THE EXODUS On the day when our steamer ticket arrived, my mother did not go out with her basket, my brother stayed out of heder, and my sister salted the soup three times.

I do not know what I did to celebrate the occasion.

Very likely I played tricks on Deborah, and wrote a long letter to my father.
Before sunset the news was all over Polotzk that Hannah Hayye had received a steamer ticket for America.

Then they began to come.

Friends and foes, distant relatives and new acquaintances, young and old, wise and foolish, debtors and creditors, and mere neighbors,--from every quarter of the city, from both sides of the Dvina, from over the Polota, from nowhere,--a steady stream of them poured into our street, both day and night, till the hour of our departure.