Selected Primary Sources

Education was free. That subject my father had written about repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to promise us when he sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter. On our second day I was thrilled with the realization of what this freedom of education meant. A little girl from across the alley came and offered to conduct us to school. My father was out, but we five between us had a few words of English by this time. We knew the word school. We understood. This child, who had never seen us till yesterday, who could not pronounce our names, who was not much better dressed than we, was able to offer us the freedom of the schools of Boston! No application made, no questions asked, no examinations, rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees. The doors stood open for every one of us. The smallest child could show us the way.

This incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete proof -- almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand it.

It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of the term, he said, and we were going to move to Crescent Beach in a week or so. We had to wait until the opening of the schools in September. What a loss of precious time -- from May till September!

Not that the time was lost. Even the interval on Union Place was crowded with lessons and experiences. We had to visit the stores and be dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to learn the mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube; we had to learn to trade with the fruit peddler through the window, and not be afraid of the policeman; and above all, we had to learn English.

The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a group by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen them from those early days till now, I should still have remembered them with gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of my American teachers, I must begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and taught us our first steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the cookstove, the woman who showed her how to make the fire was an angel of deliverance. A fairy godmother to us children was she who led us to a wonderful country called "uptown," where, in a dazzlingly beautiful palace called a "department store," we exchanged our hateful homemade European costumes, which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the children on the street, for real American machine-made garments, and issued forth glorified in each other's eyes. . . .

As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and so clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household goods, my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way, and I am sure he was not ashamed of us. So much we had achieved toward our Americanization during the two weeks since our landing.

Crescent Beach is a name that is printed in very small type on the maps of the environs of Boston, but a life-size strip of sand curves from Winthrop to Lynn; and that is historic ground in the annals of my family. The place is now a popular resort for holiday crowds, and is famous under the name of Revere Beach. When the reunited Antins made their stand there, however, there were no boulevards, no stately bath-houses, no hotels, no gaudy amusement places, no illuminations, no showmen, no tawdry rabble. There was only the bright clean sweep of sand, the summer sea, and the summer sky. . . .

By far the best part of my day was spent in play -- frank, hearty, boisterous play, such as comes natural to American children. In Polotzk I had already begun to be considered too old for play, excepting set games or organized frolics. Here I found myself included with children who still played, and I willingly returned to childhood. There were plenty of playfellows. My father's energetic little partner had a little wife and a large family. He kept them in the little cottage next to ours; and that the shanty survived the tumultuous presence of that brood is a wonder to me to-day. The young Wilners included an assortment of boys, girls, and twins, of every possible variety of age, size, disposition, and sex. They swarmed in and out of the cottage all day long, wearing the door-sill hollow, and trampling the ground to powder. They swung out of windows like monkeys, slid up the roof like flies, and shot out of trees like fowls. Even a small person like me couldn't go anywhere without being run over by a Wilner; and I could never tell which Wilner it was because none of them ever stood still long enough to be identified; and also because I suspected that they were in the habit of interchanging conspicuous articles of clothing, which was very confusing.

You would suppose that the little mother must have been utterly lost, bewildered, trodden down in this horde of urchins; but you are mistaken. Mrs. Wilner was a positively majestic little person. She ruled her brood with the utmost coolness and strictness. She had even the biggest boy under her thumb, frequently under her palm. If they enjoyed the wildest freedom outdoors, indoors the young Wilners lived by the clock. And so at five o'clock in the evening, on seven days in the week, my father's partner's children could be seen in two long rows around the supper table. You could tell them apart on this occasion, because they all had their faces washed. And this is the time to count them: there are twelve little Wilners at table. . . .

Who were my companions on my first day at school? Whose hand was in mine, as I stood, overcome with awe, by the teacher's desk, and whispered my name as my father prompted? Was it Frieda's steady, capable hand? Was it her loyal heart that throbbed, beat for beat with mine, as it had done through all our childish adventures? Frieda's heart did throb that day, but not with my emotions. My heart pulsed with joy and pride and ambition; in her heart longing fought with abnegation. For I was led to the schoolroom, with its sunshine and its singing and the teacher's cheery smile; while she was led to the workshop, with its foul air, care-lined faces, and the foreman's stern command. Our going to school was the fulfilment of my father's best promises to us, and Frieda's share in it was to fashion and fit the calico frocks in which the baby sister and I made our first appearance in a public schoolroom.

