Ivan and Anna left the Government ferryboat at the Battery. They started
to walk uptown, making for the East Side, Ivan carrying the big trunk
that no other man could lift.
It was a wonderful morning. The city was bathed in warm sunshine, and
the well-dressed men and women who crowded the sidewalks made the two
immigrants think that it was a festival day. Ivan and Anna stared at
each other in amazement. They had never seen such dresses as those worn
by the smiling women who passed them by; they had never seen such
well-groomed men.
"It is a feast day for certain," said Anna.
"They are dressed like princes and princesses," murmured Ivan. "There
are no poor here, Anna. None."
Like two simple children, they walked along the streets of the City of
Wonder. What a contrast it was to the gray, stupid towns where the
Terror waited to spring upon the cowed people. In Bobruisk, Minsk,
Vilna, and Libau the people were sullen and afraid. They walked in
dread, but in the City of Wonder beside the glorious Hudson every person
seemed happy and contented.
They lost their way, but they walked on, looking at the wonderful shop
windows, the roaring elevated trains, and the huge skyscrapers. Hours
afterward they found themselves in Fifth Avenue near Thirty-third
Street, and there the miracle happened to the two Russian immigrants.
It was a big miracle inasmuch as it proved the Dream a truth, a great
truth.
Ivan and Anna attempted to cross the avenue, but they became confused
in the snarl of traffic. They dodged backward and forward as the stream
of automobiles swept by them. Anna screamed, and, in response to her
scream, a traffic policeman, resplendent in a new uniform, rushed to
her side. He took the arm of Anna and flung up a commanding hand. The
charging autos halted. For five blocks north and south they jammed on
the brakes when the unexpected interruption occurred, and Big Ivan
gasped.
"Don't be flurried, little woman," said the cop. "Sure I can tame 'em by
liftin' me hand."
Anna didn't understand what he said, but she knew it was something nice
by the manner in which his Irish eyes smiled down upon her. And in front
of the waiting automobiles he led her with the same care that he would
give to a duchess, while Ivan, carrying the big trunk, followed them,
wondering much. Ivan's mind went back to Bobruisk on the night the
Terror was abroad.
The policeman led Anna to the sidewalk, patted Ivan good-naturedly upo
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