se us when he sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter. On
our second day I was thrilled with the realization of what this
freedom of education meant. A little girl from across the alley came
and offered to conduct us to school. My father was out, but we five
between us had a few words of English by this time. We knew the word
school. We understood. This child, who had never seen us till
yesterday, who could not pronounce our names, who was not much better
dressed than we, was able to offer us the freedom of the schools of
Boston! No application made, no questions asked, no examinations,
rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees. The doors stood open
for every one of us. The smallest child could show us the way.

This incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance
of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete
proof--almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand
it.

It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not
to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of
the term, he said, and we were going to move to Crescent Beach in a
week or so. We had to wait until the opening of the schools in
September. What a loss of precious time--from May till September!

Not that the time was really lost. Even the interval on Union Place
was crowded with lessons and experiences. We had to visit the stores
and be dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to learn
the mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube;
we had to learn to trade with the fruit peddler through the window,
and not to be afraid of the policeman; and, above all, we had to learn
English.

The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a
group by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen
them from those early days till now, I should still have remembered
them with gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of my American
teachers, I must begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and
taught us our first steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the
cookstove, the woman who showed her how to make the fire was an angel
of deliverance. A fairy godmother to us children was she who led us to
a wonderful country called "uptown," where, in a dazzlingly beautiful
palace called a "department store," we exchanged our hateful homemade
European costumes, which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the
child