ttered very little to them what the "piece" was about. I
thought they really admired my sentiments. On the street, in the
schoolyard, I was pointed out. The people said, "That's Mary Antin.
She had her name in the paper." _I_ thought they said, "This is she
who loves her country and worships George Washington."

To repeat, I was well aware that I was something of a celebrity, and
took all possible satisfaction in the fact; yet I gave my schoolmates
no occasion to call me "stuck-up." My vanity did not express itself in
strutting or wagging the head. I played tag and puss-in-the-corner in
the schoolyard, and did everything that was comrade-like. But in the
schoolroom I conducted myself gravely, as befitted one who was
preparing for the noble career of a poet.

I am forgetting Lizzie McDee. I am trying to give the impression that
I behaved with at least outward modesty during my schoolgirl triumphs,
whereas Lizzie could testify that she knew Mary Antin as a vain
boastful, curly-headed little Jew. For I had a special style of
deportment for Lizzie. If there was any girl in the school besides me
who could keep near the top of the class all the year through, and
give bright answers when the principal or the school committee popped
sudden questions, and write rhymes that almost always rhymed, _I_ was
determined that that ambitious person should not soar unduly in her
own estimation. So I took care to show Lizzie all my poetry, and when
she showed me hers I did not admire it too warmly. Lizzie, as I have
already said, was in a Sunday-school mood even on week days; her
verses all had morals. My poems were about the crystal snow, and the
ocean blue, and sweet spring, and fleecy clouds; when I tried to drag
in a moral it kicked so that the music of my lines went out in a
groan. So I had a sweet revenge when Lizzie, one day, volunteered to
bolster up the eloquence of Mr. Jones, the principal, who was
lecturing the class for bad behavior, by comparing the bad boy in the
schoolroom to the rotten apple that spoils the barrelful. The groans,
coughs, a-hem's, feet shufflings, and paper pellets that filled the
room as Saint Elizabeth sat down, even in the principal's presence,
were sweet balm to my smart of envy; I didn't care if I didn't know
how to moralize.

When my teacher had visitors I was aware that I was the show pupil of
the class. I was always made to recite, my compositions were passed
around, and often I was called up on t