"In spite of all this, my father still kept up his studies. At night, after carefully closing the shutters and stuffing the cracks with rags, so that no ray of light could be seen outside, he would light a little tallow dip and sit reading for hours. He read the same books over and over, for books were very hard to get. The ones he wanted were almost always forbidden. To be found possessing one meant banishment. So all of his books he kept concealed even more carefully than he did his money. Indeed, he valued them more!
"Sundays he devoted to the education of his children, always with one of us on guard outside the door. It was then that I learned to read English. Father had taught himself with great thoroughness, because he was determined some day to go to America. America—that was his dream! But how to get there! It seemed certain that he could never save money enough to pay for so many. That problem was soon to be settled."
She paused and put her hand to her throat, shivering a little.
"Are you cold?" Dan asked.
"No; I am trembling at the thought of what remains to tell. A case of cholera appeared in our village. It was reported to the magistrate. At once all the Russian officials removed to Warsaw, and a cordon of Russian troops was thrown about the village. No one was permitted to enter or to leave. The cholera spread. The people were ignorant; they did not know what to do, and there was no one to tell them; they could only wait and pray. At the end of a month, the disease had spent itself, but of those who had lived in the village, only one in ten remained. Of our family, there were left only my father and myself."
Dan's hand went out to hers. She did not draw away.
"For a time," she went on, "father was stunned by the blow; I have always believed that he was very near madness. But he shook off his sorrow and decided that the time had come to seek America. We could not depart openly; that was not permitted; so one night he dug up the little hoard of money he had concealed, cut off my hair and dressed me in boys' clothes, arrayed himself in the rags of a goat-herd, and about midnight we set off. I was eleven years old at the time, and I remember every incident distinctly. We could travel only at night, hiding at every sound. By day, we concealed ourselves under culverts, in ditches, under heaps of brush. Luckily, Polish people are eager to help each other, so we did not starve, and we got forward a little every night. At the end of six weeks, we crossed the frontier and were safe.
"There is not much more to tell. We reached New York; and I was placed in school—I wish you could realise all that meant to me! For a long time, I could not go out into the street without being afraid. It seemed impossible that there was no longer anything to fear. When at last I understood, it was as though a great load were lifted. That was ten years ago. For the past three years, I have been a teacher in the Hester Street school."
She sat silent for a moment, then with a long breath, drew her hand away.
"Do you wonder that I love America?" she asked.