grants. Many
family councils were held before it was agreed that the plan must be
carried out. Then came the parting; for it was impossible for the whole
family to go at once. I remember it, though I was only eight. It struck
me as rather interesting to stand on the platform before the train, with
a crowd of friends weeping in sympathy with us, and father waving his
hat for our special benefit, and saying--the last words we heard him
speak as the train moved off--

"Good-bye, Plotzk, forever!"

Then followed three long years of hope and doubt for father in America
and us in Russia. There were toil and suffering and waiting and anxiety
for all. There were--but to tell of all that happened in those years I
should have to write a separate history. The happy day came when we
received the long-coveted summons. And what stirring times followed! The
period of preparation was one of constant delight to us children. We
were four--my two sisters, one brother and myself. Our playmates looked
up to us in respectful admiration; neighbors, if they made no direct
investigations, bribed us with nice things for information as to what
was going into every box, package and basket. And the house was
dismantled--people came and carried off the furniture; closets, sheds
and other nooks were emptied of their contents; the great wood-pile was
taken away until only a few logs remained; ancient treasures such as
women are so loath to part with, and which mother had carried with her
from a dear little house whence poverty had driven us, were brought to
light from their hiding places, and sacrificed at the altar whose flames
were consuming so much that was fraught with precious association and
endeared by family tradition; the number of bundles and boxes increased
daily, and our home vanished hourly; the rooms became quite
uninhabitable at last, and we children glanced in glee, to the anger of
the echoes, when we heard that in the evening we were to start upon our
journey.

But we did not go till the next morning, and then as secretly as
possible. For, despite the glowing tales concerning America, people
flocked to the departure of emigrants much as they did to a funeral; to
weep and lament while (in the former case only, I believe) they envied.
As everybody in Plotzk knew us, and as the departure of a whole family
was very rousing, we dared not brave the sympathetic presence of the
whole township, that we knew we might expect. So we gave out a