left here alone, though my needs are few. And so before you start for America you will take me to my niece in the city. She is a very pious woman, and so I am sure she will give me a litle space in some corner of her house. Of course you will pay her for a year of my board. And after that, perhaps you will send her money. But I hope it won't be necessary. Indeed, I feel that I won't trouble this world much longer." Mother tried to dissuade her from this plan, but she turned a deaf ear and insisted that we write to father at once. And we did. About a month passed before we received an answer. The letter was heavier than usual. And when we opened it, two yellow tickets fell out from among the two closely written sheets. "What is this?" we all asked at once. "Not money. And this writing must be English." We handed the tickets to grandmother who held out her hand for them. Suddenly her hand began to tremble and she said, "Perhaps these are steamer tickets. Quickly read the letter." After the usual greetings father wrote, "Since Masha is to come to America she might as well start as soon as she can get ready. And Rahel had better come with her. I am sure she can earn at least three dollars a week. With her help I'll be able to bring the rest of the family over much sooner, perhaps in a year or so. And, besides, now she can still travel on half a ticket, which I am enclosing with the one for Masha." Quite bewildered, I looked at mother. Her lips were opening and closing without making a sound. Suddenly she caught me into her arms and burst into tears. VIII For many days mother could not look at the steamer tickets without tears in her eyes. And even then though she tried to speak cheerfully about my going to America, I noticed that the anxious look which came into her eyes while the letter was being read, never left them. Also I felt her eyes following me about on every step. But once only, she gave way to her feelings openly. One morning while she was fastening the back of my dress I caught a few disconnected words, which she uttered low as though she were speaking to herself. "Good Heavens! child twelve years old-care-herself." Then came those inward tearless sobs and I felt her hands tremble on my back. But grandmother took the news in a manner that astonished us all. When I looked at her over my mother's shoulder, after the letter was read, I saw her sitting at the table in her usual position. Her head was bent low and a little to one side, and her hands were folded in her lap. Very quietly she sat, not a word, not a tear came from her. I do not know whether I considered myself fortunate in going to America or not. But I do remember that when I convinced myself, by looking at the tickets often, that it was not a dream like many others I had had, that I would really start for America in a month or six weeks, I felt a great joy. Of course I was a little ashamed of this joy. I saw that mother was unhappy. And grandmother's sorrow, very awful, in its calmness, was double now. For I felt that I was almost as dear to her as Aunt Masha. When a week passed, we cleaned the house as thoroughly as if it were for Easter in honour of Aunt Masha's coming. During the five years that she had been away, she visited us twice. The last time had been three years before. And so we were all excited and eager to see her. As the days passed and the time drew near for her coming, grandmother became so impatient and nervous that she would jump at the least outdoor sound, asking excitedly, "What is that? I think I hear the rumbling of wheels. Isn't that someone coming?" Then we would all rush to the door and windows and find that it was only a cart passing on the road, or a pig scratching his back against the sharp corner of the house. One day we really heard a cart drive up to the door. When we ran out, we saw a small, plump, pretty young woman in a brown dress jump lightly to the ground. "Oh, grandmother, quickly come, it is Aunt Masha." In a moment grandmother tum bled out of bed, but before she could reach the door she was in Aunt Masha's arms. And for a while there was sobbing in every corner of the room. IX All through the spring, while mother, grandmother and Aunt Masha were sewing and knitting stockings for Aunt Masha and me to take along to America, I wandered about in the fields, restless and unable to play at anything. So the spring passed. As the second of June, the day for our departure to America, drew near, I stayed more in the house and followed mother about more closely. Gradually I became conscious of two things. One was the fear of going out into the world. Just what I feared I did not know. And the other was regret. I had not realised how dear to me were my people and home, until I was about to leave them. But the one whom I regretted to leave most was grandmother. Grandfather was not fond of me and so he cared little about my going away. And mother and the children I would see again. But that grandmother cared I knew. And I also knew and she knew that her I would never see again. One day grandmother and I were alone in the house, at least I think we were alone. For as I look back now I can see no one but the two of I am standing at the window, and she is walking across the room, with her slow, hesitating step, and her hands stretched in front of her us. for protection. Coming upon a bench in the middle of the room she sat down heavily, with a sigh, "It is strange, but the room seems to have grown larger." "What is that shadow at the window, Rahel? Come, child, let me lean on you. There, your shoulder just fits under my arm. Do you remember when you first began to lead me about? That was when you still called yourself by name." When we reached the window she raised her hand, shaded her eyes from the strong light and stood quietly for a while, looking out. Then she said, "This must be a beautiful day. For my eyelids are not as heavy when it is clear." "Oh, grandmother, it is glorious! There is not a cloud in the sky. And, that thing waving in front of the window, can you make out what it is ?" "I see a black, shapeless mass. What is it?" "It is the wild apple tree, white with blossoms." "H-m-m- yes," she said, meditatively, "it was a day just like this." "When, grandmother?" She did not answer for a long while and when she spoke at last her voice was low and passionate. "When God took my sight from me. My eyes had never been strong. One day in the spring, it was beautiful like to-day, I was digging in the garden, but a little while it seemed to me, when I was startled by a crash of thunder so that the very earth under my feet seemed to tremble. I looked up. The sun was gone and a black angry cloud hung over our house. Quickly I gathered up the tools and hastened toward home. I was but a few steps away when a wind-storm came. It rocked the trees, blew the loosened shingles from the roof, and swept the dry sand in a whirl before me. At the same moment I felt a stinging pain in my eyes, so that I could not see the door. In darkness I groped about for long time, till I found it. For twenty-four hours I was beside myself with pain. At the end of that time it went away as suddenly as it came. When your father, who was a little boy then, untied the kerchief from my eyes, I asked him if it were night. 