“Learning flows free like milk and honey,” it dreamed itself in me.
I was in my heaven—in the schools of America—in open, sunny fields—a child with other children. Our lesson-books were singing birds and whispering trees—chanting brooks and beckoning skies. We breathed in learning and wisdom as naturally as flowers breathe in sunlight.
After our lessons were over, we all joined hands skipping about like a picture of dancing fairies I had once seen in a shop-window.
I was so full of the joy of togetherness—the great wonder of the new world; it pressed on my heart like sorrow. Slowly, I stole away from the other children into silent solitude, wrestling and praying to give out what surged in me into some form of beauty. And out of my struggle to shape my thoughts beautifully, a great song filled the world.
“Soon she’s all right to come back to the shop—yes, nurse?” The voice of Yetta Solomon broke into my dreaming.
Wearily I opened my eyes. I saw I was still on earth.
Yetta’s broad, generous face smiled anxiously at me. “Lucky yet the car that run you over didn’t break your hands or your feet. So long you got yet good hands you’ll soon be back by the machine.”
“Machine?” I shuddered. “I can’t go back to the shop again. I got so used to sunlight and quiet in the hospital I’ll not be able to stand the hell again.”
“Shah!—Shah!” soothed Yetta. “Why don’t you learn yourself to take life like it is? What’s got to be, got to be. In Russia, you could hope to run away from your troubles to America. But from America where can you go?”
“Yes,” I sighed. “In the blackest days of Russia, there was always the hope from America. In Russia we had only a mud hut; not enough to eat and always the fear from the Cossack, but still we managed to look up to the sky, to dream, to think of the new world where we’ll have a chance to be people, not slaves.”