, a little goose stretching my wings for flight.
+She told me rather that it would be noble to bear my sorrows bravely,
+to soothe those who irritated me, to live each day with all my might.
+She reminded me of great men and women who have suffered, and who
+overcame their troubles by living and working. And she sent me home
+amazingly comforted, my pettiness and self-consciousness routed by the
+quiet influence of her gray eyes searching mine. This, or something
+like this, had to be repeated many times, as anybody will know who was
+present at the slow birth of his manhood. From now on, for some years,
+of course, I must weep and laugh out of season, stand on tiptoe to
+pluck the stars in heaven, love and hate immoderately, propound
+theories of the destiny of man, and not know what is going on in my
+own heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TARNISHED LAURELS
+
+
+In the intervals of harkening to my growing-pains I was, of course,
+still a little girl. As a little girl, in many ways immature for my
+age, I finished my course in the grammar school, and was graduated
+with honors, four years after my landing in Boston.
+
+Wheeler Street recognizes five great events in a girl's life: namely,
+christening, confirmation, graduation, marriage, and burial. These
+occasions all require full dress for the heroine, and full dress is
+forthcoming, no matter if the family goes into debt for it. There was
+not a girl who came to school in rags all the year round that did not
+burst forth in sudden glory on Graduation Day. Fine muslin frocks,
+lace-trimmed petticoats, patent-leather shoes, perishable hats,
+gloves, parasols, fans--every girl had them. A mother who had scrubbed
+floors for years to keep her girl in school was not going to have her
+shamed in the end for want of a pretty dress. So she cut off the
+children's supply of butter and worked nights and borrowed and fell
+into arrears with the rent; and on Graduation Day she felt
+magnificently rewarded, seeing her Mamie as fine as any girl in the
+school. And in order to preserve for posterity this triumphant
+spectacle, she took Mamie, after the exercises, to be photographed,
+with her diploma in one hand, a bouquet in the other, and the gloves,
+fan, parasol, and patent-leather shoes in full sight around a fancy
+table. Truly, the follies of the poor are worth studying.
+
+It did not strike me as folly, but as the fulfilment of the portent of
+my natal star, when I saw myself, on Graduation Day, arrayed like unto
+a princess. Frills, lace, patent-leather shoes--I had everything. I
+even had a sash with silk fringes.
+
+Did I speak of folly? Listen, and I will tell you quite another tale.
+Perhaps when you have heard it you will not be too hasty to run and
+teach The Poor. Perhaps you will admit that The Poor may have
+something to teach you.
+
+Before we had been two years in America, my sister Frieda was engaged
+to be married. This was under the old dispensation: Frieda came to
+America too late to avail herself of the gifts of an American
+girlhood. Had she been two years younger she might have dodged her
+circumstances, evaded her Old-World fate. She would have gone to
+school and imbibed American ideas. She might have clung to her
+girlhood longer instead of marrying at seventeen. I am so fond of the
+American way that it has always seemed to me a pitiful accident that
+my sister should have come so near and missed by so little the
+fulfilment of my country's promise to women. A long girlhood, a free
+choice in marriage, and a brimful womanhood are the precious rights of
+an American woman.
+
+My father was too recently from the Old World to be entirely free from
+the influence of its social traditions. He had put Frieda to work out
+of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when she had an offer of
+marriage, but my father would not stand in the way of what he
+considered her welfare. Let her escape from the workshop, if she had a
+chance, while the roses were still in her cheeks. If she remained for
+ten years more bent over the needle, what would she gain? Not even
+her personal comfort; for Frieda never called her earnings her own,
+but spent everything on the family, denying herself all but
+necessities. The young man who sued for her was a good workman,
+earning fair wages, of irreproachable character, and refined manners.
+My father had known him for years.
+
+So Frieda was to be released from the workshop. The act was really in
+the nature of a sacrifice on my father's part, for he was still in the
+woods financially, and would sorely miss Frieda's wages. The greater
+the pity, therefore, that there was no one to counsel him to give
+America more time with my sister. She attended the night school; she
+was fond of reading. In books, in a slowly ripening experience, she
+might have found a better answer to the riddle of a girl's life than a
+premature marriage.
+
+My sister's engagement pleased me very well. Our confidences were not
+interrupted, and I understood that she was happy. I was very fond of
+Moses Rifkin myself. He was the nicest young man of my acquaintance,
+not at all like other workmen. He was very kind to us children,
+bringing us presents and taking us out for excursions. He had a sense
+of humor, and he was going to marry our Frieda. How could I help being
+pleased?
+
+The marriage was not to take place for some time, and in the interval
+Frieda remained in the shop. She continued to bring home all her
+wages. If she was going to desert the family, she would not let them
+feel it sooner than she must.
+
+Then all of a sudden she turned spendthrift. She appropriated I do not
+know what fabulous sums, to spend just as she pleased, for once. She
+attended bargain sales, and brought away such finery as had never
+graced our flat before. Home from work in the evening, after a hurried
+supper, she shut herself up in the parlor, and cut and snipped and
+measured and basted and stitched as if there were nothing else in the
+world to do. It was early summer, and the air had a wooing touch, even
+on Wheeler Street. Moses Rifkin came, and I suppose he also had a
+wooing touch. But Frieda only smiled and shook her head; and as her
+mouth was full of pins, it was physically impossible for Moses to
+argue. She remained all evening in a white disorder of tucked
+breadths, curled ruffles, dismembered sleeves, and swirls of fresh
+lace; her needle glancing in the lamplight, and poor Moses picking up
+her spools.
+
+Her trousseau, was it not? No, not her trousseau. It was my graduation
+dress on which she was so intent. And when it was finished, and was
+pronounced a most beautiful dress, and she ought to have been
+satisfied, Frieda went to the shops once more and bought the sash with
+the silk fringes.
+
+The improvidence of the poor is a most distressing spectacle to all
+right-minded students of sociology. But please spare me your homily
+this time. It does not apply. The poor are the poor in spirit. Those
+who are rich in spiritual endowment will never be found bankrupt.
+
+Graduation Day was nothing less than a triumph for me. It was not only
+that I had two pieces to speak, one of them an original composition;
+it was more because I was known in my school district as the
+"smartest" girl in the class, and all eyes were turned on the prodigy,
+and I was aware of it. I was aware of everything. That is why I am
+able to tell you everything now.
+
+The assembly hall was crowded to bursting, but my friends had no
+trouble in finding seats. They were ushered up to the platform, which
+was reserved for guests of honor. I was very proud to see my friends
+treated with such distinction. My parents were there, and Frieda, of
+course; Miss Dillingham, and some others of my Chelsea teachers. A
+dozen or so of my humbler friends and acquaintances were scattered
+among the crowd on the floor.
+
+When I stepped up on the stage to read my composition I was seized
+with stage fright. The floor under my feet and the air around me were
+oppressively present to my senses, while my own hand I could not have
+located. I did not know where my body began or ended, I was so
+conscious of my gloves, my shoes, my flowing sash. My wonderful dress,
+in which I had taken so much satisfaction, gave me the most trouble. I
+was suddenly paralyzed by a conviction that it was too short, and it
+seemed to me I stood on absurdly long legs. And ten thousand people
+were looking up at me. It was horrible!
+
+I suppose I no more than cleared my throat before I began to read, but
+to me it seemed that I stood petrified for an age, an awful silence
+booming in my ears. My voice, when at last I began, sounded far away.
+I thought that nobody could hear me. But I kept on, mechanically; for
+I had rehearsed many times. And as I read I gradually forgot myself,
+forgot the place and the occasion. The people looking up at me heard
+the story of a beautiful little boy, my cousin, whom I had loved very
+dearly, and who died in far-distant Russia some years after I came to
+America. My composition was not a masterpiece; it was merely good for
+a girl of fifteen. But I had written that I still loved the little
+cousin, and I made a thousand strangers feel it. And before the
+applause there was a moment of stillness in the great hall.
+
+After the singing and reading by the class, there were the customary
+addresses by distinguished guests. We girls were reminded that we were
+going to be women, and happiness was promised to those of us who would
+aim to be noble women. A great many trite and obvious things, a great
+deal of the rhetoric appropriate to the occasion, compliments,
+applause, general satisfaction; so went the programme. Much of the
+rhetoric, many of the fine sentiments did not penetrate to the
+thoughts of us for whom they were intended, because we were in such a
+flutter about our ruffles and ribbons, and could hardly refrain from
+openly prinking. But we applauded very heartily every speaker and
+every would-be speaker, understanding that by a consensus of opinion
+on the platform we were very fine young ladies, and much was to be
+expected of us.
+
+One of the last speakers was introduced as a member of the School
+Board. He began like all the rest of them, but he ended differently.
+Abandoning generalities, he went on to tell the story of a particular
+schoolgirl, a pupil in a Boston school, whose phenomenal career might
+serve as an illustration of what the American system of free education
+and the European immigrant could make of each other. He had not got
+very far when I realized, to my great surprise and no small delight,
+that he was telling my story. I saw my friends on the platform beaming
+behind the speaker, and I heard my name whispered in the audience. I
+had been so much of a celebrity, in a small local way, that
+identification of the speaker's heroine was inevitable. My classmates,
+of course, guessed the name, and they turned to look at me, and
+nudged me, and all but pointed at me; their new muslins rustling and
+silk ribbons hissing.
+
+One or two nearest me forgot etiquette so far as to whisper to me.
+"Mary Antin," they said, as the speaker sat down, amid a burst of the
+most enthusiastic applause,--"Mary Antin, why don't you get up and
+thank him?"
+
+I was dazed with all that had happened. Bursting with pride I was, but
+I was moved, too, by nobler feelings. I realized, in a vague, far-off
+way, what it meant to my father and mother to be sitting there and
+seeing me held up as a paragon, my history made the theme of an
+eloquent discourse; what it meant to my father to see his ambitious
+hopes thus gloriously fulfilled, his judgment of me verified; what it
+meant to Frieda to hear me all but named with such honor. With all
+these things choking my heart to overflowing, my wits forsook me, if I
+had had any at all that day. The audience was stirring and whispering
+so that I could hear: "Who is it?" "Is that so?" And again they
+prompted me:--
+
+"Mary Antin, get up. Get up and thank him, Mary."
+
+And I rose where I sat, and in a voice that sounded thin as a fly's
+after the oratorical bass of the last speaker, I began:--
+
+"I want to thank you--"
+
+That is as far as I got. Mr. Swan, the principal, waved his hand to
+silence me; and then, and only then, did I realize the enormity of
+what I had done.
+
+My eulogist had had the good taste not to mention names, and I had
+been brazenly forward, deliberately calling attention to myself when
+there was no need. Oh, it was sickening! I hated myself, I hated with
+all my heart the girls who had prompted me to such immodest conduct. I
+wished the ground would yawn and snap me up. I was ashamed to look up
+at my friends on the platform. What was Miss Dillingham thinking of
+me? Oh, what a fool I had been! I had ruined my own triumph. I had
+disgraced myself, and my friends, and poor Mr. Swan, and the Winthrop
+School. The monster vanity had sucked out my wits, and left me a
+staring idiot.
+
+It is easy to say that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill, a
+catastrophe out of a mere breach of good manners. It is easy to say
+that. But I know that I suffered agonies of shame. After the
+exercises, when the crowd pressed in all directions in search of
+friends, I tried in vain to get out of the hall. I was mobbed, I was
+lionized. Everybody wanted to shake hands with the prodigy of the day,
+and they knew who it was. I had made sure of that; I had exhibited
+myself. The people smiled on me, flattered me, passed me on from one
+to another. I smirked back, but I did not know what I said. I was wild
+to be clear of the building. I thought everybody mocked me. All my
+roses had turned to ashes, and all through my own brazen conduct.
+
+I would have given my diploma to have Miss Dillingham know how the
+thing had happened, but I could not bring myself to speak first. If
+she would ask me--But nobody asked. Nobody looked away from me.
+Everybody congratulated me, and my father and mother and my remotest
+relations. But the sting of shame smarted just the same; I could not
+be consoled. I had made a fool of myself: Mr. Swan had publicly put me
+down.
+
+Ah, so that was it! Vanity was the vital spot again. It was wounded
+vanity that writhed and squirmed. It was not because I had been bold,
+but because I had been pronounced bold, that I suffered so
+monstrously. If Mr. Swan, with an eloquent gesture, had not silenced
+me, I might have made my little speech--good heavens! what _did_ I
+mean to say?--and probably called it another feather in my bonnet. But
+he had stopped me promptly, disgusted with my forwardness, and he had
+shown before all those hundreds what he thought of me. Therein lay the
+sting.
+
+With all my talent for self-analysis, it took me a long time to
+realize the essential pettiness of my trouble. For years--actually for
+years--after that eventful day of mingled triumph and disgrace, I
+could not think of the unhappy incident without inward squirming. I
+remember distinctly how the little scene would suddenly flash upon me
+at night, as I lay awake in bed, and I would turn over impatiently, as
+if to shake off a nightmare; and this so long after the occurrence
+that I was myself amazed at the persistence of the nightmare. I had
+never been reproached by any one for my conduct on Graduation Day. Why
+could I not forgive myself? I studied the matter deeply--it wearies me
+to remember how deeply--till at last I understood that it was wounded
+vanity that hurt so, and no nobler remorse. Then, and only then, was
+the ghost laid. If it ever tried to get up again, after that, I only
+had to call it names to see it scurry back to its grave and pull the
+sod down after it.
+
+Before I had laid my ghost, a friend told me of a similar experience
+of his boyhood. He was present at a small private entertainment, and a
+violinist who should have played being absent, the host asked for a
+volunteer to take his place. My friend, then a boy in his teens,
+offered himself, and actually stood up with the violin in his hands,
+as if to play. But he could not even hold the instrument properly--he
+had never been taught the violin. He told me he never knew what
+possessed him to get up and make a fool of himself before a roomful of
+people; but he was certain that ten thousand imps possessed him and
+tormented him for years and years after if only he remembered the
+incident.
+
+My friend's confession was such a consolation to me that I could not
+help thinking I might do some other poor wretch a world of good by
+offering him my company and that of my friend in his misery. For if it
+took me a long time to find out that I was a vain fool, the corollary
+did not escape me: there must be other vain fools.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+DOVER STREET
+
+
+What happened next was Dover Street.
+
+And what was Dover Street?
+
+Ask rather, What was it not? Dover Street was my fairest garden of
+girlhood, a gate of paradise, a window facing on a broad avenue of
+life. Dover Street was a prison, a school of discipline, a battlefield
+of sordid strife. The air in Dover Street was heavy with evil odors of
+degradation, but a breath from the uppermost heavens rippled through,
+whispering of infinite things. In Dover Street the dragon poverty
+gripped me for a last fight, but I overthrew the hideous creature, and
+sat on his neck as on a throne. In Dover Street I was shackled with a
+hundred chains of disadvantage, but with one free hand I planted
+little seeds, right there in the mud of shame, that blossomed into the
+honeyed rose of widest freedom. In Dover Street there was often no
+loaf on the table, but the hand of some noble friend was ever in mine.
+The night in Dover Street was rent with the cries of wrong, but the
+thunders of truth crashed through the pitiful clamor and died out in
+prophetic silences.
+
+Outwardly, Dover Street is a noisy thoroughfare cut through a South
+End slum, in every essential the same as Wheeler Street. Turn down any
+street in the slums, at random, and call it by whatever name you
+please, you will observe there the same fashions of life, death, and
+endurance. Every one of those streets is a rubbish heap of damaged
+humanity, and it will take a powerful broom and an ocean of soapsuds
+to clean it out.
+
+Dover Street is intersected, near its eastern end, where we lived, by
+Harrison Avenue. That street is to the South End what Salem Street is
+to the North End. It is the heart of the South End ghetto, for the
+greater part of its length; although its northern end belongs to the
+realm of Chinatown. Its multifarious business bursts through the
+narrow shop doors, and overruns the basements, the sidewalk, the
+street itself, in pushcarts and open-air stands. Its multitudinous
+population bursts through the greasy tenement doors, and floods the
+corridors, the doorsteps, the gutters, the side streets, pushing in
+and out among the pushcarts, all day long and half the night besides.
+
+Rarely as Harrison Avenue is caught asleep, even more rarely is it
+found clean. Nothing less than a fire or flood would cleanse this
+street. Even Passover cannot quite accomplish this feat. For although
+the tenements may be scrubbed to their remotest corners, on this one
+occasion, the cleansing stops at the curbstone. A great deal of the
+filthy rubbish accumulated in a year is pitched into the street, often
+through the windows; and what the ashman on his daily round does not
+remove is left to be trampled to powder, in which form it steals back
+into the houses from which it was so lately removed.
+
+The City Fathers provide soap and water for the slums, in the form of
+excellent schools, kindergartens, and branch libraries. And there they
+stop: at the curbstone of the people's life. They cleanse and
+discipline the children's minds, but their bodies they pitch into the
+gutter. For there are no parks and almost no playgrounds in the
+Harrison Avenue district,--in my day there were none,--and such as
+there are have been wrenched from the city by public-spirited citizens
+who have no offices in City Hall. No wonder the ashman is not more
+thorough: he learns from his masters.
+
+It is a pity to have it so, in a queen of enlightened cities like
+Boston. If we of the twentieth century do not believe in baseball as
+much as in philosophy, we have not learned the lesson of modern
+science, which teaches, among other things, that the body is the
+nursery of the soul; the instrument of our moral development; the
+secret chart of our devious progress from worm to man. The great
+achievement of recent science, of which we are so proud, has been the
+deciphering of the hieroglyphic of organic nature. To worship the
+facts and neglect the implications of the message of science is to
+applaud the drama without taking the moral to heart. And we certainly
+are not taking the moral to heart when we try to make a hero out of
+the boy by such foreign appliances as grammar and algebra, while
+utterly despising the fittest instrument for his uplifting--the boy's
+own body.
