ally had his hands on the heroine's throat, while the
hero was bursting in through a graceful drapery to the rescue of his
beloved. If a bundle came into the house wrapped in a stained old
newspaper, I laboriously smoothed out the paper and read it through. I
enjoyed it all, and found fault with nothing that I read. And, as in
the case of the Vitebsk readings, I cannot find that I suffered any
harm. Of course, reading so many better books, there came a time when
the diamond-ring story paper disgusted me; but in the beginning my
appetite for print was so enormous that I could let nothing pass
through my hands unread, while my taste was so crude that nothing
printed could offend me.

Good reading matter came into the house from one other source besides
the library. The Yiddish newspapers of the day were excellent, and my
father subscribed to the best of them. Since that time Yiddish
journalism has sadly degenerated, through imitation of the vicious
"yellow journals" of the American press.

There was one book in the library over which I pored very often, and
that was the encyclopaedia. I turned usually to the names of famous
people, beginning, of course, with George Washington. Oftenest of all
I read the biographical sketches of my favorite authors, and felt that
the worthies must have been glad to die just to have their names and
histories printed out in the book of fame. It seemed to me the
apotheosis of glory to be even briefly mentioned in an encyclopaedia.
And there grew in me an enormous ambition that devoured all my other
ambitions, which was no less than this: that I should live to know
that after my death my name would surely be printed in the
encyclopaedia. It was such a prodigious thing to expect that I kept the
idea a secret even from myself, just letting it lie where it sprouted,
in an unexplored corner of my busy brain. But it grew on me in spite
of myself, till finally I could not resist the temptation to study out
the exact place in the encyclopaedia where my name would belong. I saw
that it would come not far from "Alcott, Louisa M."; and I covered my
face with my hands, to hide the silly, baseless joy in it. I practised
saying my name in the encyclopaedic form, "Antin, Mary"; and I realized
that it sounded chopped off, and wondered if I might not annex a
middle initial. I wanted to ask my teacher about it, but I was afraid
I might betray my reasons. For, infatuated though I was with the idea
of the grea