ulating, deliberate, she told
herself.

Thousands of years of persecution behind her made her quick to
appreciate suffering in others, and gave her an innate sense of
fellowship with the downtrodden. She resolved to use that sense as a
searchlight aiding her to see and overcome obstacles. She told herself
that she was done with maudlin sentimentality. On the rare occasions
when she had accompanied her mother to Chicago, the two women had found
delight in wandering about the city's foreign quarters. When other
small-town women buyers snatched occasional moments of leisure for the
theater or personal shopping, these two had spent hours in the ghetto
around Jefferson and Taylor, and Fourteenth Streets. Something in
the sight of these people--alien, hopeful, emotional, often
grotesque--thrilled and interested both the women. And at sight of an
ill-clad Italian, with his slovenly, wrinkled old-young wife, turning
the handle of his grind organ whilst both pairs of eyes searched windows
and porches and doorsteps with a hopeless sort of hopefulness, she lost
her head entirely and emptied her limp pocketbook of dimes, and nickels,
and pennies. Incidentally it might be stated that she loved the cheap
and florid music of the hand organ itself.

It was rumored that Brandeis' Bazaar was for sale. In the spring
Gerretson's offered Fanny the position of buyer and head of the china,
glassware, and kitchenware sections. Gerretson's showed an imposing
block of gleaming plate-glass front now, and drew custom from a dozen
thrifty little towns throughout the Fox River Valley. Fanny refused the
offer. In March she sold outright the stock, good-will, and fixtures of
Brandeis' Bazaar. The purchaser was a thrifty, farsighted traveling
man who had wearied of the road and wanted to settle down. She sold the
household goods too--those intimate, personal pieces of wood and cloth
that had become, somehow, part of her life. She had grown up with them.
She knew the history of every nick, every scratch and worn spot. Her
mother lived again in every piece. The old couch went off in a farmer's
wagon. Fanny turned away when they joggled it down the front steps and
into the rude vehicle. It was like another funeral. She was furious to
find herself weeping again. She promised herself punishment for that.

Up in her bedroom she opened the bottom drawer of her bureau. That
bureau and its history and the history of every piece of furniture in
the room bore