From Plotzk to Boston | Page 2

1891, a mighty wave of the emigration movement swept over all parts of Russia, carrying with it a vast number of the Jewish population to the distant shores of the New World--from tyranny to democracy, from darkness to light, from bondage and persecution to freedom, justice and equality. But the great mass knew nothing of these things; they were going to the foreign world in hopes only of earning their bread and worshiping their God in peace. The different currents that directed the course of that wave cannot be here enumerated. Suffice it to say that its power was enormous. All over the land homes were broken up, families separated, lives completely altered, for a common end.
The emigration fever was at its height in Plotzk, my native town, in the central western part of Russia, on the Dvina River. "America" was in everybody's mouth. Business men talked of it over their accounts; the market women made up their quarrels that they might discuss it from stall to stall; people who had relatives in the famous land went around reading their letters for the enlightenment of less fortunate folks; the one letter-carrier informed the public how many letters arrived from America, and who were the recipients; children played at emigrating; old folks shook their sage heads over the evening fire, and prophesied no good for those who braved the terrors of the sea and the foreign goal beyond it;--all talked of it, but scarcely anybody knew one true fact about this magic land. For book-knowledge was not for them; and a few persons--they were a dressmaker's daughter, and a merchant with his two sons--who had returned from America after a long visit, happened to be endowed with extraordinary imagination, (a faculty closely related to their knowledge of their old country-men's ignorance), and their descriptions of life across the ocean, given daily, for some months, to eager audiences, surpassed anything in the Arabian Nights. One sad fact threw a shadow over the splendor of the gold-paved, Paradise-like fairyland. The travelers all agreed that Jews lived there in the most shocking impiety.
Driven by a necessity for bettering the family circumstances, and by certain minor forces which cannot now be named, my father began to think seriously of casting his lot with the great stream of emigrants. Many family councils were held before it was agreed that the plan must be carried out. Then came the parting; for it was impossible for the whole family to go at once. I remember it, though I was only eight. It struck me as rather interesting to stand on the platform before the train, with a crowd of friends weeping in sympathy with us, and father waving his hat for our special benefit, and saying--the last words we heard him speak as the train moved off--
"Good-bye, Plotzk, forever!"
Then followed three long years of hope and doubt for father in America and us in Russia. There were toil and suffering and waiting and anxiety for all. There were--but to tell of all that happened in those years I should have to write a separate history. The happy day came when we received the long-coveted summons. And what stirring times followed! The period of preparation was one of constant delight to us children. We were four--my two sisters, one brother and myself. Our playmates looked up to us in respectful admiration; neighbors, if they made no direct investigations, bribed us with nice things for information as to what was going into every box, package and basket. And the house was dismantled--people came and carried off the furniture; closets, sheds and other nooks were emptied of their contents; the great wood-pile was taken away until only a few logs remained; ancient treasures such as women are so loath to part with, and which mother had carried with her from a dear little house whence poverty had driven us, were brought to light from their hiding places, and sacrificed at the altar whose flames were consuming so much that was fraught with precious association and endeared by family tradition; the number of bundles and boxes increased daily, and our home vanished hourly; the rooms became quite uninhabitable at last, and we children glanced in glee, to the anger of the echoes, when we heard that in the evening we were to start upon our journey.
But we did not go till the next morning, and then as secretly as possible. For, despite the glowing tales concerning America, people flocked to the departure of emigrants much as they did to a funeral; to weep and lament while (in the former case only, I believe) they envied. As everybody in Plotzk knew us, and as the departure of a whole family was very rousing, we dared not brave the sympathetic presence of the whole