+
+We had no particular reason for coming to Dover Street. It might just
+as well have been Applepie Alley. For my father had sold, with the
+goods, fixtures, and good-will of the Wheeler Street store, all his
+hopes of ever making a living in the grocery trade; and I doubt if he
+got a silver dollar the more for them. We had to live somewhere, even
+if we were not making a living, so we came to Dover Street, where
+tenements were cheap; by which I mean that rent was low. The ultimate
+cost of life in those tenements, in terms of human happiness, is high
+enough.
+
+Our new home consisted of five small rooms up two flights of
+stairs, with the right of way through the dark corridors. In the
+"parlor" the dingy paper hung in rags and the plaster fell in chunks.
+One of the bedrooms was absolutely dark and air-tight. The kitchen
+windows looked out on a dirty court, at the back of which was the rear
+tenement of the estate. To us belonged, along with the five rooms and
+the right of way aforesaid, a block of upper space the length of a
+pulley line across this court, and the width of an arc described by a
+windy Monday's wash in its remotest wanderings.
+
+   [Illustration: HARRISON AVENUE IS THE HEART OF THE SOUTH END
+   GHETTO]
+
+The little front bedroom was assigned to me, with only one partner, my
+sister Dora. A mouse could not have led a cat much of a chase across
+this room; still we found space for a narrow bed, a crazy bureau, and
+a small table. From the window there was an unobstructed view of a
+lumberyard, beyond which frowned the blackened walls of a factory. The
+fence of the lumberyard was gay with theatre posters and illustrated
+advertisements of tobacco, whiskey, and patent baby foods. When the
+window was open, there was a constant clang and whirr of electric
+cars, varied by the screech of machinery, the clatter of empty wagons,
+or the rumble of heavy trucks.
+
+There was nothing worse in all this than we had had before since our
+exile from Crescent Beach; but I did not take the same delight in the
+propinquity of electric cars and arc lights that I had till now. I
+suppose the tenement began to pall on me.
+
+It must not be supposed that I enjoyed any degree of privacy, because
+I had half a room to myself. We were six in the five rooms; we were
+bound to be always in each other's way. And as it was within our flat,
+so it was in the house as a whole. All doors, beginning with the
+street door, stood open most of the time; or if they were closed, the
+tenants did not wear out their knuckles knocking for admittance. I
+could stand at any time in the unswept entrance hall and tell, from an
+analysis of the medley of sounds and smells that issued from doors
+ajar, what was going on in the several flats from below up. That
+guttural, scolding voice, unremittent as the hissing of a steam pipe,
+is Mrs. Rasnosky. I make a guess that she is chastising the infant
+Isaac for taking a second lump of sugar in his tea. _Spam! Bam!_ Yes,
+and she is rubbing in her objections with the flat of her hand. That
+blubbering and moaning, accompanying an elephantine tread, is fat Mrs.
+Casey, second floor, home drunk from an afternoon out, in fear of the
+vengeance of Mr. Casey; to propitiate whom she is burning a pan of
+bacon, as the choking fumes and outrageous sizzling testify. I hear a
+feeble whining, interrupted by long silences. It is that scabby baby
+on the third floor, fallen out of bed again, with nobody home to pick
+him up.
+
+To escape from these various horrors I ascend to the roof, where bacon
+and babies and child-beating are not. But there I find two figures in
+calico wrappers, with bare red arms akimbo, a basket of wet clothes in
+front of each, and only one empty clothes-line between them. I do not
+want to be dragged in as a witness in a case of assault and battery,
+so I descend to the street again, grateful to note, as I pass, that
+the third-floor baby is still.
+
+In front of the door I squeeze through a group of children. They are
+going to play tag, and are counting to see who should be "it":--
+
+    "My-mother-and-your-mother-went-out-to-hang-clothes;
+    My-mother-gave-your-mother-a-punch-in-the-nose."
+
+If the children's couplet does not give a vivid picture of the life,
+manners, and customs of Dover Street, no description of mine can ever
+do so.
+
+Frieda was married before we came to Dover Street, and went to live in
+East Boston. This left me the eldest of the children at home. Whether
+on this account, or because I was outgrowing my childish carelessness,
+or because I began to believe, on the cumulative evidence of the
+Crescent Beach, Chelsea, and Wheeler Street adventures, that America,
+after all, was not going to provide for my father's family,--whether
+for any or all of these reasons, I began at this time to take
+bread-and-butter matters more to heart, and to ponder ways and means
+of getting rich. My father sought employment wherever work was going
+on. His health was poor; he aged very fast. Nevertheless he offered
+himself for every kind of labor; he offered himself for a boy's wages.
+Here he was found too weak, here too old; here his imperfect English
+was in the way, here his Jewish appearance. He had a few short terms
+of work at this or that; I do not know the name of the form of
+drudgery that my father did not practise. But all told, he did not
+earn enough to pay the rent in full and buy a bone for the soup. The
+only steady source of income, for I do not know what years, was my
+brother's earnings from his newspapers.
+
+Surely this was the time for me to take my sister's place in the
+workshop. I had had every fair chance until now: school, my time to
+myself, liberty to run and play and make friends. I had graduated from
+grammar school; I was of legal age to go to work. What was I doing,
+sitting at home and dreaming?
+
+I was minding my business, of course; with all my might I was minding
+my business. As I understood it, my business was to go to school, to
+learn everything there was to know, to write poetry, become famous,
+and make the family rich. Surely it was not shirking to lay out such a
+programme for myself. I had boundless faith in my future. I was
+certainly going to be a great poet; I was certainly going to take care
+of the family.
+
+Thus mused I, in my arrogance. And my family? They were as bad as I.
+My father had not lost a whit of his ambition for me. Since Graduation
+Day, and the school-committeeman's speech, and half a column about me
+in the paper, his ambition had soared even higher. He was going to
+keep me at school till I was prepared for college. By that time, he
+was sure, I would more than take care of myself. It never for a moment
+entered his head to doubt the wisdom or justice of this course. And my
+mother was just as loyal to my cause, and my brother, and my sister.
+
+It is no wonder if I got along rapidly: I was helped, encouraged, and
+upheld by every one. Even the baby cheered me on. When I asked her
+whether she believed in higher education, she answered, without a
+moment's hesitation, "Ducka-ducka-da!" Against her I remember only
+that one day, when I read her a verse out of a most pathetic piece I
+was composing, she laughed right out, a most disrespectful laugh; for
+which I revenged myself by washing her face at the faucet, and rubbing
+it red on the roller towel.
+
+It was just like me, when it was debated whether I would be best
+fitted for college at the High or the Latin School, to go in person to
+Mr. Tetlow, who was principal of both schools, and so get the most
+expert opinion on the subject. I never send a messenger, you may
+remember, where I can go myself. It was vacation time, and I had to
+find Mr. Tetlow at his home. Away out to the wilds of Roxbury I found
+my way--perhaps half an hour's ride on the electric car from Dover
+Street. I grew an inch taller and broader between the corner of Cedar
+Street and Mr. Tetlow's house, such was the charm of the clean, green
+suburb on a cramped waif from the slums. My faded calico dress, my
+rusty straw sailor hat, the color of my skin and all bespoke the waif.
+But never a bit daunted was I. I went up the steps to the porch, rang
+the bell, and asked for the great man with as much assurance as if I
+were a daily visitor on Cedar Street. I calmly awaited the appearance
+of Mr. Tetlow in the reception room, and stated my errand without
+trepidation.
+
+And why not? I was a solemn little person for the moment, earnestly
+seeking advice on a matter of great importance. That is what Mr.
+Tetlow saw, to judge by the gravity with which he discussed my
+business with me, and the courtesy with which he showed me to the
+door. He saw, too, I fancy, that I was not the least bit conscious of
+my shabby dress; and I am sure he did not smile at my appearance, even
+when my back was turned.
+
+A new life began for me when I entered the Latin School in September.
+Until then I had gone to school with my equals, and as a matter of
+course. Now it was distinctly a feat for me to keep in school, and my
+schoolmates were socially so far superior to me that my poverty became
+conspicuous. The pupils of the Latin School, from the nature of the
+institution, are an aristocratic set. They come from refined homes,
+dress well, and spend the recess hour talking about parties, beaux,
+and the matinee. As students they are either very quick or very
+hard-working; for the course of study, in the lingo of the school
+world, is considered "stiff." The girl with half her brain asleep, or
+with too many beaux, drops out by the end of the first year; or a one
+and only beau may be the fatal element. At the end of the course the
+weeding process has reduced the once numerous tribe of academic
+candidates to a cosey little family.
+
+By all these tokens I should have had serious business on my hands as
+a pupil in the Latin School, but I did not find it hard. To make
+myself letter-perfect in my lessons required long hours of study, but
+that was my delight. To make myself at home in an alien world was also
+within my talents; I had been practising it day and night for the past
+four years. To remain unconscious of my shabby and ill-fitting clothes
+when the rustle of silk petticoats in the schoolroom protested against
+them was a matter still within my moral reach. Half a dress a year had
+been my allowance for many seasons; even less, for as I did not grow
+much I could wear my dresses as long as they lasted. And I had stood
+before editors, and exchanged polite calls with school-teachers,
+untroubled by the detestable colors and archaic design of my garments.
+To stand up and recite Latin declensions without trembling from hunger
+was something more of a feat, because I sometimes went to school with
+little or no breakfast; but even that required no special heroism,--at
+most it was a matter of self-control. I had the advantage of a poor
+appetite, too; I really did not need much breakfast. Or if I was
+hungry it would hardly show; I coughed so much that my unsteadiness
+was self-explained.
+
+Everything helped, you see. My schoolmates helped. Aristocrats though
+they were, they did not hold themselves aloof from me. Some of the
+girls who came to school in carriages were especially cordial. They
+rated me by my scholarship, and not by my father's occupation. They
+teased and admired me by turns for learning the footnotes in the Latin
+grammar by heart; they never reproached me for my ignorance of the
+latest comic opera. And it was more than good breeding that made them
+seem unaware of the incongruity of my presence. It was a generous
+appreciation of what it meant for a girl from the slums to be in the
+Latin School, on the way to college. If our intimacy ended on the
+steps of the school-house, it was more my fault than theirs. Most of
+the girls were democratic enough to have invited me to their homes,
+although to some, of course, I was "impossible." But I had no time for
+visiting; school work and reading and family affairs occupied all the
+daytime, and much of the night time. I did not "go with" any of the
+girls, in the school-girl sense of the phrase. I admired some of them,
+either for good looks, or beautiful manners, or more subtle
+attributes; but always at a distance. I discovered something
+inimitable in the way the Back Bay girls carried themselves; and I
+should have been the first to perceive the incongruity of Commonwealth
+Avenue entwining arms with Dover Street. Some day, perhaps, when I
+should be famous and rich; but not just then. So my companions and I
+parted on the steps of the school-house, in mutual respect; they
+guiltless of snobbishness, I innocent of envy. It was a graciously
+American relation, and I am happy to this day to recall it.
+
+The one exception to this rule of friendly distance was my chum,
+Florence Connolly. But I should hardly have said "chum." Florence and
+I occupied adjacent seats for three years, but we did not walk arm in
+arm, nor call each other nicknames, nor share our lunch, nor
+correspond in vacation time. Florence was quiet as a mouse, and I was
+reserved as an oyster; and perhaps we two had no more in common
+fundamentally than those two creatures in their natural state. Still,
+as we were both very studious, and never strayed far from our desks at
+recess, we practised a sort of intimacy of propinquity. Although
+Florence was of my social order, her father presiding over a cheap
+lunch room, I did not on that account feel especially drawn to her. I
+spent more time studying Florence than loving her, I suppose. And yet
+I ought to have loved her; she was such a good girl. Always perfect in
+her lessons, she was so modest that she recited in a noticeable
+tremor, and had to be told frequently to raise her voice. Florence
+wore her light brown hair brushed flatly back and braided in a single
+plait, at a time when pompadours were six inches high and braids hung
+in pairs. Florence had a pocket in her dress for her handkerchief, in
+a day when pockets were repugnant to fashion. All these things ought
+to have made me feel the kinship of humble circumstances, the
+comradeship of intellectual earnestness; but they did not.
+
+The truth is that my relation to persons and things depended neither
+on social distinctions nor on intellectual or moral affinities. My
+attitude, at this time, was determined by my consciousness of the
+unique elements in my character and history. It seemed to me that I
+had been pursuing a single adventure since the beginning of the world.
+Through highways and byways, underground, overground, by land, by sea,
+ever the same star had guided me, I thought, ever the same purpose
+had divided my affairs from other men's. What that purpose was, where
+was the fixed horizon beyond which my star would not recede, was an
+absorbing mystery to me. But the current moment never puzzled me. What
+I chose instinctively to do I knew to be right and in accordance with
+my destiny. I never hesitated over great things, but answered promptly
+to the call of my genius. So what was it to me whether my neighbors
+spurned or embraced me, if my way was no man's way? Nor should any one
+ever reject me whom I chose to be my friend, because I would make sure
+of a kindred spirit by the coincidence of our guiding stars.
+
+When, where in the harum-scarum life of Dover Street was there time or
+place for such self-communing? In the night, when everybody slept; on
+a solitary walk, as far from home as I dared to go.
+
+I was not unhappy on Dover Street; quite the contrary. Everything of
+consequence was well with me. Poverty was a superficial, temporary
+matter; it vanished at the touch of money. Money in America was
+plentiful; it was only a matter of getting some of it, and I was on my
+way to the mint. If Dover Street was not a pleasant place to abide in,
+it was only a wayside house. And I was really happy, actively happy,
+in the exercise of my mind in Latin, mathematics, history, and the
+rest; the things that suffice a studious girl in the middle teens.
+
+Still I had moments of depression, when my whole being protested
+against the life of the slum. I resented the familiarity of my vulgar
+neighbors. I felt myself defiled by the indecencies I was compelled to
+witness. Then it was I took to running away from home. I went out in
+the twilight and walked for hours, my blind feet leading me. I did
+not care where I went. If I lost my way, so much the better; I never
+wanted to see Dover Street again.
+
+But behold, as I left the crowds behind, and the broader avenues were
+spanned by the open sky, my grievances melted away, and I fell to
+dreaming of things that neither hurt nor pleased. A fringe of trees
+against the sunset became suddenly the symbol of the whole world, and
+I stood and gazed and asked questions of it. The sunset faded; the
+trees withdrew. The wind went by, but dropped no hint in my ear. The
+evening star leaped out between the clouds, and sealed the secret with
+a seal of splendor.
+
+A favorite resort of mine, after dark, was the South Boston Bridge,
+across South Bay and the Old Colony Railroad. This was so near home
+that I could go there at any time when the confusion in the house
+drove me out, or I felt the need of fresh air. I liked to stand
+leaning on the bridge railing, and look down on the dim tangle of
+railroad tracks below. I could barely see them branching out,
+elbowing, winding, and sliding out into the night in pairs. I was
+fascinated by the dotted lights, the significant red and green of
+signal lamps. These simple things stood for a complexity that it made
+me dizzy to think of. Then the blackness below me was split by the
+fiery eye of a monster engine, his breath enveloped me in blinding
+clouds, his long body shot by, rattling a hundred claws of steel; and
+he was gone, with an imperative shriek that shook me where I stood.
+
+So would I be, swift on my rightful business, picking out my proper
+track from the million that cross it, pausing for no obstacles, sure
+of my goal.
+
+   [Illustration: I LIKED TO STAND AND LOOK DOWN ON THE DIM TANGLE
+   OF RAILROAD TRACKS BELOW]
+
+After my watches on the bridge I often stayed up to write or study. It
+is late before Dover Street begins to go to bed. It is past midnight
+before I feel that I am alone. Seated in my stiff little chair before
+my narrow table, I gather in the night sounds through the open window,
+curious to assort and define them. As, little by little, the city
+settles down to sleep, the volume of sound diminishes, and the
+qualities of particular sounds stand out. The electric car lurches by
+with silent gong, taking the empty track by leaps, humming to itself
+in the invisible distance. A benighted team swings recklessly around
+the corner, sharp under my rattling window panes, the staccato pelting
+of hoofs on the cobblestones changed suddenly to an even pounding on
+the bridge. A few pedestrians hurry by, their heavy boots all out of
+step. The distant thoroughfares have long ago ceased their murmur, and
+I know that a million lamps shine idly in the idle streets.
+
+My sister sleeps quietly in the little bed. The rhythmic dripping of a
+faucet is audible through the flat. It is so still that I can hear the
+paper crackling on the wall. Silence upon silence is added to the
+night; only the kitchen clock is the voice of my brooding
+thoughts,--ticking, ticking, ticking.
+
+Suddenly the distant whistle of a locomotive breaks the stillness with
+a long-drawn wail. Like a threatened trouble, the sound comes nearer,
+piercingly near; then it dies out in a mangled silence, complaining to
+the last.
+
+The sleepers stir in their beds. Somebody sighs, and the burden of all
+his trouble falls upon my heart. A homeless cat cries in the alley, in
+the voice of a human child. And the ticking of the kitchen clock is
+the voice of my troubled thoughts.
+
+Many things are revealed to me as I sit and watch the world asleep.
+But the silence asks me many questions that I cannot answer; and I am
+glad when the tide of sound begins to return, by little and little,
+and I welcome the clatter of tin cans that announces the milkman. I
+cannot see him in the dusk, but I know his wholesome face has no
+problem in it.
