namental lamp with a paper shade; and the lamp was usually out of
order. So there was as little motive for a common life as there was
room. The yard was only big enough for the perennial rubbish heap. The
narrow sidewalk was crowded. What were the people to do with
themselves? There were the saloons, the missions, the libraries, the
cheap amusement places, and the neighborhood houses. People selected
their resorts according to their tastes. The children, let it be
thankfully recorded, flocked mostly to the clubs; the little girls to
sew, cook, dance, and play games; the little boys to hammer and paste,
mend chairs, debate, and govern a toy republic. All these, of course,
are forms of baptism by soap and water.

Our neighborhood went in search of salvation to Morgan Memorial Hall,
Barnard Memorial, Morgan Chapel aforementioned, and some other clean
places that lighted a candle in their window. My brother, my sister
Dora, and I were introduced to some of the clubs by our young
neighbors, and we were glad to go. For our home also gave us little
besides meals in the kitchen and beds in the dark. What with the six
of us, and the store, and the baby, and sometimes a "greener" or two
from Polotzk, whom we lodged as a matter of course till they found a
permanent home--what with such a company and the size of our tenement,
we needed to get out almost as much as our neighbors' children. I say
almost; for our parlor we managed to keep pretty clear, and the lamp
on our centre table was always in order, and its light fell often on
an open book. Still, it was part of the life of Wheeler Street to
belong to clubs, so we belonged.

I didn't care for sewing or cooking, so I joined a dancing-club; and
even here I was a failure. I had been a very good dancer in Russia,
but here I found all the steps different, and I did not have the
courage to go out in the middle of the slippery floor and mince it and
toe it in front of the teacher. When I retired to a corner and tried
to play dominoes, I became suddenly shy of my partner; and I never
could win a game of checkers, although formerly I used to beat my
father at it. I tried to be friends with a little girl I had known in
Chelsea, but she met my advances coldly. She lived on Appleton Street,
which was too aristocratic to mix with Wheeler Street. Geraldine was
studying elocution, and she wore a scarlet cape and hood, and she was
going on the stage by and by. I acknowledged that her sense of