It was far more cosey than Polotzk--at least, so it seemed to me; for behind the store was the kitchen, where, in the intervals of slack trade, she did her cooking and washing.

Arlington Street customers were used to waiting while the storekeeper salted the soup or rescued a loaf from the oven.
Once more Fortune favored my family with a thin little smile, and my father, in reply to a friendly inquiry, would say, "One makes a living," with a shrug of the shoulders that added "but nothing to boast of." It was characteristic of my attitude toward bread-and-butter matters that this contented me, and I felt free to devote myself to the conquest of my new world.

Looking back to those critical first years, I see myself always behaving like a child let loose in a garden to play and dig and chase the butterflies.

Occasionally, indeed, I was stung by the wasp of family trouble; but I knew a healing ointment--my faith in America.

My father had come to America to make a living.