+
+It is one flight up to the roof; it is a leap of the soul to the
+sunrise. The morning mist rests lightly on chimneys and roofs and
+walls, wreathes the lamp-posts, and floats in gauzy streamers down the
+streets. Distant buildings are massed like palace walls, with turrets
+and spires lost in the rosy clouds. I love my beautiful city spreading
+all about me. I love the world. I love my place in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE LANDLADY
+
+
+From sunrise to sunset the day was long enough for many things besides
+school, which occupied five hours. There was time for me to try to
+earn my living; or at least the rent of our tenement. Rent was a
+standing trouble. We were always behind, and the landlady was very
+angry; so I was particularly ambitious to earn the rent. I had had one
+or two poems published since the celebrated eulogy of George
+Washington, but nobody had paid for my poems--yet. I was coming to
+that, of course, but in the mean time I could not pay the rent with my
+writing. To be sure, my acquaintance with men of letters gave me an
+opening. A friend of mine introduced me to a slightly literary lady
+who introduced me to the editor of the "Boston Searchlight," who
+offered me a generous commission for subscriptions to his paper.
+
+If our rent was three and one-half dollars per week, payable on strong
+demand, and the annual subscription to the "Searchlight" was one
+dollar, and my commission was fifty per cent, how many subscribers did
+I need? How easy! Seven subscribers a week--one a day! Anybody could
+do that. Mr. James, the editor, said so. He said I could get two or
+three any afternoon between the end of school and supper. If I worked
+all Saturday--my head went dizzy computing the amount of my
+commissions. It would be rent and shoes and bonnets and everything for
+everybody.
+
+Bright and early one Saturday morning in the fall I started out
+canvassing, in my hand a neatly folded copy of the "Searchlight," in
+my heart, faith in my lucky star and good-will towards all the world.
+I began with one of the great office buildings on Tremont Street, as
+Mr. James had advised. The first half-hour I lost, wandering through
+the corridors, reading the names on the doors. There were so many
+people in the same office, how should I know, when I entered, which
+was Wilson & Reed, Solicitors, and which C. Jenkins Smith, Mortgages
+and Bonds? I decided that it did not matter: I would call them all
+"Sir."
+
+I selected a door and knocked. After waiting some time, I knocked a
+little louder. The building buzzed with noise,--swift footsteps echoed
+on the stone floors, snappy talk broke out with the opening of every
+door, bells tinkled, elevators hummed,--no wonder they did not hear me
+knock. But I noticed that other people went in without knocking, so
+after a while I did the same.
+
+There were several men and two women in the small, brightly lighted
+room. They were all busy. It was very confusing. Should I say "Sir" to
+the roomful?
+
+"Excuse me, sir," I began. That was a very good beginning, I felt
+sure, but I must speak louder. Lately my voice had been poor in
+school--gave out, sometimes, in the middle of a recitation. I cleared
+my throat, but I did not repeat myself. The back of the bald head that
+I had addressed revolved and presented its complement, a bald front.
+
+"Will you--would you like--I'd like--"
+
+I stared in dismay at the bald gentleman, unable to recall a word of
+what I meant to say; and he stared in impatience at me.
+
+"Well, well!" he snapped, "What is it? What is it?"
+
+That reminded me.
+
+"It's the 'Boston Searchlight,' sir. I take sub--"
+
+"Take it away--take it away. We're busy here." He waved me away over
+his shoulder, the back of his head once more presented to me.
+
+I stole out of the room in great confusion. Was that the way I was
+going to be received? Why, Mr. James had said nobody would hesitate to
+subscribe. It was the best paper in Boston, the "Searchlight," and no
+business man could afford to be without it. I must have made some
+blunder. _Was_ "Mortgages and Bonds" a business? I'd never heard of
+it, and very likely I had spoken to C. Jenkins Smith. I must try
+again--of course I must try again.
+
+I selected a real estate office next. A real estate broker, I knew for
+certain, was a business man. Mr. George A. Hooker must be just waiting
+for the "Boston Searchlight."
+
+Mr. Hooker was indeed waiting, and he was telling "Central" about it.
+
+"Yes, Central; waiting, waiting--What?--Yes, yes; ring _four_--What's
+that?--Since when?--Why didn't you say so at first, then, instead of
+keeping me on the line--What?--Oh, is that so? Well, never mind this
+time, Central.--I see, I see.--All right."
+
+I had become so absorbed in this monologue that when Mr. Hooker swung
+around on me in his revolving chair I was startled, feeling that I had
+been caught eavesdropping. I thought he was going to rebuke me, but he
+only said, "What can I do for you, Miss?"
+
+Encouraged by his forbearance, I said:--
+
+"Would you like to subscribe to the 'Boston Searchlight,' sir?"--"Sir"
+was safer, after all.--"It's a dollar a year."
+
+I was supposed to say that it was the best paper in Boston, etc., but
+Mr. Hooker did not look interested, though he was not cross.
+
+"No, thank you, Miss; no new papers for me. Excuse me, I am very
+busy." And he began to dictate to a stenographer.
+
+Well, that was not so bad. Mr. Hooker was at least polite. I must try
+to make a better speech next time. I stuck to real estate now. O'Lair
+& Kennedy were both in, in my next office, and both apparently
+enjoying a minute of relaxation, tilted back in their chairs behind a
+low railing. Said I, determined to be businesslike at last, and
+addressing myself to the whole firm:--
+
+"Would you like to subscribe to the 'Boston Searchlight?' It's a very
+good paper. No business man can afford it--afford to be without it, I
+mean. It's only a dollar a year."
+
+Both men smiled at my break, and I smiled, too. I wondered would they
+subscribe separately, or would they take one copy for the firm.
+
+"The 'Boston Searchlight,'" repeated one of the partners. "Never heard
+of it. Is that the paper you have there?"
+
+He unfolded the paper I gave him, looked over it, and handed it to his
+partner.
+
+"Ever heard of the 'Searchlight,' O'Lair? What do you think--can we
+afford to be without it?"
+
+"I guess we'll make out somehow," replied Mr. O'Lair, handing me back
+my paper. "But I'll buy this copy of you, Miss," he added, from second
+thoughts.
+
+"And I'll go partner on the bargain," said Mr. Kennedy.
+
+But I objected.
+
+"This is a sample," I said; "I don't sell single papers. I take
+subscriptions for the year. It's one dollar."
+
+"And no business man can afford it, you know." Mr. Kennedy winked as
+he said it, and we all smiled again. It would have been stupid not to
+see the joke.
+
+"I'm sorry I can't sell my sample," I said, with my hand on the
+doorknob.
+
+"That's all right, my dear," said Mr. Kennedy, with a gracious wave of
+the hand. And his partner called after me, "Better luck next door!"
+
+Well, I was getting on! The people grew friendlier all the time. But I
+skipped "next door"; it was "Mortgages and Bonds." I tried
+"Insurance."
+
+"The best paper in Boston, is it?" remarked Mr. Thomas F. Dix, turning
+over my sample. "And who told you that, young lady?"
+
+"Mr. James," was my prompt reply.
+
+"Who is Mr. James?--The _editor_! Oh, I see. And do you also think the
+'Searchlight' the best paper in Boston?"
+
+"I don't know, sir. I like the 'Herald' much better, and the
+'Transcript.'"
+
+At that Mr. Dix laughed. "That's right," he said. "Business is
+business, but you tell the truth. One dollar, is it? Here you are. My
+name is on the door. Good-day."
+
+I think I spent twenty minutes copying the name and room number from
+the door. I did not trust myself to read plain English. What if I made
+a mistake, and the "Searchlight" went astray, and good Mr. Dix
+remained unilluminated? He had paid for the year--it would be
+dreadful to make a mistake.
+
+Emboldened by my one success, I went into the next office without
+considering the kind of business announced on the door. I tried
+brokers, lawyers, contractors, and all, just as they came around the
+corridor; but I copied no more addresses. Most of the people were
+polite. Some men waved me away, like C. Jenkins Smith. Some looked
+impatient at first, but excused themselves politely in the end. Almost
+everybody said, "We're busy here," as if they suspected I wanted them
+to read a whole year's issue of the "Searchlight" at once. At last one
+man told me he did not think it was a nice business for a girl, going
+through the offices like that.
+
+This took me aback. I had not thought anything about the nature of the
+business. I only wanted the money to pay the rent. I wandered through
+miles of stone corridors, unable to see why it was not a nice
+business, and yet reluctant to go on with it, with the doubt in my
+mind. Intent on my new problem, I walked into a messenger boy; and
+looking back to apologize to him, I collided softly with a
+cushion-shaped gentleman getting out of an elevator. I was making up
+my mind to leave the building forever, when I saw an office door
+standing open. It was the first open door I had come across since
+morning--it was past noon now--and it was a sign to me to keep on. I
+must not give up so easily.
+
+Mr. Frederick A. Strong was alone in the office, surreptitiously
+picking his teeth. He had been to lunch. He heard me out
+good-naturedly.
+
+"How much is your commission, if I may ask?" It was the first thing he
+had said.
+
+"Fifty cents, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what I will do. I don't care to subscribe, but
+here's a quarter for you."
+
+If I did not blush, it was because it is not my habit, but all of a
+sudden I choked. A lump jumped into my throat; almost the tears were
+in my eyes. That man was right who said it was not nice to go through
+the offices. I was taken for a beggar: a stranger offered me money for
+nothing.
+
+I could not say a word. I started to go out. But Mr. Strong jumped up
+and prevented me.
+
+"Oh, don't go like that!" he cried. "I didn't mean to offend you; upon
+my word, I didn't. I beg your pardon. I didn't know--you see--Won't
+you sit down a minute to rest? That's kind of you."
+
+Mr. Strong was so genuinely repentant that I could not refuse him.
+Besides, I felt a little weak. I had been on my feet since morning,
+and had had no lunch. I sat down, and Mr. Strong talked. He showed me
+a picture of his wife and little girl, and said I must go and see them
+some time. Pretty soon I was chatting, too, and I told Mr. Strong
+about the Latin School; and of course he asked me if I was French, the
+way people always did when they wanted to say that I had a foreign
+accent. So we got started on Russia, and had such an interesting time
+that we both jumped up, surprised, when a fine young lady in a
+beautiful hat came in to take possession of the idle typewriter.
+
+Mr. Strong introduced me very formally, thanked me for an interesting
+hour, and shook hands with me at the door. I did not add his name to
+my short subscription list, but I counted it a greater triumph that I
+had made a friend.
+
+It would have been seeking an anticlimax to solicit any more in the
+building. I went out, into the roar of Tremont Street, and across the
+Common, still green and leafy. I rested a while on a bench, debating
+where to go next. It was past two by the clock on Park Street Church.
+I had had a long day already, but it was too early to quit work, with
+only one half dollar of my own in my pocket. It was Saturday--in the
+evening the landlady would come. I must try a little longer.
+
+I went out along Columbus Avenue, a popular route for bicyclists at
+that time. The bicycle stores all along the way looked promising to
+me. The people did not look so busy as in the office building: they
+would at least be polite.
+
+They were not particularly rude, but they did not subscribe. Nobody
+wanted the "Searchlight." They had never heard of it--they made jokes
+about it--they did not want it at any price.
+
+I began to lose faith in the paper myself. I got tired of its name. I
+began to feel dizzy. I stopped going into the stores. I walked
+straight along, looking at nothing. I wanted to go back, go home, but
+I wouldn't. I felt like doing myself spite. I walked right along,
+straight as the avenue ran. I did not know where it would lead me. I
+did not care. Everything was horrid. I would go right on until night.
+I would get lost. I would fall in a faint on a strange doorstep, and
+be found dead in the morning, and be pitied.
+
+Wouldn't that be interesting! The adventure might even end happily. I
+might faint at the door of a rich old man's house, who would take me
+in, and order his housekeeper to nurse me, just like in the story
+books. In my delirium--of course I would have a fever--I would talk
+about the landlady, and how I had tried to earn the rent; and the old
+gentleman would wipe his spectacles for pity. Then I would wake up,
+and ask plaintively, "Where am I?" And when I got strong, after a
+delightfully long convalescence, the old gentleman would take me to
+Dover Street--in a carriage!--and we would all be reunited, and laugh
+and cry together. The old gentleman, of course, would engage my father
+as his steward, on the spot, and we would all go to live in one of his
+houses, with a garden around it.
+
+I walked on and on, gleefully aware that I had not eaten since
+morning. Wasn't I beginning to feel shaky? Yes; I should certainly
+faint before long. But I didn't like the houses I passed. They did not
+look fit for my adventure. I must keep up till I reached a better
+neighborhood.
+
+Anybody who knows Boston knows how cheaply my adventure ended.
+Columbus Avenue leads out to Roxbury Crossing. When I saw that the
+houses were getting shabbier, instead of finer, my heart sank. When I
+came out on the noisy, thrice-commonplace street-car centre, my spirit
+collapsed utterly.
+
+I did not swoon. I woke up from my foolish, childish dream with a
+shock. I was disgusted with myself, and frightened besides. It was
+evening now, and I was faint and sick in good earnest, and I did not
+know where I was. I asked a starter at the transfer station the way to
+Dover Street, and he told me to get on a car that was just coming in.
+
+"I'll walk," I said, "if you will please tell me the shortest way."
+How could I spend five cents out of the little I had made?
+
+But the starter discouraged me.
+
+"You can't walk it before midnight--the way you look, my girl. Better
+hop on that car before it goes."
+
+I could not resist the temptation. I rode home in the car, and felt
+like a thief when I paid the fare. Five cents gone to pay for my
+folly!
+
+I was grateful for a cold supper; thrice grateful to hear that Mrs.
+Hutch, the landlady, had been and gone, content with two dollars that
+my father had brought home.
+
+Mrs. Hutch seldom succeeded in collecting the full amount of the rents
+from her tenants. I suppose that made the bookkeeping complicated,
+which must have been wearing on her nerves; and hence her temper. We
+lived, on Dover Street, in fear of her temper. Saturday had a distinct
+quality about it, derived from the imminence of Mrs. Hutch's visit. Of
+course I awoke on Saturday morning with the no-school feeling; but the
+grim thing that leaped to its feet and glowered down on me, while the
+rest of my consciousness was still yawning on its back, was the
+Mrs.-Hutch-is-coming-and-there's-no-rent feeling.
+
+It is hard, if you are a young girl, full of life and inclined to be
+glad, to go to sleep in anxiety and awake in fear. It is apt to
+interfere with the circulation of the vital ether of happiness in the
+young, which is damaging to the complexion of the soul. It is bitter,
+when you are middle-aged and unsuccessful, to go to sleep in
+self-reproach and awake unexonerated. It is likely to cause
+fermentation in the sweetest nature; it is certain to breed gray hairs
+and a premature longing for death. It is pitiful, if you are the
+home-keeping mother of an impoverished family, to drop in your traces
+helpless at night, and awake unstrengthened in the early morning. The
+haunting consciousness of rooted poverty is an improper bedfellow for
+a woman who still bears. It has been known to induce physical and
+spiritual malformations in the babies she nurses.
+
+It did require strength to lift the burden of life, in the gray
+morning, on Dover Street; especially on Saturday morning. Perhaps my
+mother's pack was the heaviest to lift. To the man of the house,
+poverty is a bulky dragon with gripping talons and a poisonous breath;
+but he bellows in the open, and it is possible to give him knightly
+battle, with the full swing of the angry arm that cuts to the enemy's
+vitals. To the housewife, want is an insidious myriapod creature that
+crawls in the dark, mates with its own offspring, breeds all the year
+round, persists like leprosy. The woman has an endless, inglorious
+struggle with the pest; her triumphs are too petty for applause, her
+failures too mean for notice. Care, to the man, is a hound to be kept
+in leash and mastered. To the woman, care is a secret parasite that
+infects the blood.
+
+Mrs. Hutch, of course, was only one symptom of the disease of poverty,
+but there were times when she seemed to me the sharpest tooth of the
+gnawing canker. Surely as sorrow trails behind sin, Saturday evening
+brought Mrs. Hutch. The landlady did not trail. Her movements were
+anything but impassive. She climbed the stairs with determination and
+landed at the top with emphasis. Her knock on the door was clear
+sharp, unfaltering; it was impossible to pretend not to hear it. Her
+"Good-evening" announced business; her manner of taking a chair
+suggested the throwing-down of the gauntlet. Invariably she asked for
+my father, calling him Mr. Anton, and refusing to be corrected; almost
+invariably he was not at home--was out looking for work. Had he left
+her the rent? My mother's gentle "No, ma'am" was the signal for the
+storm. I do not want to repeat what Mrs. Hutch said. It would be hard
+on her, and hard on me. She grew red in the face; her voice grew
+shriller with every word. My poor mother hung her head where she
+stood; the children stared from their corners; the frightened baby
+cried. The angry landlady rehearsed our sins like a prophet
+foretelling doom. We owed so many weeks' rent; we were too lazy to
+work; we never intended to pay; we lived on others; we deserved to be
+put out without warning. She reproached my mother for having too many
+children; she blamed us all for coming to America. She enumerated her
+losses through nonpayment of her rents; told us that she did not
+collect the amount of her taxes; showed us how our irregularities were
+driving a poor widow to ruin.
+
+My mother did not attempt to excuse herself, but when Mrs. Hutch began
+to rail against my absent father, she tried to put in a word in his
+defence. The landlady grew all the shriller at that, and silenced my
+mother impatiently. Sometimes she addressed herself to me. I always
+stood by, if I was at home, to give my mother the moral support of my
+dumb sympathy. I understood that Mrs. Hutch had a special grudge
+against me, because I did not go to work as a cash girl and earn three
+dollars a week. I wanted to explain to her how I was preparing myself
+for a great career, and I was ready to promise her the payment of the
+arrears as soon as I began to get rich. But the landlady would not let
+me put in a word. And I was sorry for her, because she seemed to be
+having such a bad time.
+
+At last Mrs. Hutch got up to leave, marching out as determinedly as
+she had marched in. At the door she turned, in undiminished wrath, to
+shoot her parting dart:--
+
+"And if Mr. Anton does not bring me the rent on Monday, I will serve
+notice of eviction on Tuesday, without fail."
+
+We breathed when she was gone. My mother wiped away a few tears, and
+went to the baby, crying in the windowless, air-tight room.
+
+I was the first to speak.
