"I am from the Social Betterment Society," she said. "I hear you"ve been dispossessed. What"s the trouble here?"
"Oi weh! My bitter heart!" I yet see before me the anguish of my mother"s face as she turned her head away from the charity lady.
My father"s eyes sank to the floor. I could feel him shrink in upon himself like one condemned.
The bite of food turned to gall in my throat.
"How long have you been in America? Where were you born?" She questioned by rote, taking out pad and pencil.
The silence of the room was terrible. The woman who had invited us for supper slunk into the bedroom, unable to bear our shame.
"How long have you been in America?" repeated the charity lady.
Choked silence.
"Is there any one here who can speak?" She translated her question into Yiddish.
"A black year on Gedalyeh Mindel, the liar!" my mother burst out at last. "Why did we leave our home? We were among our own. We were people there. But what are we here? n.o.bodies--n.o.bodies! Cats and dogs at home ain"t thrown in the street. Such things could only happen in America--the land without a heart--the land without a G.o.d!"
"For goodness" sakes! Is there any one here intelligent enough to answer a straight question?" The charity lady turned with disgusted impatience from my mother to me. "Can you tell me how long you have been in this country? Where were you born?"
"None of your business!" I struck out blindly, not aware of what I was saying.
"Why so bold? We are only trying to help you and you are so resentful."
"To the Devil with your help! I"m sick no longer. I can take care of my mother--without your charity!"
The next day I went back to the shop--to the same long hours--to the same low wages--to the same pig-eyed, fat-bellied boss. But I was no longer the same. For the first time in my life I bent to the inevitable. I accepted my defeat. But something in me, stronger than I, rose triumphant even in my surrender.
"Yes, I must submit to the shop," I thought. "But the shop shall not crush me. Only my body I must sell into slavery--not my heart--not my soul.
"To any one who sees me from without, I am only a dirt-eating worm, a grub in the ground, but I know that above this dark earth-place in which I am sunk is the green gra.s.s--and beyond the green gra.s.s, the sun and sky. Alone, unaided, I must dig my way up to the light!"
Lunch-hour at the factory. My book of Sh.e.l.ley"s poems before me and I was soon millions of miles beyond the raucous voices of the hungry eaters.
"Did you already hear the last news?" Yetta tore my book from me in her excitement.
"What news?" I scowled at her for waking me from my dreams.
"We"re going to have electricity by the machines. And the forelady says that the new boss will give us ten cents more on a dozen waists!"
"G.o.d from the world! How did it happen--electricity--better pay?"
I asked in amazement. For that was the first I had heard of improved conditions of work.
But little by little, step by step, the sanitation improved. Open windows, swept floors, clean wash-rooms, individual drinking-cups introduced a new era of factory hygiene. Our shop was caught up in the general movement for social betterment that stirred the country.
It was not all done in a day. Weary years of struggle pa.s.sed before the workers emerged from the each-for-himself existence into an organized togetherness for mutual improvement.
At last, with the shortened hours of work, I had enough vitality left at the end of the day to join the night-school. Again my dream flamed. Again America beckoned. In the school there would be education--air, life for my cramped-in spirit. I would learn to form the thoughts that surged formless in me. I would find the teacher that would make me articulate.
Sh.e.l.ley was English literature.
So I joined the literature cla.s.s. The course began with the "De Coverley Papers." Filled with insatiate thirst, I drank in every line with the feeling that any minute I would get to the fountain-heart of revelation.
Night after night I read with tireless devotion. But of what? The manners and customs of the eighteenth century, of people two hundred years dead.
One evening after a month"s attendance, when the cla.s.s had dwindled from fifty to four and the teacher began scolding us who were left for those who were absent, my bitterness broke.
"Do you know why all the girls are dropping away from the cla.s.s? It"s because they have too much sense to waste themselves on the "De Coverley Papers." Us four girls are four fools. We could learn more in the streets. It"s dirty and wrong, but it"s life. What are the "De Coverley Papers"? Dry dust fit for the ash can."
"Perhaps you had better tell the board of education your ideas of the standard cla.s.sics," she scoffed, white with rage.
"Cla.s.sics? If all the cla.s.sics are as dead as the "De Coverley Papers," I"d rather read the ads in the papers. How can I learn from this old man that"s dead two hundred years how to live my life?"
That was the first of many schools I had tried. And they were all the same. A dull course of study and the lifeless, tired teachers--no more interested in their pupils than in the wooden benches before them--chilled all my faith in the American schools.
More and more the all-consuming need for a friend possessed me. In the street, in the cars, in the subways, I was always seeking, ceaselessly seeking, for eyes, a face, the flash of a smile that would be light in my darkness.
I felt sometimes that I was only burning out my heart for a shadow, an echo, a wild dream. But I couldn"t help it. Nothing was real to me but my hope of finding a friend.
One day my sister Bessie came home much excited over her new high-school teacher. "Miss Latham makes it so interesting!" she exclaimed. "She stops in the middle of the lesson and tells us things. She ain"t like a teacher. She"s like a real person."
At supper next evening, Bessie related more wonder stories of her beloved teacher. "She"s so different! She"s friends with us.... To-day, when she gave us out our composition, Mamie Cohen asked from what book we should read up and she said, "Just take it out of your heart and say it.""
"Just take it out of your heart and say it." The simple words lingered in my mind, stirring a whirl of hidden thoughts and feelings. It seemed as if they had been said directly to me.
A few days later Bessie ran in from school, her cheeks flushed, her eyes dancing with excitement. "Give a look at the new poem teacher gave me to learn!" It was a quotation from Kipling:
"Then only the Master shall praise us, And only the Master shall blame, And no one shall work for money, And no one shall work for fame; But each for the joy of the working, And each in his separate Star, Shall draw the thing as he sees it For the G.o.d of things as they are."
Only a few brief lines, but in their music the pulses of my being leaped into life. And so it was from day to day. Miss Latham"s sayings kept turning themselves in my mind like a lingering melody that could not be shaken off. Something irresistible seemed to draw me to her. She beckoned to me almost as strongly as America had on the way over in the boat.
I wondered, "Should I go to see her and talk myself out from my heart to her?
"Meshugeneh! Where--what? How come you to her? What will you say for your reason?
"What"s the difference what I"ll say! I only want to give a look on her ..."
And so I kept on restlessly debating. Should I follow my heart and go to her, or should I have a little sense?
Finally the desire to see her became so strong that I could no longer reason about it. I left the factory in the middle of the day to seek her out.
All the way to her school I prayed: "G.o.d--G.o.d! If I could only find one human soul that cared ..."
I found her bending over her desk. Her hair was gray, but she did not look tired like the other teachers. She was correcting papers and was absorbed in her task. I watched her, not daring to interrupt. Presently she threw back her head and gave a little laugh.
Then she saw me. "Why, how do you do?" She rose. "Come and sit down."