66 'Why, mother,' I heard his frightened voice, it is daylight. Don't you see the sun across your bed?' Then I knew." She stood silent and motionless for a while. Then she said more calmly, "But I must not sin. For if God has taken my sight, He has given me dear little grandchildren who have been everything I wanted. Ah, if I had only been worthy enough to keep them with me!" She turned to me suddenly and taking my face between her cold soft hands she said entreatingly, "Rahel, promise me that you won't cry when you are starting. You hear? It is bad luck to cry when one Still holding my face between her hands, she bent over it and looked at it intently. I saw a strained expression come into her face and the eyes move about restlessly under the heavy red lids, as though she were trying to see. Then came a pitiful moan, and tears rolled down her cheeks and fell on mine. What happened after this I do not remember, until the very minute of starting on the second of June. And even then, as I look back I can see nothing at first, but a thick grey mist. But the sounds I recall very distinctly. There was Aunt Masha's voice crying, a crack of a whip, horses' hoofs striking against stones. Then there was a sudden jolt and I felt myself falling backward. And now I remember what I saw, too. When I sat up, I found myself sitting in a straw-lined wagon, with my back to the horse. Besides me were mother and the baby, who were coming to the city with us, and Aunt Masha, who was lying with her face hidden in the straw, crying aloud. I remembered grandmother's warning, "Nothing but bad luck could come to one who is crying while starting on a journey," and felt sorry for Aunt Masha. But as we were pulling out through the gate and I saw grandmother looking so lonely and forsaken, as she stood leaning against the house, and when I saw grandfather and the children who stood at the gate, looking after us and crying, I could not keep my own tears back, though I opened my eyes wide and blinked hard. miliar places. Each one brought back sad and happy recollections. As I looked at my favourite bush while we were passing it, I saw my little make-believe companions spring up in it one after another. And among them I saw the swarthy face of my imaginary brother Ephraim. I waved my hand to him, and then hid my face on mother's shoulder. When I looked up again, the road was unknown to me. X We were bound for Minsk. This was a large city about a day and a half hard travelling from our village. There mother was to see an agent about smuggling us across the border, and buy a few necessary things for our journey. As I had been unable to see mother's people before going, we went a little out of our way to stop with them for a few hours. Shortly before sunset we arrived at their home, which stood on the outskirt of a small town. Mother's father had been dead for some years, and the mother was living with her four sons, who were blacksmiths by trade. As we had to pass the shop, which was a short distance from the house, we stopped there first. All four were busy at the forge, at the bellows, one was swinging the heavy sledge and Uncle Hayim, who was the oldest, was shaping a piece of iron on the anvil. Seeing us, he stopped and came to meet us. He kissed mother with more than usual tenderness, shook hands with Aunt Masha, and looked at me in surprise. "Well, well," he said, "how tall you have grown. But you are only a One by one we passed the dear fa- feather-weight after all." He laughed as he raised me lightly on a level with himself. He locked up the shop and we all I went to the house. At the door we met grandmother coming from the barn with a pail of foaming milk, which she almost spilt in her surprise at seeing us. She was as different from my other grandmother as a person could me. She was a strong, stocky little woman, so industrious and quick that at times it was hard to believe that there was just one of her. In telling stories, however, she was like my other grandmother. Everything she saw and heard reminded her of a story. We started to continue on our journey soon after supper. At parting we all cried a good deal and laughed, too, when I refused to kiss my two younger uncles on the ground that they were boys. "But," said the younger and mischievous one, "you kissed me two weeks ago when I was at your home." "Then it was different," I said. I could not explain, but perhaps I felt that in parting from my childhood surroundings, I parted from childhood, too. Uncle Hayim lit the way to the wagon with a lantern. He held it up high while mother tucked baby and me into the straw, between Aunt Masha and herself. I was very fond of this uncle and as I lay looking at his face, with the light shining on it, I thought, "Another minute, and I won't see him any more. Perhaps I'll never see him again." Indistinctly, through my tears, I saw the driver climb into the wagon and uncle jump on the axle of the wheel. He bent over me. "Farewell!" he said. At that moment his voice and face were so much like my mother's that I was struck with terror, and could not breathe until I found her hand. As we joggled off I heard uncle calling after us, "Don't forget God." And it seemed to me that the frogs from the neighbouring swamps took up the words and croaked, "Don't forget God! Don't forget God!" The road was very uneven, and every time the wheels passed over a stone, I heard Aunt Masha's head bump against the wagon. Mother gave her some more straw to put there, but she refused. "What," she said, peevishly, "is this pain or any other pain that I have ever had compared with what my mother suffers to-night." And so she let her head bump, as if that would give her mother relief. For a long time I felt Aunt Masha's body shaking with sobs. But by degrees it grew quieter, the breathing became regular, and she slept. Then I saw mother, who I thought was also asleep, sit up. She took some straw from her side of the wagon and bending over me toward Aunt Masha, she raised her head gently and spread the straw under it. I slept until baby poked his little nose under my chin to wake me at broad daylight. My first thought was, "I am in Minsk." I had looked forward with pleasure to being there. And yet all I saw of it was a dingy courtyard, a sunless room, a drosky and a railroad station. The dingy courtyard we passed through when we got out of the wagon, and the sunless room was the home of our cousins with whom we stayed as long as we remained in the city. During the three days that followed, I stayed in the house and took care of baby while mother and Aunt |