+
+"Isn't she queer, mamma!" I said. "She never remembers how to say our
+name. She insists on saying _Anton--Anton_. Celia, say _Anton_." And I
+made the baby laugh by imitating the landlady, who had made her cry.
+
+But when I went to my little room I did not mock Mrs. Hutch. I thought
+about her, thought long and hard, and to a purpose. I decided that she
+must hear me out once. She must understand about my plans, my future,
+my good intentions. It was too irrational to go on like this, we
+living in fear of her, she in distrust of us. If Mrs. Hutch would only
+trust me, and the tax collectors would trust her, we could all live
+happily forever.
+
+I was the more certain that my argument would prevail with the
+landlady, if only I could make her listen, because I understood her
+point of view. I even sympathized with her. What she said about the
+babies, for instance, was not all unreasonable to me. There was this
+last baby, my mother's sixth, born on Mrs. Hutch's premises--yes, in
+the windowless, air-tight bedroom. Was there any need of this baby?
+When May was born, two years earlier, on Wheeler Street, I had
+accepted her; after a while I even welcomed her. She was born an
+American, and it was something to me to have one genuine American
+relative. I had to sit up with her the whole of her first night on
+earth, and I questioned her about the place she came from, and so we
+got acquainted. As my mother was so ill that my sister Frieda, who was
+nurse, and the doctor from the dispensary had all they could do to
+take care of her, the baby remained in my charge a good deal, and so I
+got used to her. But when Celia came I was two years older, and my
+outlook was broader; I could see around a baby's charms, and discern
+the disadvantages of possessing the baby. I was supplied with all
+kinds of relatives now--I had a brother-in-law, and an American-born
+nephew, who might become a President. Moreover, I knew there was not
+enough to eat before the baby's advent, and she did not bring any
+supplies with her that I could see. The baby was one too many. There
+was no need of her. I resented her existence. I recorded my resentment
+in my journal.
+
+I was pleased with my broad-mindedness, that enabled me to see all
+sides of the baby question. I could regard even the rent question
+disinterestedly, like a philosopher reviewing natural phenomena. It
+seemed not unreasonable that Mrs. Hutch should have a craving for the
+rent as such. A school-girl dotes on her books, a baby cries for its
+rattle, and a landlady yearns for her rents. I could easily believe
+that it was doing Mrs. Hutch spiritual violence to withhold the rent
+from her; and hence the vehemence with which she pursued the arrears.
+
+Yes, I could analyze the landlady very nicely. I was certainly
+qualified to act as peacemaker between her and my family. But I must
+go to her own house, and _not_ on a rent day. Saturday evening, when
+she was embittered by many disappointments, was no time to approach
+her with diplomatic negotiations. I must go to her house on a day of
+good omen.
+
+And I went, as soon as my father could give me a week's rent to take
+along. I found Mrs. Hutch in the gloom of a long, faded parlor.
+Divested of the ample black coat and widow's bonnet in which I had
+always seen her, her presence would have been less formidable had I
+not been conscious that I was a mere rumpled sparrow fallen into the
+lion's den. When I had delivered the money, I should have begun my
+speech; but I did not know what came first of all there was to say.
+While I hesitated, Mrs. Hutch observed me. She noticed my books, and
+asked about them. I thought this was my opening, and I showed her
+eagerly my Latin grammar, my geometry, my Virgil. I began to tell her
+how I was to go to college, to fit myself to write poetry, and get
+rich, and pay the arrears. But Mrs. Hutch cut me short at the mention
+of college. She broke out with her old reproaches, and worked herself
+into a worse fury than I had ever witnessed before. I was all alone in
+the tempest, and a very old lady was sitting on a sofa, drinking tea;
+and the tidy on the back of the sofa was sliding down.
+
+I was so bewildered by the suddenness of the onslaught, I felt so
+helpless to defend myself, that I could only stand and stare at Mrs.
+Hutch. She kept on railing without stopping for breath, repeating
+herself over and over. At last I ceased to hear what she said; I
+became hypnotized by the rapid motions of her mouth. Then the moving
+tidy caught my eye and the spell was broken. I went over to the sofa
+with a decided step and carefully replaced the tidy.
+
+It was now the landlady's turn to stare, and I stared back, surprised
+at my own action. The old lady also stared, her teacup suspended under
+her nose. The whole thing was so ridiculous! I had come on such a
+grand mission, ready to dictate the terms of a noble peace. I was met
+with anger and contumely; the dignity of the ambassador of peace
+rubbed off at a touch, like the golden dust from the butterfly's wing.
+I took my scolding like a meek child; and then, when she was in the
+middle of a trenchant phrase, her eye fixed daggerlike on mine, I
+calmly went to put the enemy's house in order! It was ridiculous, and
+I laughed.
+
+Immediately I was sorry. I wanted to apologize, but Mrs. Hutch didn't
+give me a chance. If she had been harsh before, she was terrific now.
+Did I come there to insult her?--she wanted to know. Wasn't it enough
+that I and my family lived on her, that I must come to her on purpose
+to rile her with my talk about college--_college!_ these beggars!--and
+laugh in her face? "What did you come for? Who sent you? Why do you
+stand there staring? Say something! _College!_ these beggars! And do
+you think I'll keep you till you go to college? _You_, learning
+geometry! Did you ever figure out how much rent your father owes me?
+You are all too lazy--Don't say a word! Don't speak to me! Coming here
+to laugh in my face! I don't believe you can say one sensible word.
+_Latin_--and _French_! Oh, these beggars! You ought to go to work, if
+you know enough to do one sensible thing. _College!_ Go home and tell
+your father never to send you again. Laughing in my face--and staring!
+Why don't you say something? How old are you?"
+
+Mrs. Hutch actually stopped, and I jumped into the pause.
+
+"I'm seventeen," I said quickly, "and I feel like seventy."
+
+This was too much, even for me who had spoken. I had not meant to say
+the last. It broke out, like my wicked laugh. I was afraid, if I
+stayed any longer, Mrs. Hutch would have the apoplexy; and I felt that
+I was going to cry. I moved towards the door, but the landlady got in
+another speech before I had escaped.
+
+"Seventeen--seventy! And looks like twelve! The child is silly. Can't
+even tell her own age. No wonder, with her Latin, and French, and--"
+
+I did cry when I got outside, and I didn't care if I was noticed. What
+was the use of anything? Everything I did was wrong. Everything I
+tried to do for Mrs. Hutch turned out bad. I tried to sell papers, for
+the sake of the rent, and nobody wanted the "Searchlight," and I was
+told it was not a nice business. I wanted to take her into my
+confidence, and she wouldn't hear a word, but scolded and called me
+names. She was an unreasonable, ungrateful landlady. I wished she
+_would_ put us out, then we should be rid of her.--But wasn't it funny
+about that tidy? What made me do that? I never meant to. Curious, the
+way we sometimes do things we don't want to at all.--The old lady must
+be deaf; she didn't say anything all that time.--Oh, I have a whole
+book of the "AEneid" to review, and it's getting late. I must hurry
+home.
+
+It was impossible to remain despondent long. The landlady came only
+once a week, I reflected, as I walked, and the rest of the time I was
+surrounded by friends. Everybody was good to me, at home, of course,
+and at school; and there was Miss Dillingham, and her friend who took
+me out in the country to see the autumn leaves, and her friend's
+friend who lent me books, and Mr. Hurd, who put my poems in the
+"Transcript," and gave me books almost every time I came, and a dozen
+others who did something good for me all the time, besides the several
+dozen who wrote me such nice letters. Friends? If I named one for
+every block I passed I should not get through before I reached home.
+There was Mr. Strong, too, and he wanted me to meet his wife and
+little girl. And Mr. Pastor! I had almost forgotten Mr. Pastor. I
+arrived at the corner of Washington and Dover Streets, on my way home,
+and looked into Mr. Pastor's showy drug store as I passed, and that
+reminded me of the history of my latest friendship.
+
+My cough had been pretty bad--kept me awake nights. My voice gave out
+frequently. The teachers had spoken to me several times, suggesting
+that I ought to see a doctor. Of course the teachers did not know that
+I could not afford a doctor, but I could go to the free dispensary,
+and I did. They told me to come again, and again, and I lost precious
+hours sitting in the waiting-room, watching for my turn. I was
+examined, thumped, studied, and sent out with prescriptions and
+innumerable directions. All that was said about food, fresh air, sunny
+rooms, etc., was, of course, impossible; but I would try the medicine.
+A bottle of medicine was a definite thing with a fixed price. You
+either could or could not afford it, on a given day. Once you began
+with milk and eggs and such things, there was no end of it. You were
+always going around the corner for more, till the grocer said he could
+give no more credit. No; the medicine bottle was the only safe thing.
+
+I had taken several bottles, and was told that I was looking better,
+when I went, one day, to have my prescription renewed. It was just
+after a hard rain, and the pools on the broken pavements were full of
+blue sky. I was delighted with the beautiful reflections; there were
+even the white clouds moving across the blue, there, at my feet, on
+the pavement! I walked with my head down all the way to the drug
+store, which was all right; but I should not have done it going back,
+with the new bottle of medicine in my hand.
+
+In front of a cigar store, halfway between Washington Street and
+Harrison Avenue, stood a wooden Indian with a package of wooden cigars
+in his hand. My eyes on the shining rain pools, I walked plump into
+the Indian, and the bottle was knocked out of my hand and broke with a
+crash.
+
+I was horrified at the catastrophe. The medicine cost fifty cents. My
+mother had given me the last money in the house. I must not be without
+my medicine; the dispensary doctor was very emphatic about that. It
+would be dreadful to get sick and have to stay out of school. What was
+to be done?
+
+I made up my mind in less than five minutes. I went back to the drug
+store and asked for Mr. Pastor himself. He knew me; he often sold me
+postage stamps, and joked about my large correspondence, and heard a
+good deal about my friends. He came out, on this occasion, from his
+little office in the back of the store; and I told him of my accident,
+and that there was no more money at home, and asked him to give me
+another bottle, to be paid for as soon as possible. My father had a
+job as night watchman in a store. I should be able to pay very soon.
+
+"Certainly, my dear, certainly," said Mr. Pastor; "very glad to oblige
+you. It's doing you good, isn't it?--That's right. You're such a
+studious young lady, with all those books, and so many letters to
+write--you need something to build you up. There you are.--Oh, don't
+mention it! Any time at all. And lookout for wild Indians!"
+
+Of course we were great friends after that, and this is the way my
+troubles often ended on Dover Street. To bump into a wooden Indian was
+to bump into good luck, a hundred times a week. No wonder I was happy
+most of the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE BURNING BUSH
+
+
+Just when Mrs. Hutch was most worried about the error of my ways, I
+entered on a new chapter of adventures, even more remote from the cash
+girl's career than Latin and geometry. But I ought not to name such
+harsh things as landladies at the opening of the fairy story of my
+girlhood. I have reached what was the second transformation of my
+life, as truly as my coming to America was the first great
+transformation.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his delightful essays, credits the
+lover with a feeling of remorse and shame at the contemplation of that
+part of his life which he lived without his beloved, content with his
+barren existence. It is with just such a feeling of remorse that I
+look back to my bookworm days, before I began the study of natural
+history outdoors; and with a feeling of shame akin to the lover's I
+confess how late in my life nature took the first place in my
+affections.
+
+The subject of nature study is better developed in the public schools
+to-day than it was in my time. I remember my teacher in the Chelsea
+grammar school who encouraged us to look for different kinds of
+grasses in the empty lots near home, and to bring to school samples of
+the cereals we found in our mothers' pantries. I brought the grasses
+and cereals, as I did everything the teacher ordered, but I was
+content when nature study was over and the arithmetic lesson began. I
+was not interested, and the teacher did not make it interesting.
+
+In the boys' books I was fond of reading I came across all sorts of
+heroes, and I sympathized with them all. The boy who ran away to sea;
+the boy who delighted in the society of ranchmen and cowboys; the
+stage-struck boy, whose ambition was to drive a pasteboard chariot in
+a circus; the boy who gave up his holidays in order to earn money for
+books; the bad boy who played tricks on people; the clever boy who
+invented amusing toys for his blind little sister--all these boys I
+admired. I could put myself in the place of any one of these heroes,
+and delight in their delights. But there was one sort of hero I never
+could understand, and that was the boy whose favorite reading was
+natural history, who kept an aquarium, collected beetles, and knew all
+about a man by the name of Agassiz. This style of boy always had a
+seafaring uncle, or a missionary aunt, who sent him all sorts of queer
+things from China and the South Sea Islands; and the conversation
+between this boy and the seafaring uncle home on a visit, I was
+perfectly willing to skip. The impossible hero usually kept snakes in
+a box in the barn, where his little sister was fond of playing with
+her little friends. The snakes escaped at least once before the end of
+the story; and the things the boy said to the frightened little girls,
+about the harmless and fascinating qualities of snakes, was something
+I had no patience to read.
+
+No, I did not care for natural history. I would read about travels,
+about deserts, and nameless islands, and strange peoples; but snakes
+and birds and minerals and butterflies did not interest me in the
+least. I visited the Natural History Museum once or twice, because it
+was my way to enter every open door, so as to miss nothing that was
+free to the public; but the curious monsters that filled the glass
+cases and adorned the walls and ceilings failed to stir my
+imagination, and the slimy things that floated in glass vessels were
+too horrid for a second glance.
+
+Of all the horrid things that ever passed under my eyes when I lifted
+my nose from my book, spiders were the worst. Mice were bad enough,
+and so were flies and worms and June bugs; but spiders were absolutely
+the most loathsome creatures I knew. And yet it was the spider that
+opened my eyes to the wonders of nature, and touched my girlish
+happiness with the hues of the infinite.
+
+And it happened at Hale House.
+
+It was not Dr. Hale, though it might have been, who showed me the way
+to the settlement house on Garland Street which bears his name. Hale
+House is situated in the midst of the labyrinth of narrow streets and
+alleys that constitutes the slum of which Harrison Avenue is the
+backbone, and of which Dover Street is a member.
+
+Bearing in mind the fact that there are almost no playgrounds in all
+this congested district, you will understand that Hale House has
+plenty of work on its hands to carry a little sunshine into the grimy
+tenement homes. The beautiful story of how that is done cannot be told
+here, but what Hale House did for me I may not omit to mention.
+
+It was my brother Joseph who discovered Hale House. He started a
+debating club, and invited his chums to help him settle the problems
+of the Republic on Sunday afternoon. The club held its first session
+in our empty parlor on Dover Street, and the United States Government
+was in a fair way to be put on a sound basis at last, when the
+numerous babies belonging to our establishment broke up the meeting,
+leaving the Administration in suspense as to its future course.
+
+The next meeting was held in Isaac Maslinsky's parlor, and the orators
+were beginning to jump to their feet and shake their fists at each
+other, in excellent parliamentary form, when Mrs. Maslinsky sallied
+in, to smile at the boys' excitement. But at the sight of seven pairs
+of boys' boots scuffling on her cherished parlor carpet, the fringed
+cover of the centre table hanging by one corner, and the plush
+photograph album unceremoniously laid aside, indignation took the
+place of good humor in Mrs. Maslinsky's ample bosom, and she ordered
+the boys to clear out, threatening "Ike" with dire vengeance if ever
+again he ventured to enter the parlor with ungentle purpose.
+
+On the following Sunday Harry Rubinstein offered the club the
+hospitality of _his_ parlor, and the meeting began satisfactorily. The
+subject on the table was the Tariff, and the pros and antis were about
+evenly divided. Congress might safely have taken a nap, with the Hub
+Debating Club to handle its affairs, if Harry Rubinstein's big brother
+Jake had not interfered. He came out of the kitchen, where he had been
+stuffing the baby with peanuts, and stood in the doorway of the parlor
+and winked at the dignified chairman. The chairman turned his back on
+him, whereupon Jake pelted him with peanut shells. He mocked the
+speakers, and called them "kids," and wanted to know how they could
+tell the Tariff from a sunstroke, anyhow. "We've got to have free
+trade," he mocked. "Pa, listen to the kids! 'In the interests of the
+American laborer.' Hoo-ray! Listen to the kids, pa!"
+
+Flesh and blood could not bear this. The political reformers
+adjourned indefinitely, and the club was in danger of extinction for
+want of a sheltering roof, when one of the members discovered that
+Hale House, on Garland Street, was waiting to welcome the club.
+
+How the debating-club prospered in the genial atmosphere of the
+settlement house; how from a little club it grew to be a big club, as
+the little boys became young men; how Joseph and Isaac and Harry and
+the rest won prizes in public debates; how they came to be a part of
+the multiple influence for good that issues from Garland Street--all
+this is a piece of the history of Hale House, whose business in the
+slums is to mould the restless children on the street corners into
+noble men and women. I brought the debating-club into my story just to
+show how naturally the children of the slums drift toward their
+salvation, if only some island of safety lies in the course of their
+innocent activities. Not a child in the slums is born to be lost. They
+are all born to be saved, and the raft that carries them unharmed
+through the perilous torrent of tenement life is the child's
+unconscious aspiration for the best. But there must be lighthouses to
+guide him midstream.
+
+Dora followed Joseph to Hale House, joining a club for little girls
+which has since become famous in the Hale House district. The leader
+of this club, under pretence of teaching the little girls the proper
+way to sweep and make beds, artfully teaches them how to beautify a
+tenement home by means of noble living.
+
+Joseph and Dora were so enthusiastic about Hale House that I had to go
+over and see what it was all about. And I found the Natural History
+Club.
+
+I do not know how Mrs. Black, who was then the resident, persuaded me
+to try the Natural History Club, in spite of my aversion for bugs. I
+suppose she tried me in various girls' clubs, and found that I did not
+fit, any more than I fitted in the dancing-club that I attempted years
+before. I dare say she decided that I was an old maid, and urged me to
+come to the meetings of the Natural History Club, which was composed
+of adults. The members of this club were not people from the
+neighborhood, I understood, but workers at Hale House and their
+friends; and they often had eminent naturalists, travellers, and other
+notables lecture before them. My curiosity to see a real live
+naturalist probably induced me to accept Mrs. Black's invitation in
+the end; for up to that time I had never met any one who enjoyed the
+creepy society of snakes and worms, except in books.
