venture to say that Miss Nixon was struck by
something uncommon in the group we made, something outside of Semitic
features and the abashed manner of the alien. My little sister was as
pretty as a doll, with her clear pink-and-white face, short golden
curls, and eyes like blue violets when you caught them looking up. My
brother might have been a girl, too, with his cherubic contours of
face, rich red color, glossy black hair, and fine eyebrows. Whatever
secret fears were in his heart, remembering his former teachers, who
had taught with the rod, he stood up straight and uncringing before
the American teacher, his cap respectfully doffed. Next to him stood a
starved-looking girl with eyes ready to pop out, and short dark curls
that would not have made much of a wig for a Jewish bride.

All three children carried themselves rather better than the common
run of "green" pupils that were brought to Miss Nixon. But the figure
that challenged attention to the group was the tall, straight father,
with his earnest face and fine forehead, nervous hands eloquent in
gesture, and a voice full of feeling. This foreigner, who brought his
children to school as if it were an act of consecration, who regarded
the teacher of the primer class with reverence, who spoke of visions,
like a man inspired, in a common schoolroom, was not like other
aliens, who brought their children in dull obedience to the law; was
not like the native fathers, who brought their unmanageable boys, glad
to be relieved of their care. I think Miss Nixon guessed what my
father's best English could not convey. I think she divined that by
the simple act of delivering our school certificates to her he took
possession of America.

CHAPTER X

INITIATION

It is not worth while to refer to voluminous school statistics to see
just how many "green" pupils entered school last September, not
knowing the days of the week in English, who next February will be
declaiming patriotic verses in honor of George Washington and Abraham
Lincoln, with a foreign accent, indeed, but with plenty of enthusiasm.
It is enough to know that this hundred-fold miracle is common to the
schools in every part of the United States where immigrants are
received. And if I was one of Chelsea's hundred in 1894, it was only
to be expected, since I was one of the older of the "green" children,
and had had a start in my irregular schooling in Russia, and was
carried along by a tremendous desire