f the high school at Sparta--think of a
modern high school in ancient Sparta!--after two years in the army, was
ready for life. "All these later years I had been hearing from America.
An elder brother was there who had found it a fine country and was
urging me to join him. Fortunes could easily be made, he said. I got a
great desire to see it, and in one way and another I raised the money
for fare--250 francs--($50) and set sail from the old port of Athens. I
got ashore without any trouble in New York, and got work immediately as
a push-cart man. Six of us lived together in two rooms down on
Washington Street. At the end of our day's work we all divided up our
money even; we were all free."

[Sidenote: A Swede]

A Swedish farmer says: "A man who had been living in America once came
to visit the little village near our cottage. He wore gold rings set
with jewels and had a fine watch. He said that food was cheap in America
and that a man could earn nearly ten times as much there as in Sweden.
There seemed to be no end to his money." Sickness came, with only black
bread and a sort of potato soup or gruel for food, and at last it was
decided that the older brother was to go to America. The first letter
from him contained this: "I have work with a farmer who pays me
sixty-four kroner[10] a month and my board. I send you twenty kroner,
and will try to send that every month. This is a good country. All about
me are Swedes, who have taken farms and are getting rich. They eat white
bread and plenty of meat. One farmer, a Swede, made more than 25,000
kroner on his crop last year. The people here do not work such long
hours as in Sweden, but they work much harder, and they have a great
deal of machinery, so that the crop one farmer gathers will fill two big
barns."

[Sidenote: An Irish Woman]

An Irish cook, one of "sivin childher," had a sister Tilly, who
emigrated to Philadelphia, started as a greenhorn at $2 a week, learned
to cook and bake and wash, all American fashion, and before a year was
gone had money enough laid up to send for the teller of the story. The
two gradually brought over the whole family, and Joseph owns a big
flour store and Phil is a broker, while his son is in politics and the
city council, and his daughter Ann (she calls herself Antoinette now) is
engaged to a lawyer in New York. That is America's attractiveness and
opportunity and transformation in a nutshell.

[Sidenote: Foreign Mission School, Ca