+
+The Natural History Club sat in a ring around the reception room,
+facing the broad doorway of the adjoining room. Mrs. Black introduced
+me, and I said "Glad to meet you" all around the circle, and sat down
+in a kindergarten chair beside the piano. It was Friday evening, and I
+had the sense of leisure which pervades the school-girl's
+consciousness when there is to be no school on the morrow. I liked the
+pleasant room, pleasanter than any at home. I liked the faces of the
+company I was in. I was prepared to have an agreeable evening, even if
+I was a little bored.
+
+The tall, lean gentleman with the frank blue eyes got up to read the
+minutes of the last meeting. I did not understand what he read, but I
+noticed that it gave him great satisfaction. This man had greeted me
+as if he had been waiting for my coming all his life. What did Mrs.
+Black call him? He looked and spoke as if he was happy to be alive. I
+liked him. Oh, yes! this was Mr. Winthrop.
+
+I let my thoughts wander, with my eyes, all around the circle, trying
+to read the characters of my new friends in their faces. But suddenly
+my attention was arrested by a word. Mr. Winthrop had finished reading
+the minutes, and was introducing the speaker of the evening. "We are
+very fortunate in having with us Mr. Emerson, whom we all know as an
+authority on spiders."
+
+_Spiders!_ What hard luck! Mr. Winthrop pronounced the word "spiders"
+with unmistakable relish, as if he doted on the horrid creatures; but
+I--My nerves contracted into a tight knot. I gripped the arms of my
+little chair, determined _not_ to run, with all those strangers
+looking on. I watched Mr. Emerson, to see when he would open a box of
+spiders. I recalled a hideous experience of long ago, when, putting on
+a dress that had hung on the wall for weeks, I felt a thing with a
+hundred legs crawling down my bare arm, and shook a spider out of my
+sleeve. I watched the lecturer, but I was _not_ going to run. It was
+too bad that Mrs. Black had not warned me.
+
+After a while I realized that the lecturer had no menagerie in his
+pockets. He talked, in a familiar way, about different kinds of
+spiders and their ways; and as he talked, he wove across the doorway,
+where he stood, a gigantic spider's web, unwinding a ball of twine in
+his hand, and looping various lengths on invisible tacks he had ready
+in the door frame.
+
+I was fascinated by the progress of the web. I forgot my terrors; I
+began to follow Mr. Emerson's discourse. I was surprised to hear how
+much there was to know about a dusty little spider, besides that he
+could spin his webs as fast as my broom could sweep them away. The
+drama of the spider's daily life became very real to me as the
+lecturer went on. His struggle for existence; his wars with his
+enemies; his wiles, his traps, his patient labors; the intricate
+safeguards of his simple existence; the fitness of his body for his
+surroundings, of his instincts for his vital needs--the whole picture
+of the spider's pursuit of life under the direction of definite laws
+filled me with a great wonder and left no room in my mind for
+repugnance or fear. It was the first time the natural history of a
+living creature had been presented to me under such circumstances that
+I could not avoid hearing and seeing, and I was surprised at my
+dulness in the past when I had rejected books on natural history.
+
+I did not become an enthusiastic amateur naturalist at once; I did not
+at once begin to collect worms and bugs. But on the next sweeping-day
+I stood on a chair, craning my neck, to study the spider webs I
+discovered in the corners of the ceiling; and one or two webs of more
+than ordinary perfection I suffered to remain undisturbed for weeks,
+although it was my duty, as a house-cleaner, to sweep the ceiling
+clean. I began to watch for the mice that were wont to scurry across
+the floor when the house slept and I alone waked. I even placed a
+crust for them on the threshold of my room, and cultivated a
+breathless intimacy with them, when the little gray beasts
+acknowledged my hospitality by nibbling my crust in full sight. And so
+by degrees I came to a better understanding of my animal neighbors on
+all sides, and I began to look forward to the meetings of the Natural
+History Club.
+
+The club had frequent field excursions, in addition to the regular
+meetings. At the seashore, in the woods, in the fields; at high
+tide and low tide, in summer and winter, by sunlight and by moonlight,
+the marvellous story of orderly nature was revealed to me, in
+fragments that allured the imagination and made me beg for more. Some
+of the members of the club were school-teachers, accustomed to
+answering questions. All of them were patient; some of them took
+special pains with me. But nobody took me seriously as a member of the
+club. They called me the club mascot, and appointed me curator of the
+club museum, which was not in existence, at a salary of ten cents a
+year, which was never paid. And I was well pleased with my unique
+position in the club, delighted with my new friends, enraptured with
+my new study.
+
+   [Illustration: THE NATURAL HISTORY CLUB HAD FREQUENT FIELD
+   EXCURSIONS]
+
+More and more, as the seasons rolled by, and page after page of the
+book of nature was turned before my eager eyes, did I feel the wonder
+and thrill of the revelations of science, till all my thoughts became
+colored with the tints of infinite truths. My days arranged themselves
+around the meetings of the club as a centre. The whole structure of my
+life was transfigured by my novel experiences outdoors. I realized,
+with a shock at first, but afterwards with complacency, that books
+were taking a secondary place in my life, my irregular studies in
+natural history holding the first place. I began to enjoy the Natural
+History rooms; and I was obliged to admit to myself that my heart hung
+with a more thrilling suspense over the fate of some beans I had
+planted in a window box than over the fortunes of the classic hero
+about whom we were reading at school.
+
+But for all my enthusiasm about animals, plants, and rocks,--for all
+my devotion to the Natural History Club,--I did not become a thorough
+naturalist. My scientific friends were right not to take me
+seriously. Mr. Winthrop, in his delightfully frank way, called me a
+fraud; and I did not resent it. I dipped into zooelogy, botany,
+geology, ornithology, and an infinite number of other ologies, as the
+activities of the club or of particular members of it gave me
+opportunity, but I made no systematic study of any branch of science;
+at least not until I went to college. For what enthralled my
+imagination in the whole subject of natural history was not the
+orderly array of facts, but the glimpse I caught, through this or that
+fragment of science, of the grand principles underlying the facts. By
+asking questions, by listening when my wise friends talked, by
+reading, by pondering and dreaming, I slowly gathered together the
+kaleidoscopic bits of the stupendous panorama which is painted in the
+literature of Darwinism. Everything I had ever learned at school was
+illumined by this new knowledge; the world lay newly made under my
+eyes. Vastly as my mind had stretched to embrace the idea of a great
+country, when I exchanged Polotzk for America, it was no such
+enlargement as I now experienced, when in place of the measurable
+earth, with its paltry tale of historic centuries, I was given the
+illimitable universe to contemplate, with the numberless aeons of
+infinite time.
+
+As the meaning of nature was deepened for me, so was its aspect
+beautified. Hitherto I had loved in nature the spectacular,--the
+blazing sunset, the whirling tempest, the flush of summer, the
+snow-wonder of winter. Now, for the first time, my heart was satisfied
+with the microscopic perfection of a solitary blossom. The harmonious
+murmur of autumn woods broke up into a hundred separate melodies, as
+the pelting acorn, the scurrying squirrel, the infrequent chirp of
+the lingering cricket, and the soft speed of ripe pine cones through
+dense-grown branches, each struck its discriminate chord in the
+scented air. The outdoor world was magnified in every dimension;
+inanimate things were vivified; living things were dignified.
+
+No two persons set the same value on any given thing, and so it may
+very well be that I am boasting of the enrichment of my life through
+the study of natural history to ears that hear not. I need only recall
+my own obtuseness to the subject, before the story of the spider
+sharpened my senses, to realize that these confessions of a nature
+lover may bore every other person who reads them. But I do not pretend
+to be concerned about the reader at this point. I never hope to
+explain to my neighbor the exact value of a winter sunrise in my
+spiritual economy, but I know that my life has grown better since I
+learned to distinguish between a butterfly and a moth; that my faith
+in man is the greater because I have watched for the coming of the
+song sparrow in the spring; and my thoughts of immortality are the
+less wavering because I have cherished the winter duckweed on my lawn.
+
+Those who find their greatest intellectual and emotional satisfaction
+in the study of nature are apt to refer their spiritual problems also
+to science. That is how it went with me. Long before my introduction
+to natural history I had realized, with an uneasy sense of the
+breaking of peace, that the questions which I thought to have been
+settled years before were beginning to tease me anew. In Russia I had
+practised a prescribed religion, with little faith in what I
+professed, and a restless questioning of the universe. When I came to
+America I lightly dropped the religious forms that I had half mocked
+before, and contented myself with a few novel phrases employed by my
+father in his attempt to explain the riddle of existence. The busy
+years flew by, when from morning till night I was preoccupied with the
+process of becoming an American; and no question arose in my mind that
+my books or my teachers could not fully answer. Then came a time when
+the ordinary business of my girl's life discharged itself
+automatically, and I had leisure once more to look over and around
+things. This period coinciding with my moody adolescence, I rapidly
+entangled myself in a net of doubts and questions, after the
+well-known manner of a growing girl. I asked once more, How did I come
+to be?--and I found that I was no whit wiser than poor Reb' Lebe, whom
+I had despised for his ignorance. For all my years of America and
+schooling, I could give no better answer to my clamoring questions
+than the teacher of my childhood. Whence came the fair world? Was
+there a God, after all? And if so, what did He intend when He made me?
+
+It was always my way, if I wanted anything, to turn my daily life into
+a pursuit of that thing. "Have you seen the treasure I seek?" I asked
+of every man I met. And if it was God that I desired, I made all my
+friends search their hearts for evidence of His being. I asked all the
+wise people I knew what they were going to do with themselves after
+death; and if the wise failed to satisfy me, I questioned the simple,
+and listened to the babies talking in their sleep.
+
+Still the imperative clamor of my mind remained unallayed. Was all my
+life to be a hunger and a questioning? I complained of my teachers,
+who stuffed my head with facts and gave my soul no crumb to feed on.
+I blamed the stars for their silence. I sat up nights brooding over
+the emptiness of knowledge, and praying for revelations.
+
+Sometimes I lived for days in a chimera of doubts, feeling that it was
+hardly worth while living at all if I was never to know why I was born
+and why I could not live forever. It was in one of these prolonged
+moods that I heard that a friend of mine, a distinguished man of
+letters whom I greatly admired, was coming to Boston for a short
+visit. A terrific New England blizzard arrived some hours in advance
+of my friend's train, but so intent was I on questioning him that I
+disregarded the weather, and struggled through towering snowdrifts, in
+the teeth of the wild wind, to the railroad station. There I nearly
+perished of weariness while waiting for the train, which was delayed
+by the storm. But when my friend emerged from one of the snow-crusted
+cars I was rewarded; for the blizzard had kept the reporters away, and
+the great man could give me his undivided attention.
+
+No doubt he understood the pressing importance of the matter to me,
+from the trouble I had taken to secure an early interview with him. He
+heard me out very soberly, and answered my questions as honestly as a
+thinking man could. Not a word of what he said remains in my mind, but
+I remember going away with the impression that it was possible to live
+without knowing everything, after all, and that I might even try to be
+happy in a world full of riddles.
+
+In such ways as this I sought peace of mind, but I never achieved more
+than a brief truce. I was coming to believe that only the stupid could
+be happy, and that life was pretty hard on the philosophical, when
+the great new interest of science came into my life, and scattered my
+blue devils as the sun scatters the night damps.
+
+Some of my friends in the Natural History Club were deeply versed in
+the principles of evolutionary science, and were able to guide me in
+my impetuous rush to learn everything in a day. I was in a hurry to
+deduce, from the conglomeration of isolated facts that I picked up in
+the lectures, the final solution of all my problems. It took both
+patience and wisdom to check me and at the same time satisfy me, I
+have no doubt; but then I was always fortunate in my friends. Wisdom
+and patience in plenty were spent on me, and I was instructed and
+inspired and comforted. Of course my wisest teacher was not able to
+tell me how the original spark of life was kindled, nor to point out,
+on the starry map of heaven, my future abode. The bread of absolute
+knowledge I do not hope to taste in this life. But all creation was
+remodelled on a grander scale by the utterances of my teachers; and my
+problems, though they deepened with the expansion of all nameable
+phenomena, were carried up to the heights of the impersonal, and
+ceased to torment me. Seeing how life and death, beginning and end,
+were all parts of the process of being, it mattered less in what
+particular ripple of the flux of existence I found myself. If past
+time was a trooping of similar yesterdays, back over the unbroken
+millenniums, to the first moment, it was simple to think of future
+time as a trooping of knowable to-days, on and on, to infinity.
+Possibly, also, the spark of life that had persisted through the
+geological ages, under a million million disguises, was vital enough
+to continue for another earth-age, in some shape as potent as the
+first or last. Thinking in aeons and in races, instead of in years and
+individuals, somehow lightened the burden of intelligence, and filled
+me anew with a sense of youth and well-being, that I had almost lost
+in the pit of my narrow personal doubts.
+
+No one who understands the nature of youth will be misled, by this
+summary of my intellectual history, into thinking that I actually
+arranged my newly acquired scientific knowledge into any such orderly
+philosophy as, for the sake of clearness, I have outlined above. I had
+long passed my teens, and had seen something of life that is not
+revealed to poetizing girls, before I could give any logical account
+of what I read in the book of cosmogony. But the high peaks of the
+promised land of evolution did flash on my vision in the earlier days,
+and with these to guide me I rebuilt the world, and found it much
+nobler than it had ever been before, and took great comfort in it.
+
+I did not become a finished philosopher from hearing a couple of
+hundred lectures on scientific subjects. I did not even become a
+finished woman. If anything, I grew rather more girlish. I remember
+myself as very merry in the midst of my serious scientific friends,
+and I can think of no time when I was more inclined to play the tomboy
+than when off for a day in the woods, in quest of botanical and
+zoological specimens. The freedom of outdoors, the society of
+congenial friends, the delight of my occupation--all acted as a strong
+wine on my mood, and sent my spirits soaring to immoderate heights I
+am very much afraid I made myself a nuisance, at times, to some of the
+more sedate of my grown-up companions. I wish they could know that I
+have truly repented. I wish they had known at the time that it was
+the exuberance of my happiness that played tricks, and no wicked
+desire to annoy kind friends. But I am sure that those who were
+offended have long since forgotten or forgiven, and I need remember
+nothing of those wonderful days other than that a new sun rose above a
+new earth for me, and that my happiness was like unto the iridescent
+dews.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS
+
+
+I did not always wait for the Natural History Club to guide me to
+delectable lands. Some of the happiest days of that happy time I spent
+with my sister in East Boston. We had a merry time at supper, Moses
+making clever jokes, without cracking a smile himself; and the baby
+romping in his high chair, eating what wasn't good for him. But the
+best of the evening came later, when father and baby had gone to bed,
+and the dishes were put away, and there was not a crumb left on the
+red-and-white checked tablecloth. Frieda took out her sewing, and I
+took a book; and the lamp was between us, shining on the table, on the
+large brown roses on the wall, on the green and brown diamonds of the
+oil cloth on the floor, on the baby's rattle on a shelf, and on the
+shining stove in the corner. It was such a pleasant kitchen--such a
+cosey, friendly room--that when Frieda and I were left alone I was
+perfectly happy just to sit there. Frieda had a beautiful parlor, with
+plush chairs and a velvet carpet and gilt picture frames; but we
+preferred the homely, homelike kitchen.
+
+I read aloud from Longfellow, or Whittier, or Tennyson; and it was as
+great a treat to me as it was to Frieda. Her attention alone was
+inspiring. Her delight, her eager questions doubled the meaning of the
+lines I read. Poor Frieda had little enough time for reading, unless
+she stole it from the sewing or the baking or the mending. But she was
+hungry for books, and so grateful when I came to read to her that it
+made me ashamed to remember all the beautiful things I had and did not
+share with her.
+
+It is true I shared what could be shared. I brought my friends to her.
+At her wedding were some of the friends of whom I was most proud. Miss
+Dillingham came, and Mr. Hurd; and the humbler guests stared in
+admiration at our school-teachers and editors. But I had so many
+delightful things that I could not bring to Frieda--my walks, my
+dreams, my adventures of all sorts. And yet when I told her about
+them, I found that she partook of everything. For she had her talent
+for vicarious enjoyment, by means of which she entered as an actor
+into my adventures, was present as a witness at the frolic of my
+younger life. Or if I narrated things that were beyond her, on account
+of her narrower experience, she listened with an eager longing to
+understand that was better than some people's easy comprehension. My
+world ever rang with good tidings, and she was grateful if I brought
+her the echo of them, to ring again within the four walls of the
+kitchen that bounded her life. And I, who lived on the heights, and
+walked with the learned, and bathed in the crystal fountains of youth,
+sometimes climbed the sublimest peak in my sister's humble kitchen,
+there caught the unfaltering accents of inspiration, and rejoiced in
+silver pools of untried happiness.
+
+The way she reached out for everything fine was shown by her interest
+in the incomprehensible Latin and French books that I brought. She
+liked to hear me read my Cicero, pleased by the movement of the
+sonorous periods. I translated Ovid and Virgil for her; and her
+pleasure illumined the difficult passages, so that I seldom needed to
+have recourse to the dictionary. I shall never forget the evening I
+read to her, from the "AEneid," the passage in the fourth book
+describing the death of Dido. I read the Latin first, and then my own
+version in English hexameters, that I had prepared for a recitation at
+school. Frieda forgot her sewing in her lap, and leaned forward in
+rapt attention. When I was through, there were tears of delight in her
+eyes; and I was surprised myself at the beauty of the words I had just
+pronounced.
