Perhaps my mother alone, of us newcomers, appreciated the shabbiness of the little apartment, and realized that for her there was as yet no laying down of the burden of poverty.
Our initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new soil.

My father found occasion to instruct or correct us even on the way from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded together in a rickety cab.

He told us not to lean out of the windows, not to point, and explained the word "greenhorn." We did not want to be "greenhorns," and gave the strictest attention to my father's instructions.

I do not know when my parents found opportunity to review together the history of Polotzk in the three years past, for we children had no patience with the subject; my mother's narrative was constantly interrupted by irrelevant questions, interjections, and explanations.
[Illustration: UNION PLACE (BOSTON) WHERE MY NEW HOME WAITED FOR ME] The first meal was an object lesson of much variety.

My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had printing all over them.