How came it that I went to the free vacation house was like this:
One day the visiting teacher from the school comes to find out for why don’t I get the children ready for school in time; for why are they so often late.
I let out on her my whole bitter heart. I told her my head was on wheels from worrying. When I get up in the morning, I don’t know on what to turn first: should I nurse the baby, or make Sam’s breakfast, or attend on the older children. I only got two hands.
“My dear woman,” she says, “you are about to have a nervous breakdown. You need to get away to the country for a rest and vacation.”
“Gott im Himmel!” says I. “Don’t I know I need a rest? But how? On what money can I go to the country?”
“I know of a nice country place for mothers and children that will not cost you anything. It is free.”
“Free! I never heard from it.”
“Some kind people have made arrangements so no one need pay,” she explains.
Later, in a few days, I just finished up with Masha and Mendel and Frieda and Sonya to send them to school, and I was getting Aby ready for kindergarten, when I hear a knock on the door, and a lady comes in. She had a white starched dress like a nurse and carried a black satchel in her hand.
“I am from the Social Betterment Society,” she tells me. “You want to go to the country?”