+
+I do not dare to confess how much of my Latin I have forgotten, lest
+any of the devoted teachers who taught me should learn the sad truth;
+but I shall always boast of some acquaintance with Virgil, through
+that scrap of the "AEneid" made memorable by my sister's enjoyment of
+it.
+
+Truly my education was not entirely in the hands of persons who had
+licenses to teach. My sister's fat baby taught me things about the
+origin and ultimate destiny of dimples that were not in any of my
+school-books. Mr. Casey, of the second floor, who was drunk whenever
+his wife was sober, gave me an insight into the psychology of the beer
+mug that would have added to the mental furniture of my most scholarly
+teacher. The bold-faced girls who passed the evening on the corner, in
+promiscuous flirtation with the cock-eyed youths of the neighborhood,
+unconsciously revealed to me the eternal secrets of adolescence. My
+neighbor of the third floor, who sat on the curbstone with the scabby
+baby in her bedraggled lap, had things to say about the fine ladies
+who came in carriages to inspect the public bathhouse across the
+street that ought to be repeated in the lecture halls of every school
+of philanthropy. Instruction poured into my brain at such a rate that
+I could not digest it all at the time; but in later years, when my
+destiny had led me far from Dover Street, the emphatic moral of those
+lessons became clear. The memory of my experience on Dover Street
+became the strength of my convictions, the illumined index of my
+purpose, the aureola of my happiness. And if I paid for those lessons
+with days of privation and dread, with nights of tormenting anxiety, I
+count the price cheap. Who would not go to a little trouble to find
+out what life is made of? Life in the slums spins busily as a
+schoolboy's top, and one who has heard its humming never forgets. I
+look forward to telling, when I get to be a master of language, what I
+read in the crooked cobblestones when I revisited Dover Street the
+other day.
+
+Dover Street was never really my residence--at least, not the whole of
+it. It happened to be the nook where my bed was made, but I inhabited
+the City of Boston. In the pearl-misty morning, in the ruby-red
+evening, I was empress of all I surveyed from the roof of the tenement
+house. I could point in any direction and name a friend who would
+welcome me there. Off towards the northwest, in the direction of
+Harvard Bridge, which some day I should cross on my way to Radcliffe
+College, was one of my favorite palaces, whither I resorted every day
+after school.
+
+A low, wide-spreading building with a dignified granite front it was,
+flanked on all sides by noble old churches, museums, and
+school-houses, harmoniously disposed around a spacious triangle,
+called Copley Square. Two thoroughfares that came straight from the
+green suburbs swept by my palace, one on either side, converged at the
+apex of the triangle, and pointed off, past the Public Garden, across
+the historic Common, to the domed State House sitting on a height.
+
+It was my habit to go very slowly up the low, broad steps to the
+palace entrance, pleasing my eyes with the majestic lines of the
+building, and lingering to read again the carved inscriptions: _Public
+Library_--_Built by the People_--_Free to All_.
+
+Did I not say it was my palace? Mine, because I was a citizen; mine,
+though I was born an alien; mine, though I lived on Dover Street. My
+palace--_mine_!
+
+I loved to lean against a pillar in the entrance hall, watching the
+people go in and out. Groups of children hushed their chatter at the
+entrance, and skipped, whispering and giggling in their fists, up the
+grand stairway, patting the great stone lions at the top, with an eye
+on the aged policemen down below. Spectacled scholars came slowly down
+the stairs, loaded with books, heedless of the lofty arches that
+echoed their steps. Visitors from out of town lingered long in the
+entrance hall, studying the inscriptions and symbols on the marble
+floor. And I loved to stand in the midst of all this, and remind
+myself that I was there, that I had a right to be there, that I was at
+home there. All these eager children, all these fine-browed women, all
+these scholars going home to write learned books--I and they had this
+glorious thing in common, this noble treasure house of learning. It
+was wonderful to say, _This is mine_; it was thrilling to say, _This
+is ours_.
+
+I visited every part of the building that was open to the public. I
+spent rapt hours studying the Abbey pictures. I repeated to myself
+lines from Tennyson's poem before the glowing scenes of the Holy
+Grail. Before the "Prophets" in the gallery above I was mute, but
+echoes of the Hebrew Psalms I had long forgotten throbbed somewhere in
+the depths of my consciousness. The Chavannes series around the main
+staircase I did not enjoy for years. I thought the pictures looked
+faded, and their symbolism somehow failed to move me at first.
+
+Bates Hall was the place where I spent my longest hours in the
+library. I chose a seat far at one end, so that looking up from my
+books I would get the full effect of the vast reading-room. I felt the
+grand spaces under the soaring arches as a personal attribute of my
+being.
+
+The courtyard was my sky-roofed chamber of dreams. Slowly strolling
+past the endless pillars of the colonnade, the fountain murmured in my
+ear of all the beautiful things in all the beautiful world. I imagined
+that I was a Greek of the classic days, treading on sandalled feet
+through the glistening marble porticoes of Athens. I expected to see,
+if I looked over my shoulder, a bearded philosopher in a drooping
+mantle, surrounded by beautiful youths with wreathed locks. Everything
+I read in school, in Latin or Greek, everything in my history books,
+was real to me here, in this courtyard set about with stately columns.
+
+Here is where I liked to remind myself of Polotzk, the better to bring
+out the wonder of my life. That I who was born in the prison of the
+Pale should roam at will in the land of freedom was a marvel that it
+did me good to realize. That I who was brought up to my teens almost
+without a book should be set down in the midst of all the books that
+ever were written was a miracle as great as any on record. That an
+outcast should become a privileged citizen, that a beggar should dwell
+in a palace--this was a romance more thrilling than poet ever sung.
+Surely I was rocked in an enchanted cradle.
+
+   [Illustration: BATES HALL, WHERE I SPENT MY LONGEST HOURS IN THE
+   LIBRARY]
+
+From the Public Library to the State House is only a step, and I found
+my way there without a guide. The State House was one of the places I
+could point to and say that I had a friend there to welcome me. I do
+not mean the representative of my district, though I hope he was a
+worthy man. My friend was no less a man than the Honorable Senator
+Roe, from Worcester, whose letters to me, written under the embossed
+letter head of the Senate Chamber, I could not help exhibiting to
+Florence Connolly.
+
+How did I come by a Senator? Through being a citizen of Boston, of
+course. To be a citizen of the smallest village in the United States
+which maintains a free school and a public library is to stand in the
+path of the splendid processions of opportunity. And as Boston has
+rather better schools and a rather finer library than some other
+villages, it comes natural there for children in the slums to summon
+gentlemen from the State House to be their personal friends.
+
+It is so simple, in Boston! You are a school-girl, and your teacher
+gives you a ticket for the annual historical lecture in the Old South
+Church, on Washington's Birthday. You hear a stirring discourse on
+some subject in your country's history, and you go home with a heart
+bursting with patriotism. You sit down and write a letter to the
+speaker who so moved you, telling him how glad you are to be an
+American, explaining to him, if you happen to be a recently made
+American, why you love your adopted country so much better than your
+native land. Perhaps the patriotic lecturer happens to be a Senator,
+and he reads your letter under the vast dome of the State House; and
+it occurs to him that he and his eminent colleagues and the stately
+capitol and the glorious flag that floats above it, all gathered on
+the hill above the Common, do his country no greater honor than the
+outspoken admiration of an ardent young alien. The Senator replies to
+your letter, inviting you to visit him at the State House; and in the
+renowned chamber where the august business of the State is conducted,
+you, an obscure child from the slums, and he, a chosen leader of the
+people, seal a democratic friendship based on the love of a common
+flag.
+
+Even simpler than to meet a Senator was it to become acquainted with a
+man like Edward Everett Hale. "The Grand Old Man of Boston," the
+people called him, from the manner of his life among them. He kept
+open house in every public building in the city. Wherever two citizens
+met to devise a measure for the public weal, he was a third. Wherever
+a worthy cause needed a champion, Dr. Hale lifted his mighty voice. At
+some time or another his colossal figure towered above an eager
+multitude from every pulpit in the city, from every lecture platform.
+And where is the map of Boston that gives the names of the lost alleys
+and back ways where the great man went in search of the lame in body,
+who could not join the public assembly, in quest of the maimed in
+spirit, who feared to show their faces in the open? If all the little
+children who have sat on Dr. Hale's knee were started in a procession
+on the State House steps, standing four abreast, there would be a lane
+of merry faces across the Common, out to the Public Library, over
+Harvard Bridge, and away beyond to remoter landmarks.
+
+That I met Dr. Hale is no wonder. It was as inevitable as that I
+should be a year older every twelvemonth. He was a part of Boston, as
+the salt wave is a part of the sea. I can hardly say whether he came
+to me or I came to him. We met, and my adopted country took me closer
+to her breast.
+
+A day or two after our first meeting I called on Dr. Hale, at his
+invitation. It was only eight o'clock in the morning, you may be sure,
+because he had risen early to attend to a hundred great affairs, and I
+had risen early so as to talk with a great man before I went to
+school. I think we liked each other a little the more for the fact
+that when so many people were still asleep, we were already busy in
+the interests of citizenship and friendship. We certainly liked each
+other.
+
+I am sure I did not stay more than fifteen minutes, and all that I
+recall of our conversation was that Dr. Hale asked me a great many
+questions about Russia, in a manner that made me feel that I was an
+authority on the subject; and with his great hand in good-bye he gave
+me a bit of homely advice, namely, that I should never study before
+breakfast!
+
+That was all, but for the rest of the day I moved against a background
+of grandeur. There was a noble ring to Virgil that day that even my
+teacher's firm translation had never brought out before. Obscure
+points in the history lesson were clear to me alone, of the thirty
+girls in the class. And it happened that the tulips in Copley Square
+opened that day, and shone in the sun like lighted lamps.
+
+Any one could be happy a year on Dover Street, after spending half an
+hour on Highland Street. I enjoyed so many half-hours in the great
+man's house that I do not know how to convey the sense of my
+remembered happiness. My friend used to keep me in conversation a few
+minutes, in the famous study that was fit to have been preserved as a
+shrine; after which he sent me to roam about the house, and explore
+his library, and take away what books I pleased. Who would feel
+cramped in a tenement, with such royal privileges as these?
+
+Once I brought Dr. Hale a present, a copy of a story of mine that had
+been printed in a journal; and from his manner of accepting it you
+might have thought that I was a princess dispensing gifts from a
+throne. I wish I had asked him, that last time I talked with him, how
+it was that he who was so modest made those who walked with him so
+great.
+
+Modest as the man was the house in which he lived. A gray old house of
+a style that New England no longer builds, with a pillared porch
+curtained by vines, set back in the yard behind the old trees.
+Whatever cherished flowers glowed in the garden behind the house, the
+common daisy was encouraged to bloom in front. And was there sun or
+snow on the ground, the most timid hand could open the gate, the most
+humble visitor was sure of a welcome. Out of that modest house the
+troubled came comforted, the fallen came uplifted, the noble came
+inspired.
+
+My explorations of Dr. Hale's house might not have brought me to the
+gables, but for my friend's daughter, the artist, who had a studio at
+the top of the house. She asked me one day if I would sit for a
+portrait, and I consented with the greatest alacrity. It would be an
+interesting experience, and interesting experiences were the bread of
+life to me. I agreed to come every Saturday morning, and felt that
+something was going to happen to Dover Street.
+
+   [Illustration: THE FAMOUS STUDY, THAT WAS FIT TO HAVE BEEN
+   PRESERVED AS A SHRINE]
+
+When I came home from my talk with Miss Hale, I studied myself long in
+my blotched looking-glass. I saw just what I expected. My face was too
+thin, my nose too large, my complexion too dull. My hair, which was
+curly enough, was too short to be described as luxurious tresses; and
+the color was neither brown nor black. My hands were neither white nor
+velvety; the fingers ended decidedly, instead of tapering off like
+rosy dreams. I was disgusted with my wrists; they showed too far below
+the tight sleeves of my dress of the year before last, and they looked
+consumptive.
+
+No, it was not for my beauty that Miss Hale wanted to paint me. It was
+because I was a girl, a person, a piece of creation. I understood
+perfectly. If I could write an interesting composition about a broom,
+why should not an artist be able to make an interesting picture of me?
+I had done it with the broom, and the milk wagon, and the rain spout.
+It was not what a thing was that made it interesting, but what I was
+able to draw out of it. It was exciting to speculate as to what Miss
+Hale was going to draw out of me.
+
+The first sitting was indeed exciting. There was hardly any sitting to
+it. We did nothing but move around the studio, and move the easel
+around, and try on ever so many backgrounds, and ever so many poses.
+In the end, of course, we left everything just as it had been at the
+start, because Miss Hale had had the right idea from the beginning;
+but I understood that a preliminary tempest in the studio was the
+proper way to test that idea.
+
+I was surprised to find that I should not be obliged to hold my
+breath, and should be allowed to wink all I wanted. Posing was just
+sitting with my hands in my lap, and enjoying the most interesting
+conversation with the artist. We hit upon such out-of-the-way
+topics--once, I remember, we talked about the marriage laws of
+different states! I had a glorious time, and I believe Miss Hale did
+too. I watched the progress of the portrait with utter lack of
+comprehension, and with perfect faith in the ultimate result. The
+morning flew so fast that I could have sat right on into the afternoon
+without tiring.
+
+Once or twice I stayed to lunch, and sat opposite the artist's mother
+at table. It was like sitting face to face with Martha Washington, I
+thought. Everything was wonderful in that wonderful old house.
+
+One thing disturbed my enjoyment of those Saturday mornings. It was a
+small thing, hardly as big as a pen-wiper. It was a silver coin which
+Miss Hale gave me regularly when I was going. I knew that models were
+paid for sitting, but I was not a professional model. When people sat
+for their portraits they usually paid the artist, instead of the
+artist paying them. Of course I had not ordered this portrait, but I
+had such a good time sitting that it did not seem to me I could be
+earning money. But what troubled me was not the suspicion that I did
+not earn the money, but that I did not know what was in my friend's
+mind when she gave it to me. Was it possible that Miss Hale had asked
+me to sit on purpose to be able to pay me, so that I could help pay
+the rent? Everybody knew about the rent sooner or later, because I was
+always asking my friends what a girl could do to make the landlady
+happy. Very possibly Miss Hale had my landlady in mind when she asked
+me to pose. I might have asked her--I dearly loved explanations, which
+cleared up hidden motives--but her answer would not have made any
+real difference. I should have accepted the money just the same. Miss
+Hale was not a stranger, like Mr. Strong when he offered me a quarter.
+She knew me, she believed in my cause, and she wanted to contribute to
+it. Thus I, in my hair-splitting analyses of persons and motives;
+while the portrait went steadily on.
+
+It was Miss Hale who first found a use for our superfluous baby. She
+came to Dover Street several times to study our tiny Celia, in
+swaddling clothes improvised by my mother, after the fashion of the
+old country. Miss Hale wanted a baby for a picture of the Nativity
+which she was doing for her father's church; and of all the babies in
+Boston, our Celia, our little Jewish Celia, was posing for the Christ
+Child! It does not matter in this connection that the Infant that lies
+in the lantern light, brooded over by the Mother's divine sorrow of
+love, in the beautiful altar piece in Dr. Hale's church, was not
+actually painted from my mother's baby, in the end. The point is that
+my mother, in less than half a dozen years of America, had so far
+shaken off her ancient superstitions that she feared no evil
+consequence from letting her child pose for a Christian picture.
+
+A busy life I led, on Dover Street; a happy, busy life. When I was not
+reciting lessons, nor writing midnight poetry, nor selling papers, nor
+posing, nor studying sociology, nor pickling bugs, nor interviewing
+statesmen, nor running away from home, I made long entries in nay
+journal, or wrote forty-page letters to my friends. It was a happy
+thing that poor Mrs. Hutch did not know what sums I spent for
+stationery and postage stamps. She would have gone into consumption, I
+do believe, from inexpressible indignation; and she would have been
+in the right--to be indignant, not to go into consumption. I admit it;
+she would have been justified--from her point of view. From my point
+of view I was also in the right; of course I was. To make friends
+among the great was an important part of my education, and was not to
+be accomplished without a liberal expenditure of paper and postage
+stamps. If Mrs. Hutch had not repulsed my offer of confidences, I
+could have shown her long letters written to me by people whose mere
+signature was prized by autograph hunters. It is true that I could not
+turn those letters directly into rent-money,--or if I could, I would
+not,--but indirectly my interesting letters did pay a week's rent now
+and then. Through the influence of my friends my father sometimes
+found work that he could not have got in any other way. These
+practical results of my costly pursuit of friendships might have given
+Mrs. Hutch confidence in my ultimate solvency, had she not remained
+obstinately deaf to my plea for time, her heart being set on direct,
+immediate, convertible cash payment.
+
+That was very narrow-minded, even though I say it who should not. The
+grocer on Harrison Avenue who supplied our table could have taught her
+to take a more liberal view. We were all anxious to teach her, if she
+only would have listened. Here was this poor grocer, conducting his
+business on the same perilous credit system which had driven my father
+out of Chelsea and Wheeler Street, supplying us with tea and sugar and
+strong butter, milk freely splashed from rusty cans, potent yeast, and
+bananas done to a turn,--with everything, in short, that keeps a poor
+man's family hearty in spite of what they eat,--and all this for the
+consideration of part payment, with the faintest prospect of a future
+settlement in full. Mr. Rosenblum had an intimate knowledge of the
+financial situation of every family that traded with him, from the
+gossip of his customers around his herring barrel. He knew without
+asking that my father had no regular employment, and that,
+consequently, it was risky to give us credit. Nevertheless he gave us
+credit by the week, by the month, accepted partial payment with
+thanks, and let the balance stand by the year.
