rsemaid, and a
dvornik, or outdoor man, to take care of the horses, the cow, and the
woodpile. All the year round we kept open house, as I remember.
Cousins and aunts were always about, and on holidays friends of all
degrees gathered in numbers. And coming and going in the wing set
apart for business guests were merchants, traders, country peddlers,
peasants, soldiers, and minor government officials. It was a full
house at all times, and especially so during fairs, and at the season
of the military draft.

In the family wing there was also enough going on. There were four of
us children, besides father and mother and grandmother, and the
parasitic cousins. Fetchke was the eldest; I was the second; the third
was my only brother, named Joseph, for my father's father; and the
fourth was Deborah, named for my mother's mother.

I suppose I ought to explain my own name also, especially because I am
going to emerge as the heroine by and by. Be it therefore known that I
was named Maryashe, for a bygone aunt. I was never called by my full
name, however. "Maryashe" was too dignified for me. I was always
"Mashinke," or else "Mashke," by way of diminutive. A variety of
nicknames, mostly suggested by my physical peculiarities, were
bestowed on me from time to time by my fond or foolish relatives. My
uncle Berl, for example, gave me the name of "Zukrochene Flum," which
I am not going to translate, because it is uncomplimentary.

My sister Fetchke was always the good little girl, and when our
troubles began she was an important member of the family. What sort of
little girl I was will be written by and by. Joseph was the best
Jewish boy that ever was born, but he hated to go to heder, so he had
to be whipped, of course. Deborah was just a baby, and her principal
characteristic was single-mindedness. If she had teething to attend
to, she thought of nothing else day or night, and communicated with
the family on no other subject. If it was whooping-cough, she whooped
most heartily; if it was measles, she had them thick.

It was the normal thing in Polotzk, where the mothers worked as well
as the fathers, for the children to be left in the hands of
grandmothers and nursemaids. I suffer reminiscent terrors when I
recall Deborah's nurse, who never opened her lips except to frighten
us children--or else to lie. That girl never told the truth if she
could help it. I know it is so because I heard her tell eleven or
twelve unnecessary lies