I remember to this day the gray pattern of the calico, so affectionately did I regard it as it hung upon the wall -- my consecration robe awaiting the beatific day. And Frieda, I am sure, remembers it, too, so longingly did she regard it as the crisp, starchy breadths of it slid between her fingers. But whatever were her longings, she said nothing of them; she bent over the sewing-machine humming an Old-World melody. In every straight, smooth seam, perhaps, she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of rebellion made her straighten up for an instant, the next instant she was bending to adjust a ruffle to the best advantage. And when the momentous day arrived, and the little sister and I stood up to be arrayed, it was Frieda herself who patted and smoothed my stiff new calico; who made me turn round and round, to see that I was perfect; who stooped to pull out a disfiguring basting-thread. If there was anything in her heart besides sisterly love and pride and good-will, as we parted that morning, it was a sense of loss and a woman's acquiescence in her fate; for we had been close friends, and now our ways would lie apart. Longing she felt, but no envy. She did not grudge me what she was denied. Until that morning we had been children together, but now, at the fiat of her destiny, she became a woman, with all a woman's cares; whilst I, so little younger that she, was bidden to dance at the May festival of untroubled childhood.

I wish, for my comfort, that I could say that I had some notion of the difference in our lots, some sense of the injustice to her, of the indulgence to me. I wish I could even say that I gave serious thought to the matter. There had always been a distinction between us rather out of proportion to the difference in our years. Her good health and domestic instincts had made it natural for her to become my mother's right hand, in the years preceding the emigration, when there were no more servants or dependents. Then there was the family tradition that Mary was the quicker, the brighter of the two, and that hers could be no common lot. Frieda was relied upon for help, and her sister for glory. And when I failed as a milliner's apprentice, while Frieda made excellent progress at the dressmaker's, our fates, indeed, were sealed. It was understood, even before we reached Boston, that she would go to work and I to school. In view of the family prejudices, it was the inevitable course. No injustice was intended. My father sent us hand in hand to school, before he had ever thought of America. If, in America, he had been able to support his family unaided, it would have been the culmination of his best hopes to see all his children at school, with equal advantages at home. But when he had done his best, and was still unable to provide even bread and shelter for us all, he was compelled to make us children self-supporting as fast as it was practicable. There was no choosing possible; Frieda was the oldest, the strongest, the best prepared, and the only one who was of legal age to be put to work.

My father has nothing to answer for. He divided the world between his children in accordance with the laws of the country and the compulsion of his circumstances. I have no need of defending him. It is myself that I would like to defend, and I cannot. I remember that I accepted the arrangements made for my sister and me without much reflection, and everything that was planned for my advantage I took as a matter of course. I was no heartless monster, but a decidedly self-centred child. If my sister had seemed unhappy it would have troubled me; but I am ashamed to recall that I did not consider how little it was that contented her. I was so preoccupied with my own happiness that I did not half perceive the splendid devotion of her attitude towards me, the sweetness of her joy in my good luck. She not only stood by approvingly when I was helped to everything; she cheerfully waited on me herself. And I took everything from her hand as if it were my due.

The two of us stood a moment in the doorway of the tenement house on Arlington Street, that wonderful September morning when I first went to school. It was I that ran away, on winged feet of joy and expectation; it was she whose feet were bound in the treadmill of daily toil. And I was so blind that I did not see that the glory lay on her, and not on me.

Being a recruit I took life and my duty very seriously.  I . . . diligently studied everything that moved and many things that did not on both sides of teh line and was much surprised that a stirring adventure of some sort did not at once occur.  However nothing happened and, aside from the Mexican dogs that snarled at my heels as I passed the adobe huts of their owners, the only thing that caused me any concern was when an old Mexican woman some distance in front of me started to carry a  large basket of clothing across the line.  I halted her and required her to remove the clothes from the basket but much to my disappointment there was no ammunition concealed in the bottom, nothing but clothes, and I reluctantly let her proceed on her way unhindered.  The only trepidation that I could see I caused among the natives was with the children.  They frequently crossed back and forth across the line but invariably waited until I had passed a hunred yards or so and then dashed over at top speed.

