Night after night he wrestled heroically with the “little black hooks.” At last his efforts were rewarded. He learned how to shape the letters without any help.
“God from the world!” he cried with childishly pathetic joy as he wrote his name for the first time. “This is me—Moisheh!” He lifted the paper and held it off and then held it close, drunk with the wonder of the “little black hooks.” They seemed so mysterious to him, and his eyes loomed large—transfigured with the miracle of seeing himself for the first time in script.
It was the week after that he asked me to write his letter, and this time it was from my eyes that the unheeding tears dropped as I wrote the words he dictated.
“To my dear Loving Mother, and to my worthy Honourable Brother Feivel, the Doctor, and to my youngest brother, the joy from my life, the light from mine eyes, Berel the Book-keeper!
“Long years and good luck to you all. Thanks the highest One in Heaven that you are alive. Don’t worry for nothing. So long I have yet my two strong hands to work you will yet live to have from everything plenty. For all those starving days in Russia, you will live to have joy in America.
“You, Feivel, will yet have a grand doctor’s office, with an electric dentist sign over your door, and a gold tooth to pull in the richest customers. And you, Berel, my honourable book-keeper, will yet live to wear a white starched collar like all the higher-ups in America. And you, my loving mother, will yet shine up the block with the joy from your children.
“I am sending you another box of things, and so soon as I get from you the word, I’ll send for you the ship tickets, even if it costs the money from all the banks in America.
“Luck and blessings on your dear heads. I am going around praying and counting the minutes till you are all with me together in America.”
Our lessons had gone on steadily for some months and already he was able to write the letters of the alphabet. One morning before I was out of bed he knocked at my door.
“Quick only! A blue letter printed from Russia!” he shouted in an excited voice.