ly the three younger
children were left her, but the shop was not sufficient to support even
these. The stock grew smaller month by month, there never being anything
over wherewith to replenish it, and there was no escaping the fact that
one day soon the shop would remain empty.

And as if this were not enough, there came bad news from the children in
America. They did not complain much; on the contrary, they wrote most
hopefully about the future, when their position would certainly, so they
said, improve; but the mother's heart was not to be deceived, and she
felt instinctively that meanwhile they were doing anything but well,
while later--who could foresee what would happen later?

One day she got a letter from Yossef, who wrote that, convinced of the
impossibility of earning a livelihood within the Pale, he was about to
make use of an opportunity that offered itself, and settle in a distant
town outside of it. This made her very sad, and she wept over her
fate--to have a son living in a Gentile city, where there were hardly
any Jews at all. And the next letter from America added sorrow to
sorrow. Avrohom and Rochel had parted company, and were living in
different towns. She could not bear the thought of her young daughter
fending for herself among strangers--a thought that tortured her all the
more as she had a peculiar idea of America. She herself could not
account for the terror that would seize her whenever she remembered that
strange, distant life.

But the worst was nearly over; the turn for the better came soon. She
received word from Yossef that he had found a good position in his new
home, and in a few weeks he proved his letter true by sending her money.
From America, too, the news that came was more cheerful, even joyous.
Avrohom had secured steady work with good pay, and before long he wrote
for his younger brother to join him in America, and provided him with
all the funds he needed for travelling expenses. Rochel had engaged
herself to a young man, whose praises she sounded in her letters. Soon
after her wedding, she sent money to bring over another brother, and her
husband added a few lines, in which he spoke of "his great love for his
new relations," and how he "looked forward with impatience to having one
of them, his dear brother-in-law, come to live with him."

This was good and cheering news, and it all came within a year's time,
but the mother's heart grieved over it more than it rejoiced. Her