+
+We owed him as much as the landlady, I suppose, every time he balanced
+our account. But he never complained; nay, he even insisted on my
+mother's taking almonds and raisins for a cake for the holidays. He
+knew, as well as Mrs. Hutch, that my father kept a daughter at school
+who was of age to be put to work; but so far was he from reproaching
+him for it that he detained my father by the half-hour, inquiring
+about my progress and discussing my future. He knew very well, did the
+poor grocer, who it was that burned so much oil in my family; but when
+I came in to have my kerosene can filled, he did not fall upon me with
+harsh words of blame. Instead, he wanted to hear about my latest
+triumph at school, and about the great people who wrote me letters and
+even came to see me; and he called his wife from the kitchen behind
+the store to come and hear of these grand doings. Mrs. Rosenblum, who
+could not sign her name, came out in her faded calico wrapper, and
+stood with her hands folded under her apron, shy and respectful before
+the embryo scholar; and she nodded her head sideways in approval,
+drinking in with envious pleasure her husband's Yiddish version of my
+tale. If her black-eyed Goldie happened to be playing jackstones on
+the curb, Mrs. Rosenblum pulled her into the store, to hear what
+distinction Mr. Antin's daughter had won at school, bidding her take
+example from Mary, if she would also go far in education.
+
+"Hear you, Goldie? She has the best marks, in everything, Goldie, all
+the time. She is only five years in the country, and she'll be in
+college soon. She beats them all in school, Goldie--her father says
+she beats them all. She studies all the time--all night--and she
+writes, it is a pleasure to hear. She writes in the paper, Goldie. You
+ought to hear Mr. Antin read what she writes in the paper. Long
+pieces--"
+
+"You don't understand what he reads, ma," Goldie interrupts
+mischievously; and I want to laugh, but I refrain. Mr. Rosenblum does
+not fill my can; I am forced to stand and hear myself eulogized.
+
+"Not understand? Of course I don't understand. How should I
+understand? I was not sent to school to learn. Of course I don't
+understand. But _you_ don't understand, Goldie, and that's a shame. If
+you would put your mind on it, and study hard, like Mary Antin, you
+would also stand high, and you would go to high school, and be
+somebody."
+
+"Would you send me to high school, pa?" Goldie asks, to test her
+mother's promises. "Would you really?"
+
+"Sure as I am a Jew," Mr. Rosenblum promptly replies, a look of
+aspiration in his deep eyes. "Only show yourself worthy, Goldie, and
+I'll keep you in school till you get to something. In America
+everybody can get to something, if he only wants to. I would even send
+you farther than high school--to be a teacher, maybe. Why not? In
+America everything is possible. But you have to work hard, Goldie,
+like Mary Antin--study hard, put your mind on it."
+
+"Oh, I know it, pa!" Goldie exclaims, her momentary enthusiasm
+extinguished at the thought of long lessons indefinitely prolonged.
+Goldie was a restless little thing who could not sit long over her
+geography book. She wriggled out of her mother's grasp now, and made
+for the door, throwing a "back-hand" as she went, without losing a
+single jackstone. "I hate long lessons," she said. "When I graduate
+grammar school next year I'm going to work in Jordan-Marsh's big
+store, and get three dollars a week, and have lots of fun with the
+girls. I can't write pieces in the paper, anyhow.--Beckie! Beckie
+Hurvich! Where you going? Wait a minute, I'll go along." And she was
+off, leaving her ambitious parents to shake their heads over her
+flightiness.
+
+Mr. Rosenblum gave me my oil. If he had had postage stamps in stock,
+he would have given me all I needed, and felt proud to think that he
+was assisting in my important correspondences. And he was a poor man,
+and had a large family, and many customers who paid as irregularly as
+we. He ran the risk of ruin, of course, but he did not scold--not us,
+at any rate. For he _understood_. He was himself an immigrant Jew of
+the type that values education, and sets a great price on the higher
+development of the child. He would have done in my father's place just
+what my father was doing: borrow, beg, go without, run in
+debt--anything to secure for a promising child the fulfilment of the
+promise. That is what America was for. The land of opportunity it was,
+but opportunities must be used, must be grasped, held, squeezed dry.
+To keep a child of working age in school was to invest the meagre
+present for the sake of the opulent future. If there was but one
+child in a family of twelve who promised to achieve an intellectual
+career, the other eleven, and father, and mother, and neighbors must
+devote themselves to that one child's welfare, and feed and clothe and
+cheer it on, and be rewarded in the end by hearing its name mentioned
+with the names of the great.
+
+So the poor grocer helped to keep me in school for I do not know how
+many years. And this is one of the things that is done on Harrison
+Avenue, by the people who pitch rubbish through their windows. Let the
+City Fathers strike the balance.
+
+Of course this is wretched economics. If I had a son who wanted to go
+into the grocery business, I should take care that he was well
+grounded in the principles of sound bookkeeping and prudence. But I
+should not fail to tell him the story of the Harrison Avenue grocer,
+hoping that he would puzzle out the moral.
+
+Mr. Rosenblum himself would be astonished to hear that any one was
+drawing morals from his manner of conducting his little store, and yet
+it is from men like him that I learn the true values of things. The
+grocer weighed me out a quarter of a pound of butter, and when the
+scales were even he threw in another scrap. "_Na!_" he said, smiling
+across the counter, "you can carry that much around the corner!"
+Plainly he was showing me that if I have not as many houses as my
+neighbor, that should not prevent me from cultivating as many graces.
+If I made some shame-faced reference to the unpaid balance, Mr.
+Rosenblum replied, "I guess you're not thinking of running away from
+Boston yet. You haven't finished turning the libraries inside out,
+have you?" In this way he reminded me that there were things more
+important than conventional respectability. The world belongs to those
+who can use it to the best advantage, the grocer seemed to argue; and
+I found that I had the courage to test this philosophy.
+
+From my little room on Dover Street I reached out for the world, and
+the world came to me. Through books, through the conversation of noble
+men and women, through communion with the stars in the depth of night,
+I entered into every noble chamber of the palace of life. I employed
+no charm to win admittance. The doors opened to me because I had a
+right to be within. My patent of nobility was the longing for the
+abundance of life with which I was endowed at birth; and from the time
+I could toddle unaided I had been gathering into my hand everything
+that was fine in the world around me. Given health and standing-room,
+I should have worked out my salvation even on a desert island. Being
+set down in the garden of America, where opportunity waits on
+ambition, I was bound to make my days a triumphal march toward my
+goal. The most unfriendly witness of my life will not venture to deny
+that I have been successful. For aside from subordinate desires for
+greatness or wealth or specific achievement, my chief ambition in life
+has been _to live_, and I have lived. A glowing life has been mine,
+and the fires that blazed highest in all my days were kindled on Dover
+Street.
+
+I have never had a dull hour in my life; I have never had a livelier
+time than in the slums. In all my troubles I was thrilled through and
+through with a prophetic sense of how they were to end. A halo of
+romance floated before every to-morrow; the wings of future
+adventures rustled in the dead of night. Nothing could be quite common
+that touched my life, because I had a power for attracting uncommon
+things. And when my noblest dreams shall have been realized I shall
+meet with nothing finer, nothing more remote from the commonplace,
+than some of the things that came into my life on Dover Street.
+
+Friends came to me bearing noble gifts of service, inspiration, and
+love. There came one, to talk with whom was to double the volume of
+life. She left roses on my pillow when I lay ill, and in my heart she
+planted a longing for greatness that I have yet to satisfy. Another
+came whose soul was steeped in sunshine, whose eyes saw through every
+pretence, whose lips mocked nothing holy. And one came who carried the
+golden key that unlocked the last secret chamber of life for me.
+Friends came trooping from everywhere, and some were poor, and some
+were rich, but all were devoted and true; and they left no niche in my
+heart unfilled, and no want unsatisfied.
+
+To be alive in America, I found out long ago, is to ride on the
+central current of the river of modern life; and to have a conscious
+purpose is to hold the rudder that steers the ship of fate. I was
+alive to my finger tips, back there on Dover Street, and all my
+girlish purposes served one main purpose. It would have been amazing
+if I had stuck in the mire of the slum. By every law of my nature I
+was bound to soar above it, to attain the fairer places that wait for
+every emancipated immigrant.
+
+A characteristic thing about the aspiring immigrant is the fact that
+he is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect
+success in his eyes. He must take his family with him as he rises. So
+when I refused to be adopted by a rich old man, and clung to my
+family in the slums, I was only following the rule; and I can tell it
+without boasting, because it is no more to my credit than that I wake
+refreshed after a night's sleep.
+
+This suggests to me a summary of my virtues, through the exercise of
+which I may be said to have attracted my good fortune. I find that I
+have always given nature a chance, I have used my opportunities, and
+have practised self-expression. So much my enemies will grant me; more
+than this my friends cannot claim for me.
+
+In the Dover Street days I did not philosophize about my private
+character, nor about the immigrant and his ways. I lived the life, and
+the moral took care of itself. And after Dover Street came Applepie
+Alley, Letterbox Lane, and other evil corners of the slums of Boston,
+till it must have looked to our neighbors as if we meant to go on
+forever exploring the underworld. But we found a short-cut--we found a
+short-cut! And the route we took from the tenements of the stifling
+alleys to a darling cottage of our own, where the sun shines in at
+every window, and the green grass runs up to our very doorstep, was
+surveyed by the Pilgrim Fathers, who trans-scribed their field notes
+on a very fine parchment and called it the Constitution of the United
+States.
+
+It was good to get out of Dover Street--it was better for the growing
+children, better for my weary parents, better for all of us, as the
+clean grass is better than the dusty pavement. But I must never forget
+that I came away from Dover Street with my hands full of riches. I
+must not fail to testify that in America a child of the slums owns the
+land and all that is good in it. All the beautiful things I saw
+belonged to me, if I wanted to use them; all the beautiful things I
+desired approached me. I did not need to seek my kingdom. I had only
+to be worthy, and it came to me, even on Dover Street. Everything that
+was ever to happen to me in the future had its germ or impulse in the
+conditions of my life on Dover Street. My friendships, my advantages
+and disadvantages, my gifts, my habits, my ambitions--these were the
+materials out of which I built my after life, in the open workshop of
+America. My days in the slums were pregnant with possibilities; it
+only needed the ripeness of events to make them fruit forth in
+realities. Steadily as I worked to win America, America advanced to
+lie at my feet. I was an heir, on Dover Street, awaiting maturity. I
+was a princess waiting to be led to the throne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE HERITAGE
+
+
+One of the inherent disadvantages of premature biography is that it
+cannot go to the natural end of the story. This difficulty threatened
+me in the beginning, but now I find I do not need to tax my judgment
+to fix the proper stopping-place. Sudden qualms of reluctance warn me
+where the past and present meet. I have reached a point where my
+yesterdays lie in a quick heap, and I cannot bear to prod and turn
+them and set them up to be looked at. For that matter, I am not sure
+that I should add anything really new, even if I could force myself to
+cross the line of discretion. I have already shown what a real thing
+is this American freedom that we talk about, and in what manner a
+certain class of aliens make use of it. Anything that I might add of
+my later adventures would be a repetition, in substance, of what I
+have already described. Having traced the way an immigrant child may
+take from the ship through the public schools, passed on from hand to
+hand by the ready teachers; through free libraries and lecture halls,
+inspired by every occasion of civic consciousness; dragging through
+the slums the weight of private disadvantage, but heartened for the
+effort by public opportunity; welcomed at a hundred open doors of
+instruction, initiated with pomp and splendor and flags unfurled
+seeking, in American minds, the American way, and finding it in the
+thoughts of the noble,--striving against the odds of foreign birth and
+poverty, and winning, through the use of abundant opportunity, a
+place as enviable as that of any native child,--having traced the
+footsteps of the young immigrant almost to the college gate, the rest
+of the course may be left to the imagination. Let us say that from the
+Latin School on I lived very much as my American schoolmates lived,
+having overcome my foreign idiosyncrasies, and the rest of my outward
+adventures you may read in any volume of American feminine statistics.
+
+But lest I be reproached for a sudden affectation of reserve, after
+having trained my reader to expect the fullest particulars, I am
+willing to add a few details. I went to college, as I proposed, though
+not to Radcliffe. Receiving an invitation to live in New York that I
+did not like to refuse, I went to Barnard College instead. There I
+took all the honors that I deserved; and if I did not learn to write
+poetry, as I once supposed I should, I learned at least to think in
+English without an accent. Did I get rich? you may want to know,
+remembering my ambition to provide for the family. I can reply that I
+have earned enough to pay Mrs. Hutch the arrears, and satisfy all my
+wants. And where have I lived since I left the slums? My favorite
+abode is a tent in the wilderness, where I shall be happy to serve you
+a cup of tea out of a tin kettle, and answer further questions.
+
+And is this really to be the last word? Yes, though a long chapter of
+the romance of Dover Street is left untold. I could fill another book
+with anecdotes, telling how I took possession of Beacon Street, and
+learned to distinguish the lord of the manor from the butler in full
+dress. I might trace my steps from my bare room overlooking the
+lumber-yard to the satin drawing-rooms of the Back Bay, where I drank
+afternoon tea with gentle ladies whose hands were as delicate as
+their porcelain cups. My journal of those days is full of comments on
+the contrasts of life, that I copied from my busy thoughts in the
+evening, after a visit to my aristocratic friends. Coming straight
+from the cushioned refinement of Beacon Street, where the maid who
+brought my hostess her slippers spoke in softer accents than the
+finest people on Dover Street, I sometimes stumbled over poor Mr.
+Casey lying asleep in the corridor; and the shock of the contrast was
+like a searchlight turned suddenly on my life, and I pondered over the
+revelation, and wrote touching poems, in which I figured as a heroine
+of two worlds.
+
+I might quote from my journals and poems, and build up the picture of
+that double life. I might rehearse the names of the gracious friends
+who admitted me to their tables, although I came direct from the
+reeking slums. I might enumerate the priceless gifts they showered on
+me; gifts bought not with gold but with love. It would be a pleasant
+task to recall the high things that passed in the gilded drawing-rooms
+over the afternoon tea. It would add a splendor to my simple narrative
+to weave in the portraits of the distinguished men and women who
+busied themselves with the humble fortunes of a school-girl. And
+finally, it would relieve my heart of a burden of gratitude to
+publish, once for all, the amount of my indebtedness to the devoted
+friends who took me by the hand when I walked in the paths of
+obscurity, and led me, by a pleasanter lane than I could have found by
+myself, to the open fields where obstacles thinned and opportunities
+crowded to meet me. Outside America I should hardly be believed if I
+told how simply, in my experience, Dover Street merged into the Back
+Bay. These are matters to which I long to testify, but I must wait
+till they recede into the past.
+
+I can conjure up no better symbol of the genuine, practical equality
+of all our citizens than the Hale House Natural History Club, which
+played an important part in my final emancipation from the slums. For
+all I was regarded as a plaything by the serious members of the club,
+the attention and kindness they lavished on me had a deep
+significance. Every one of those earnest men and women unconsciously
+taught me my place in the Commonwealth, as the potential equal of the
+best of them. Few of my friends in the club, it is true, could have
+rightly defined their benevolence toward me. Perhaps some of them
+thought they befriended me for charity's sake, because I was a starved
+waif from the slums. Some of them imagined they enjoyed my society,
+because I had much to say for myself, and a gay manner of meeting
+life. But all these were only secondary motives. I myself, in my
+unclouded perception of the true relation of things that concerned me,
+could have told them all why they spent their friendship on me. They
+made way for me because I was their foster sister. They opened their
+homes to me that I might learn how good Americans lived. In the least
+of their attentions to me, they cherished the citizen in the making.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Natural History Club had spent the day at Nahant, studying marine
+life in the tide pools, scrambling up and down the cliffs with no
+thought for decorum, bent only on securing the starfish, limpets,
+sea-urchins, and other trophies of the chase. There had been a merry
+luncheon on the rocks, with talk and laughter between sandwiches, and
+strange jokes, intelligible only to the practising naturalist. The
+tide had rushed in at its proper time, stealing away our seaweed
+cushions, drowning our transparent pools, spouting in the crevices,
+booming and hissing, and tossing high the snowy foam.
+
+   [Illustration: THE TIDE HAD RUSHED IN, STEALING AWAY OUR SEAWEED
+   CUSHIONS]
+
+From the deck of the jolly excursion steamer which was carrying us
+home, we had watched the rosy sun dip down below the sea. The members
+of the club, grouped in twos and threes, discussed the day's
+successes, compared specimens, exchanged field notes, or watched the
+western horizon in sympathetic silence.
+
+It had been a great day for me. I had seen a dozen new forms of life,
+had caught a hundred fragments of the song of nature by the sea; and
+my mind was seething with meanings that crowded in. I do not remember
+to which of my learned friends I addressed my questions on this
+occasion, but he surely was one of the most learned. For he took up
+all my fragments of dawning knowledge in his discourse, and welded
+them into a solid structure of wisdom, with windows looking far down
+the past and a tower overlooking the future. I was so absorbed in my
+private review of creation that I hardly realized when we landed, or
+how we got into the electric cars, till we were a good way into the
+city.
+
+At the Public Library I parted from my friends, and stood on the broad
+stone steps, my jar of specimens in my hand, watching the car that
+carried them glide out of sight. My heart was full of a stirring
+wonder. I was hardly conscious of the place where I stood, or of the
+day, or the hour. I was in a dream, and the familiar world around me
+was transfigured. My hair was damp with sea spray; the roar of the
+tide was still in my ears. Mighty thoughts surged through my dreams,
+and I trembled with understanding.
+
+I sank down on the granite ledge beside the entrance to the Library,
+and for a mere moment I covered my eyes with my hand. In that moment I
+had a vision of myself, the human creature, emerging from the dim
+places where the torch of history has never been, creeping slowly into
+the light of civilized existence, pushing more steadily forward to the
+broad plateau of modern life, and leaping, at last, strong and glad,
+to the intellectual summit of the latest century.
+
+What an awful stretch of years to contemplate! What a weighty past to
+carry in memory! How shall I number the days of my life, except by the
+stars of the night, except by the salt drops of the sea?
