tell
my tale, for once, and never hark back any more. I will write a bold
"Finis" at the end, and shut the book with a bang!

THE PROMISED LAND

CHAPTER I

WITHIN THE PALE

When I was a little girl, the world was divided into two parts;
namely, Polotzk, the place where I lived, and a strange land called
Russia. All the little girls I knew lived in Polotzk, with their
fathers and mothers and friends. Russia was the place where one's
father went on business. It was so far off, and so many bad things
happened there, that one's mother and grandmother and grown-up aunts
cried at the railroad station, and one was expected to be sad and
quiet for the rest of the day, when the father departed for Russia.

After a while there came to my knowledge the existence of another
division, a region intermediate between Polotzk and Russia. It seemed
there was a place called Vitebsk, and one called Vilna, and Riga, and
some others. From those places came photographs of uncles and cousins
one had never seen, and letters, and sometimes the uncles themselves.
These uncles were just like people in Polotzk; the people in Russia,
one understood, were very different. In answer to one's questions, the
visiting uncles said all sorts of silly things, to make everybody
laugh; and so one never found out why Vitebsk and Vilna, since they
were not Polotzk, were not as sad as Russia. Mother hardly cried at
all when the uncles went away.

One time, when I was about eight years old, one of my grown-up
cousins went to Vitebsk. Everybody went to see her off, but I didn't.
I went with her. I was put on the train, with my best dress tied up in
a bandana, and I stayed on the train for hours and hours, and came to
Vitebsk. I could not tell, as we rushed along, where the end of
Polotzk was. There were a great many places on the way, with strange
names, but it was very plain when we got to Vitebsk.

The railroad station was a big place, much bigger than the one in
Polotzk. Several trains came in at once, instead of only one. There
was an immense buffet, with fruits and confections, and a place where
books were sold. My cousin never let go my hand, on account of the
crowd. Then we rode in a cab for ever so long, and I saw the most
beautiful streets and shops and houses, much bigger and finer than any
in Polotzk.

We remained in Vitebsk several days, and I saw many wonderful things,
but what gave me my one great surprise was something that wasn