But everything went wrong, till at last he made a great resolve to begin life all over again.

And the way to do that was to start on a new soil.

My father determined to emigrate to America.
I have now told who I am, what my people were, how I began life, and why I was brought to a new home.

Up to this point I have borrowed the recollections of my parents, to piece out my own fragmentary reminiscences.

But from now on I propose to be my own pilot across the seas of memory; and if I lose myself in the mists of uncertainty, or run aground on the reefs of speculation, I still hope to make port at last, and I shall look for welcoming faces on the shore.