My
father had come to America to make a living. America, which was free and
fair and kind, must presently yield him what he sought. I had come to
America to see a new world, and I followed my own ends with the utmost
assiduity; only, as I ran out to explore, I would look back to see if my
house were in order behind me--if my family still kept its head above
water.
In after years, when I passed as an American among Americans, if I was
suddenly made aware of the past that lay forgotten,--if a letter from
Russia, or a paragraph in the newspaper, or a conversation overheard in
the street-car, suddenly reminded me of what I might have been,--I
thought it miracle enough that I, Mashke, the granddaughter of Raphael
the Russian, born to a humble destiny, should be at home in an American
metropolis, be free to fashion my own life, and should dream my dreams
in English phrases. But in the beginning my admiration was spent on more
concrete embodiments of the splendors of America; such as fine houses,
gay shops, electric engines and apparatus, public buildings,
illuminations, and parades. My early letters to my Russian friends were
filled with boastful descriptions of these glories of my new country. No
native citizen of Chelsea took such pride and delight in its
institutions as I did. It required no fife and drum corps, no Fourth of
July procession, to set me tingling with patriotism. Even the common
agents and instruments of municipal life, such as the letter carrier and
the fire engines, I regarded with a measure of respect.
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