sh yet, but as she could perform the acts of weighing,
measuring, and mental computation of fractions mechanically, she was
able to give her whole attention to the dark mysteries of the
language, as intercourse with her customers gave her opportunity. In
this she made such rapid progress that she soon lost all sense of
disadvantage, and conducted herself behind the counter very much as if
she were back in her old store in Polotzk. It was far more cosey than
Polotzk--at least, so it seemed to me; for behind the store was the
kitchen, where, in the intervals of slack trade, she did her cooking
and washing. Arlington Street customers were used to waiting while the
storekeeper salted the soup or rescued a loaf from the oven.

Once more Fortune favored my family with a thin little smile, and my
father, in reply to a friendly inquiry, would say, "One makes a
living," with a shrug of the shoulders that added "but nothing to boast
of." It was characteristic of my attitude toward bread-and-butter
matters that this contented me, and I felt free to devote myself to the
conquest of my new world. Looking back to those critical first years,
I see myself always behaving like a child let loose in a garden to play
and dig and chase the butterflies. Occasionally, indeed, I was stung by
the wasp of family trouble; but I knew a healing ointment--my faith in
America. My father had come to America to make a living. America, which
was free and fair and kind, must presently yield him what he sought. I
had come to America to see a new world, and I followed my own ends with
the utmost assiduity; only, as I ran out to explore, I would look back
to see if my house were in order behind me--if my family still kept its
head above water.

In after years, when I passed as an American among Americans, if I was
suddenly made aware of the past that lay forgotten,--if a letter from
Russia, or a paragraph in the newspaper, or a conversation overheard
in the street-car, suddenly reminded me of what I might have been,--I
thought it miracle enough that I, Mashke, the granddaughter of Raphael
the Russian, born to a humble destiny, should be at home in an
American metropolis, be free to fashion my own life, and should dream
my dreams in English phrases. But in the beginning my admiration was
spent on more concrete embodiments of the splendors of America; such
as fine houses, gay shops, electric engines and apparatus, public
buildings, illuminations, and parades