The name they gave me was hardly new. My Hebrew name
being Maryashe in full, Mashke for short, Russianized into Marya
(_Mar-ya_) my friends said that it would hold good in English as _Mary_;
which was very disappointing, as I longed to possess a strange-sounding
American name like the others.
I am forgetting the consolation I had, in this matter of names, from the
use of my surname, which I have had no occasion to mention until now. I
found on my arrival that my father was "Mr. Antin" on the slightest
provocation, and not, as in Polotzk, on state occasions alone. And so I
was "Mary Antin," and I felt very important to answer to such a
dignified title. It was just like America that even plain people should
wear their surnames on week days.
As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and so
clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to
Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household goods,
my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way, and I am
sure he was not ashamed of us. So much we had achieved toward our
Americanization during the two weeks since our landing.
Crescent Beach is a name that is printed in very small type on the maps
of the environs of Boston, but a life-size strip of sand curves from
Winthrop to Lynn; and that is historic ground in the annals of my
family. The place is now a popular resort for holiday crowds, and is
famous under the name of Revere Beach.
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