Tours of duty were four hours on and eight off.  By day I strolled along under cottonwood trees in which mistletoe was profusely growing, studied the Mexican side alertly for signs of activity and the American side curiously to observe the habits of the local Mexicans. . . . Under orders we carried our rifles with empty chambers but with a full clip in the magazine so that there was a minimum danger of accident but only a movement of the bolt necessary to prepare for action.  I fell in the habit of a mountaineer friend and habitually carried my rifle in the hollow of my left arm.  Orders were not to fire, even if fired upon, except in self-defense.  The restraining order was not taken too seriously.  The "except-in-self defense" clause seemed broad enough to cover all eventualities.

To me it seemed that the duty itself was not taken as seriously as it might be. The first night I was on post from 10 to 2 A.M. and was amazed to see the 2 to 6 o'clock relief turn out with blankets [so that they could sleep their hours out].  This was long before the days of the Columbus, N.M. raid and the average soldier was convinced that patrolling the border was not only as safe as going to church but that it was a silly sort of a thing that might as well be omitted anyhow.

My expressions of surprise drew amused rejoinder that there was no danger -- that the officers never came around after 2 o'clock.  As for the Mexicans "those fellows know better than to attack Americans.  Now if they were Filipinos, it would be different."  I wondered, perhaps unjustly, a few years later ifa similar attitude was responsible for the surprise of the garrison at Columbus, N.M. by Pancho Villa. . . .

Occcasionally on guard there was a little false alarm or something else that caused some excitement and varied the usual monotony.  On one occasion I and a tall Tennessean who was my companion on No. 2 post, rounded up a Mexican who we found sneaking through the mesquite in our vicinity and our suspicions as to his character were not allayed any when he produced a bottle of whiskey and tried to make friends by offering us a drink.  A search of his person revealed nothing more dangerous than the whiskey bottle however and after he had proved to our satisfaction that his only object in lurking in that neighborhood was to keep a rendezvous with a senorita who lived in a nearby hut we let him go.  He was rather badly scared and if the senorita later appeared at the agreed upon place of meeting I am afraid that she found her lover absent.

On another occasion . . . , I observed a Mexican squatting behind a bush on the Mexican side of the dry river bed and regarding me intently.  Now I had heard many times how a Mexican would kill a man for his arms if he had a chance and somehow I did not like the idea of the stranger rearding me so closely.  It did not seem right and proper to me that I should give him a chance to shoot me in the back by continuing to walk on down my post so I slipped the safety catch of my rifle to the "ready" and, carrying it in the hollow of my arm ready for instant use, I strolled over into Mexico to look him over.

The Mexican did not know quite what to make of this invasion of his native land and remained in his squatting position while I came over and looked down at him.  He appeared to be unarmed and seemed more scared than dangerous so after eyeing him in turn for a few minutes I returned to the American side of the line where I belonged and continued walking my post.  I suppose he was simply watching me out of curiosity. . . .

I frequently stopped at  a little fruit stand run by a weazened old Mexican man to buy apples, as I rather enjoyed munching them as I walked.  Incidentally I was painfully trying to acquire some knowledge of the Mexican tongue and I would frequently test out some of my vocabulary on the old man  I generally managed to make myself understood bu tit was probably due more to the sign language than to my knowledge of Spanish.

One day he was joking me about going up the Alfalfa road so often, intimating that I probably had a Mexican girl up there somewhere.  During the course of this discussion he used the word "pelon," apparently applying it to me, chuckling as he did so.  When he found out that I did not know the meaning of the word he laughingly repeated it and apparently tried to explain what it meant but his explanation was too deep for me.  I tried later, from men who talked a little Spanish, to get the meaning of it but all I could find out was that it meant "bald-headed." Now I had a full crop of hair and I could not imagine why the old man should have applied the word to me.  Some years later I found out that the word "pelon," which also means "cropped head," was applied to the soldiers of the Mexican regular army in reference to the fact that they were to a large extent recruited from jails.  The old scoundrel of  an apple seller was probably insulting me all the time and I did not know it.