+
+But hark to the clamor of the city all about! This is my latest home,
+and it invites me to a glad new life. The endless ages have indeed
+throbbed through my blood, but a new rhythm dances in my veins. My
+spirit is not tied to the monumental past, any more than my feet were
+bound to my grandfather's house below the hill. The past was only my
+cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am grown too big; just as
+the little house in Polotzk, once my home, has now become a toy of
+memory, as I move about at will in the wide spaces of this splendid
+palace, whose shadow covers acres. No! it is not I that belong to the
+past, but the past that belongs to me. America is the youngest of the
+nations, and inherits all that went before in history. And I am the
+youngest of America's children, and into my hands is given all her
+priceless heritage, to the last white star espied through the
+telescope, to the last great thought of the philosopher. Mine is the
+whole majestic past, and mine is the shining future.
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
+
+
+    _To my mother who bore me; to my father who endowed me; to my
+    brothers and sisters who believed in me; to my friends who loved
+    me; to my teachers who inspired me; to my neighbors who
+    befriended me; to my daughter who enlarged me; to my husband who
+    opened the door of the greater life for me;--to all these who
+    helped to make this book, I give my thanks._
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+KEY TO PRONUNCIATION
+
+
+     a as in man
+     ae as in far
+     e as in met
+  [=e] as in meet
+     e as long e in German Leder
+     i as in pin
+  [=i] as in file
+     o as in not
+  [=o] as in note
+     oe as in German Koenig
+     u as in circus
+  [=u] as in mute
+  [.u] as in pull
+    ai as in aisle
+    oi as in joint
+    ch as in German ach, Scotch loch
+  [h.] as in German ach, Scotch loch
+     l as in failure
+     n as in canon
+    zh as z in seizure.
+
+  +----------------------------------------------------------------+
+  | Transcriber's Note:                                            |
+  |                                                                |
+  | The diacritical marks used in the pronunciations for the       |
+  | original text are not available in the standard text           |
+  | character set.                                                 |
+  |                                                                |
+  | The following substitutions have been made:                    |
+  |                                                                |
+  | The macron (long bar) used over e, i, o, and u are represented |
+  | as [=e], [=i], [=o] and [=u].                                  |
+  | The diacritical u with a dot above, is represented as [.u].    |
+  | The diacritical h with a dot below, is represented as [h.].    |
+  | The diacritical l with a circumflex (hat ^) above, is          |
+  | represented as [^l].                                           |
+  +----------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+_Explanations_
+
+The abbreviations _Germ._ (= German), _Hebr._ (= Hebrew), _Russ._
+(= Russian), and _Yid._ (= Yiddish) indicate the origin of a word.
+Most of the names marked _Yiddish_ are such in form only, the roots
+being for the most part Hebrew.
+
+Prop. n = proper name.
+
+The endings _ke_ and _le_ of Yiddish proper names (Mashke, Perele)
+have a diminutive or endearing value, like the German _chen_
+(Helenchen).
+
+Double names are given under the first name.
+
+The religious customs described prevail among the Orthodox Jews of
+European countries. In the United States they have been considerably
+modified, especially among the Reformed Jews.
+
+ =Ab= (aeb) _Hebr._ The fifth month of the Hebrew calendar. The
+    ninth of Ab is a day of fasting and mourning, in commemoration
+    of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
+
+ =Adonai= (ae-do-nai'), _Hebr._ An appellation of God.
+
+ =Aleph= (ae'-lef), _Hebr._ The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
+
+ =Atonement, Day of= (Hebrew, _Yom Kippur_). The most solemn of the
+    Hebrew festivals, observed by fasting and an elaborate
+    ceremonial.
+
+
+ =Bahur= (bae'-hur), _Hebr._ A young unmarried man, particularly a
+    student of the Talmud. (See _Yeshibah bahur_.)
+
+ =Berl= (berl). _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Cabala= (kaeb-ae'-lae), _Hebr._ A system of Hebrew mystic philosophy
+    which flourished in the Middle Ages.
+
+ =Candle Prayer= (Yiddish, _licht bentschen_). Prayer pronounced
+    over lighted candles by the women and older girls of the
+    household at the commencement of the Sabbath.
+
+ =Canopy, wedding= (Hebrew _huppah_). A portable canopy under which
+    the marriage ceremony is performed, usually outdoors.
+
+ =Cossaks= (kos'-aks), _Russ._ A name given to certain Russian
+    tribes, formerly distinguished for their freebooting habits, now
+    best known for their position in the army.
+
+
+ =Dayyan= (dai'-an), _Hebr._ A judge to whom are submitted civil
+    disputes, as distinguished from purely religious questions,
+    which are decided by the Rav.
+
+ =Dinke= (din'-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Dvina= (dv[=e]'-nae), _Russ._ Name of a river.
+
+ =Dvornik= (dvor'-nik), _Russ._ An outdoor man; a choreman.
+
+ =Dvoshe= (dvo'-she), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Earlocks= (Hebrew _peath_). Two locks of hair allowed to grow long
+    and hang in front of the ears. Among the fanatical Hasidim, a
+    mark of piety.
+
+ =Eidtkuhnen= (eit-koo'-nen), _Germ._ Name of a Russo-German
+    frontier town.
+
+
+ =Fetchke= (fetch'-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Fringes, sacred= (Hebrew _zizit_). Specially prepared fringes
+    fastened to the four corners of the _arba kanfot_ (literally,
+    "four-corners"), a garment worn by all pious males underneath
+    the jacket or frock coat, usually with the fringes showing. The
+    latter play a part in the daily ritual.
+
+
+ =Goluth= (gol'-ut), _Hebr._ Banishment; exile.
+
+ =Good Jew= (Yiddish _guter id_). Among the Hasidim, a title
+    popularly accorded to more or less learned individuals
+    distinguished for their piety, and credited with supernatural
+    powers of healing, divination, etc. Pilgrimages to some renowned
+    "Good Jew" were often undertaken by the very pious, on occasions
+    of perplexity or trouble, for the purpose of obtaining his
+    advice or help.
+
+ =Groschen= (gro'-shen), _Germ._ A popular name for various coins of
+    small denomination, especially the half-kopeck.
+
+ =Gutke= (gut'-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Hannah Hayye= ([h.]aen'-a [h.]ai'-e), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hasid=, pl. =Hasidim= ([h.]aes'-id, [h.]as-id'-im), _Hebr._ A
+    numerous sect of Jews distinguished for their enthusiasm in
+    religious observance, a fanatical worship of their rabbis and
+    many superstitious practices.
+
+ =Haven Mirel= ([h.]a'-ve mirl), _Hebr._ and _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hayye Dvoshe= ([h.]ai'-e dvo'-she), _Hebr._ and _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hayyim= ([h.]ai'-im), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hazzan= ([h.]aez-an), _Hebr._ Cantor in a synagogue.
+
+ =Heder= ([h.]e'-der), _Hebr._ Elementary Hebrew school, usually
+    held at the teacher's residence.
+
+ =Henne Roesel= (he'-ne roezl), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hirshel= (hir'-shl), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Hode= (ho'-de), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Horn, ram's= (Hebrew _shofar_). Ritual horn, used in the synagogue
+    during the great festivals.
+
+ =Hossen= ([h.]o'-ssn), _Hebr._ Bridegroom; prospective bridegroom;
+    betrothed.
+
+ =Humesh= ([h.][.u]'-mesh), _Hebr._ The Pentateuch.
+
+
+ =Icon= ([=i]'-kon) _Russ._ A representation of Christ or some
+    saint, usually in an elaborate frame, found in every orthodox
+    Russian house.
+
+ =Itke= (it'-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Jew, Good.= See under =Good=.
+
+
+ =Kibart= (ki-baert'), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+ =Kiddush= (kid'-ush), _Hebr._ Benediction pronounced over a cup of
+    wine before the Sabbath evening meal.
+
+ =Kimanye= (ki-mae'-ne), _Russ._ Name of a village.
+
+ =Kimanyer= (ki-mae'-ner), _Yid._ Belonging to or hailing from the
+    village of Kimanye.
+
+ =Knupf= (knupf), _Yid._ A sort of turban.
+
+ =Kopeck= (ko'-pek), _Russ._ A copper coin, the 1/100 part of a
+    ruble, worth about half a cent.
+
+ =Kopistch= (ko'-pistch), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+ =Kosher= (ko'-sher), _Hebr._ Clean, according to Jewish ritual law;
+    opposed to =tref=, unclean. Applied chiefly to articles of diet
+    and cooking and eating vessels.
+
+
+ =Lamden= (laem'-den), _Hebr._ Scholar; one versed in Hebrew
+    learning.
+
+ =Law, the= (specifically used). The Mosaic Law; the Torah.
+
+ =Lebe= (le'-be), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Loaf, Sabbath.= See under Sabbath.
+
+ =Lozhe= (lo'-zhe), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Lubavitch= (l[.u]-baev'-itch), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+
+ =Maryashe= (maer-yae'-she), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mashinke= (mae'-shin-ke), _Yid._ A diminutive of Mashke.
+
+ =Mashke= (maesh'-ke), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mendele= (men'-del-e), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mezuzah= (me-zu'-zae), _Hebr._ A piece of parchment inscribed with
+    a passage of Scripture, rolled in a case and tacked to the
+    doorpost. The pious touch or kiss this when leaving or entering
+    a house.
+
+ =Mikweh= (mik'-we), _Hebr._ Ritual bath, constructed and used
+    according to minute directions.
+
+ =Mirele= (mir'-e-le), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Mishka= (mish'-kae), _Russ._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Moon, blessing of.= Benediction pronounced at the appearance of
+    the new moon.
+
+ =Moshe= (mo'-she), _Yid._ Prop, n., a form of Moses.
+
+ =Moeshele= (mo'-she-le), _Yid._ Prop, n., diminutive of Moshe.
+
+ =Mulke= (m[.u][^l]'-ke), _Yid._ Prop, n., diminutive of Mulye.
+
+ =Mulye= (m[.u][^l]'-e), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+
+ =Na!= (nae), _Yid._ Here you are! Take it!
+
+ =Nohem= (no'-[h.]em), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Nu, nu!= (n[.u], n[.u]), _Yid._ Well, well.
+
+
+ =Oi, weh!= (oi, ve), _Yid._ Woe is me!
+
+ =Oven, sealing of.= As no fire is kindled on the Sabbath, the
+    Sabbath dinner is cooked on Friday afternoon and left in the
+    brick oven overnight. The oven is tightly closed with a board or
+    sheet of metal, wet rags being stuffed into the interstices.
+
+
+ =Passover= (Hebrew, _pesech_). The feast of Unleavened Bread,
+    commemorating the escape of the Israelites from Egypt.
+
+ =Passport, foreign.= A special passport required of any Russian
+    subject wishing to go to a foreign country. To avoid the
+    necessity of procuring such a passport, travellers often cross
+    the border by stealth.
+
+ =Perele= (per'-e-le), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Phylacteries= (fi-lak'-ter-is; Hebrew _tefillin_). Two small
+    leathern boxes containing parchments inscribed with certain
+    passages of Scripture, worn during morning prayer, one on the
+    forehead and one on the left arm, where they are fastened by
+    means of straps, in a manner carefully prescribed. The wearing
+    of the _tefillin_ is obligatory on all males over thirteen years
+    of age (the age of confirmation).
+
+ =Pinchus= (pin'-chus), _Hebr._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Pogrom= (po-grom'), _Russ._ An organized massacre of Jews.
+
+ =Poll= (pol), _Yid._ A series of steps in the bathing-room, where
+    cupping, etc., is done under a high temperature.
+
+ =Polota= (Po-lo-tae'), _Russ._ Name of a river.
+
+ =Polotzk= (po'-lotzk), _Russ._, also spelled Polotsk. A town in the
+    government of Vitebsk, Russia, since early times a stronghold of
+    Jewish orthodoxy. _N.B._ Polotzk must not be confused with
+    Plotzk (also spelled Plock), the capital of the government of
+    Plotzk, in Russian Poland, about 400 miles southwest of Polotzk.
+
+ =Praying Shawl= (Hebrew, _tallit_). A fine white woollen shawl with
+    sacred fringes (_zizit_), in the four corners, worn by males
+    after marriage, during certain devotional exercises.
+
+ =Purim= (p[.u]'-rim), _Hebr._ A feast in commemoration of the
+    deliverance of the Persian Jews, through the intervention of
+    Esther, from the massacre planned by Haman. Masquerading,
+    feasting, exchange of presents, and general license make this
+    celebration the jolliest of the Jewish year.
+
+
+ =Questions, the Four.= At the Passover feast, the youngest son (or,
+    in the absence of a son of suitable age, a daughter) asks four
+    questions as to the significance of various symbolic articles
+    used in the ceremonial, in reply to which the family read the
+    story of Exodus.
+
+
+ =Rabbi= (rab'-[=i]), _Hebr._ A title accorded to men distinguished
+    for learning and authorized to teach the Law. As used in the
+    present work, _rabbi_ is identical with the official title of
+    _rav_, which see.
+
+ =Rabbonim= (raeb-on'-im), _Hebr._ Plural of _rabbi_.
+
+ =Rav= (raev), _Hebr._ The spiritual head of a Jewish community,
+    whose duties include the settlement of ritualistic questions.
+
+ =Reb'= (reb), _Yid._ An abbreviation of _rebbe_, used as a title of
+    respect, equivalent to the old-fashioned English "master."
+
+ =Rebbe= (reb'-e), _Yid._ Colloquial form of _rabbi_. A Hebrew
+    teacher. Applied usually to teachers of lesser rank; also used
+    as a title for a "Good Jew"; as, the Rebbe of Kopistch.
+
+ =Rebbetzin= (reb'-e-tzin), _Yid._ Female Hebrew teacher.
+
+ =Riga= (ri'-gae), _Russ._ Name of a city.
+
+ =Ruble= (r[.u]'-bl), _Russ._ The monetary unit of Russia. A silver
+    coin (or, more commonly, a paper bill) worth a little over fifty
+    cents.
+
+
+ =Sabbath Loaf= (Hebrew, _hallah_). A wheaten loaf of peculiar shape
+    used in the Sabbath ceremonial.
+
+ =Sacred Fringes.= See under =Fringes=.
+
+ =Shadchan= (shaed'-chan), _Hebr._ Professional match-maker; marriage
+    broker.
+
+ =Shawl, Praying.= See under =Praying=.
+
+ =Shema= (shmae), _Hebr._ The verse recited as the Jewish confession
+    of faith ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One");
+    so called from the initial word. The "Shema" recurs constantly
+    in the daily ritual, and is informally repeated on every
+    occasion of distress, or as a charm to ward off evil
+    influences.
+
+ =Shohat= (sho'-[h.]at), _Hebr._ Slaughterer of cattle according to
+    ritual law.
+
+ =Succoth= (s[.u]'-kot), _Hebr._ The feast of Tabernacles,
+    celebrated with many symbolic rites, among these being the
+    eating of the festive meals outdoors, in a booth or bower of
+    lattice work covered with evergreens.
+
+
+ =Talakno= (tael-aek-no'), _Russ._ Meal made of ground oats, often
+    mixed with other grains or with weeds. An important article of
+    diet among the peasants, generally moistened with cold water and
+    eaten raw.
+
+ =Talmudists= (tal'-m[.u]d-ists; from Hebrew _talmud_). The
+    compilers of the Talmud (the body of Jewish traditional lore);
+    scholars versed in the teachings of the Talmud.
+
+ =Tav= (taev), _Hebr._ The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
+
+ =Torah= (t[=o]'-rae), _Hebr._ The Mosaic Law; the book or scroll of
+    the Law; sacred learning.
+
+ =Trefah= (tref'-a), _Hebr._ Unclean, according to ritual law;
+    opposed to kosher, clean. Chiefly applied to articles of food
+    and eating and cooking vessels.
+
+
+ =Versbolovo= (vers-bo-lo'-vae), _Russ._ Name of a town.
+
+ =Verst= (vyerst), _Russ._ A measure of length, about two-thirds of
+    an English mile.
+
+ =Vilna= (vil'-nae), _Russ._ Name of a city.
+
+ =Vitebsk= (vi'-tebsk), _Russ._ Name of a city.
+
+ =Vodka= (vod'-kae), _Russ._ A kind of whiskey distilled from barley
+    or from potatoes, constantly indulged in by the lower classes in
+    Russia, especially by the peasants.
+
+
+ =Wedding Canopy.= See under =Canopy=.
+
+
+ =Yachne= (Yaech'-ne), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yakub= (yae-k[.u]b'), _Russ._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yankel= (yaen'-kl), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yeshibah= (ye-shib'-ae), _Hebr._ Rabbinical school or seminary.
+
+ =Yeshibah Bachur=, a student in a _yeshibah_.
+
+ =Yiddish= (yid'-ish), _Yid._ Judeo-German, the language of the Jews
+    of Eastern Europe. The basis is an archaic form of German, on
+    which are grafted many words of Hebrew origin, and words from
+    the vernacular of the country.
+
+ =Yochem= (yo'-chem), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Yuchovitch= (y[.u]-chov-itch'), _Russ._ Name of a village.
+
+
+ =Zaddik= (tzae'-dik), _Hebr._ A man of piety; a holy man.
+
+ =Zalmen= (zael'-men), _Yid._ Prop. n.
+
+ =Zimbler= (tzim'-bler), _Yid._ A performer on the _zimble_, an
+    instrument constructed like a wooden tray, with several wires
+    stretched across lengthwise, and played by means of two short
+    rods.
+
+
+The Riverside Press
+CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
+U.S.A.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page 168: Moshele replaced with Moeshele                   |
+    | Page 334: namable replaced with nameable                  |
+    | Page 344: Whereever replaced with Wherever                |
+    | Page 368: expecially replaced with especially             |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promised Land, by Mary Antin
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