my mother's
right hand, in the years preceding the emigration, when there were no
more servants or dependents. Then there was the family tradition that
Mary was the quicker, the brighter of the two, and that hers could be
no common lot. Frieda was relied upon for help, and her sister for
glory. And when I failed as a milliner's apprentice, while Frieda made
excellent progress at the dressmaker's, our fates, indeed, were
sealed. It was understood, even before we reached Boston, that she
would go to work and I to school. In view of the family prejudices, it
was the inevitable course. No injustice was intended. My father sent
us hand in hand to school, before he had ever thought of America. If,
in America, he had been able to support his family unaided, it would
have been the culmination of his best hopes to see all his children at
school, with equal advantages at home. But when he had done his best,
and was still unable to provide even bread and shelter for us all, he
was compelled to make us children self-supporting as fast as it was
practicable. There was no choosing possible; Frieda was the oldest,
the strongest, the best prepared, and the only one who was of legal
age to be put to work.

My father has nothing to answer for. He divided the world between his
children in accordance with the laws of the country and the compulsion
of his circumstances. I have no need of defending him. It is myself
that I would like to defend, and I cannot. I remember that I accepted
the arrangements made for my sister and me without much reflection,
and everything that was planned for my advantage I took as a matter of
course. I was no heartless monster, but a decidedly self-centred
child. If my sister had seemed unhappy it would have troubled me; but
I am ashamed to recall that I did not consider how little it was that
contented her. I was so preoccupied with my own happiness that I did
not half perceive the splendid devotion of her attitude towards me,
the sweetness of her joy in my good luck. She not only stood by
approvingly when I was helped to everything; she cheerfully waited on
me herself. And I took everything from her hand as if it were my due.

The two of us stood a moment in the doorway of the tenement house on
Arlington Street, that wonderful September morning when I first went
to school. It was I that ran away, on winged feet of joy and
expectation; it was she whose feet were bound in the treadmill of
daily toil. And I was