front of each, and only one empty clothes-line between them. I do not
want to be dragged in as a witness in a case of assault and battery,
so I descend to the street again, grateful to note, as I pass, that
the third-floor baby is still.

In front of the door I squeeze through a group of children. They are
going to play tag, and are counting to see who should be "it":--

"My-mother-and-your-mother-went-out-to-hang-clothes;
My-mother-gave-your-mother-a-punch-in-the-nose."

If the children's couplet does not give a vivid picture of the life,
manners, and customs of Dover Street, no description of mine can ever
do so.

Frieda was married before we came to Dover Street, and went to live in
East Boston. This left me the eldest of the children at home. Whether
on this account, or because I was outgrowing my childish carelessness,
or because I began to believe, on the cumulative evidence of the
Crescent Beach, Chelsea, and Wheeler Street adventures, that America,
after all, was not going to provide for my father's family,--whether
for any or all of these reasons, I began at this time to take
bread-and-butter matters more to heart, and to ponder ways and means
of getting rich. My father sought employment wherever work was going
on. His health was poor; he aged very fast. Nevertheless he offered
himself for every kind of labor; he offered himself for a boy's wages.
Here he was found too weak, here too old; here his imperfect English
was in the way, here his Jewish appearance. He had a few short terms
of work at this or that; I do not know the name of the form of
drudgery that my father did not practise. But all told, he did not
earn enough to pay the rent in full and buy a bone for the soup. The
only steady source of income, for I do not know what years, was my
brother's earnings from his newspapers.

Surely this was the time for me to take my sister's place in the
workshop. I had had every fair chance until now: school, my time to
myself, liberty to run and play and make friends. I had graduated from
grammar school; I was of legal age to go to work. What was I doing,
sitting at home and dreaming?

I was minding my business, of course; with all my might I was minding
my business. As I understood it, my business was to go to school, to
learn everything there was to know, to write poetry, become famous,
and make the family rich. Surely it was not shirking to lay out such a
programme for myself. I had boundless fait