I should like to tell them that they have nothing to fear in this country except their own frailties, that there are no barriers here but their own clannishness, and that the way to the best is open to all who walk 10 reverently. This and more I should like to be able to teach; fragments of it I have taught, more of it than many of them will find true, I fear. But to me so much of it has been true that I should like to have all men find it so.

I have suffered much here, I have gone the whole scale of hunger, sorrow, and despair; yet I say it again and again, "Holy America! Holy Amer20 ica!" And I want all men to be able to say it, as they said it with me under the lee of the land where free men live.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

1. This selection is taken from From Alien to Citizen. What prophecy did the parrot give to the young boy? Under what circumstances did the author first come to America? Why does he call our country "magic, holy land"?

2. The author would make of every immigrant ship a school; what things does he say he would teach the immigrants? Do you think such a school would help immigrants to become helpful citizens? How would a school of this kind compare with schools for Americanization conducted in many communities?

Library Reading. Old Trails and New Borders, Steiner; The Making of an American, Riis; The Promised Land, Antin.

WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

LETTA EULALIA THOMAS

America, the Homeland!

Born of humanity's fierce hunger to be free, And of great hope and trust in the Eternal God;

With justice and the will to help a weaker

one

America stands in the morning sunlight
of her life;
Land of Today;
Tomorrow's hope;

A world of dreams come true.

To all the restless millions of her own, 15
And to vast multitudes of alien birth
Who have been born anew within her doors,
She stretches forth her hands filled with
the boundless treasure

Of rare opportunity and high ideals; Bright, beautiful, sweet Homeland of the world!

THE CITIZEN

JAMES FRANCIS DWYER

The President of the United States was speaking. His audience comprised two thousand foreign-born men who had just been admitted to citizenship. They listened intently, their faces, aglow with the light of a newborn patriotism, upturned to the calm, intellectual face of the first citizen of the country they now claimed as their own.

Here and there among the newlymade citizens were wives and children. The women were proud of their men. They looked at them. from time to time, their faces showing pride and awe.

10

One little woman, sitting immediately in front of the President, held the hand of a big, muscular man and stroked it softly. The big man was 20 looking at the speaker with great blue eyes that were the eyes of a dreamer.

The President's words came clear

and distinct:

You were drawn across the ocean by some beckoning finger of hope, by some belief, by some vision of a new kind of justice, by some expectation of a better kind of life. You dreamed dreams of this country, and I hope you brought the dreams with you. A man enriches the country to which he brings dreams, and you who have brought them have 10 enriched America.

The big man made a curious choking noise, and his wife breathed a soft "Hush!" The giant was strangely affected.

The President continued:

No doubt you have been disappointed in some of us, but remember this, if we have grown at all poor in the ideal, you brought some of it with you. A man 20 does not go out to seek the thing that is not in him. A man does not hope for the thing that he does not believe in, and if some of us have forgotten what America believed in, you at any rate imported in your own hearts a renewal of the belief. Each of you, I am sure, brought a dream, a glorious, shining dream, a dream worth more than gold or silver, and that is the reason that I, for one, make you welcome.

30

The big man's eyes were fixed. His wife shook him gently, but he did not heed her. He was looking through the presidential rostrum, through the big buildings behind it, looking out over leagues of space to a snow-swept village that huddled on an island in the Beresina, the swiftflowing tributary of the mighty 40 Dnieper, an island that looked like a black bone stuck tight in the maw of the stream.

It was in the little village on the Beresina that the Dream came to Ivan Berloff, Big Ivan of the Bridge. The Dream came in the spring.

38, 40. Beresina, Dnieper, rivers of western Russia.

All great dreams come in the spring, and the Spring Maiden who brought Big Ivan's Dream was more than ordinarily beautiful. She swept up 50 the Beresina, trailing wondrous draperies of vivid green. Her feet touched the snow-hardened ground, and armies of little white and blue flowers sprang up in her footsteps. Soft breezes escorted her, velvety breezes that carried the aromas of the far-off places from which they came, places far to the southward, and more distant towns beyond the Black Sea, whose 60 people were not under the sway of the great Czar.

The father of Big Ivan, who had fought under Prince Menshikov at Alma fifty-five years before, hobbled out to see the sunbeams eat up the snow hummocks that hid in the shady places, and he told his son it was the most wonderful spring he had ever

And that day the Dream came to Big Ivan as he plowed. It was a. 80 wonder dream. It sprang into his brain as he walked behind the plow, and for a few minutes he quivered as the big bridge quivers when the Beresina sends her ice squadrons to hammer the arches. It made his heart pound mightily, and his lips and throat became very dry.

Big Ivan stopped at the end of the furrow and tried to discover what 90 had brought the Dream. Where had it come from? Why had it clutched

77. Balaklava, a place famous for battles in the Crimean War (1854). Its southern location (on the Black Sea) brings it near Arabia, famous for spices.

him so suddenly? Was he the only man in the village to whom it had come?

Like his father, he sniffed the sweet-smelling breezes. He thrust his great hands into the sunbeams. He reached down and plucked one of a bunch of white flowers that had sprung up overnight. The Dream 10 was born of the breezes and the sunshine and the spring flowers. It came from them and it had sprung into his mind because he was young and strong. He knew! It couldn't come to his father, or Donkov, the tailor, or Poborino, the smith. They were old and weak, and Ivan's dream was one that called for youth and strength.

20

"Aye, for youth and strength," he muttered as he gripped the plow. "And I have it!"

That evening Big Ivan of the Bridge spoke to his wife, Anna, a little woman, who had a sweet face and a wealth of fair hair.

"Wife, we here," he said. "Where are we going, Ivan?" she 30 asked.

are going away from

"Where do you think, Anna?" he said, looking down at her as she stood by his side.

"To Bobruisk," she murmured.
"No."

"Farther?"

"Aye, a long way farther."

Fear sprang into her soft eyes. Bobruisk was eighty-nine versts away, 40 yet Ivan said they were going farther. "We we are not going to Minsk?" she cried.

"Aye, and beyond Minsk!" "Ivan, tell me!" she gasped. "Tell me where we are going!"

"We are going to America."

34, 41. Bobruisk, Minsk, cities in the province of Minsk, western Russia. 39. verst, land measure, about two thirds of a mile.

"To America?”

"Yes, to America!"

Big Ivan of the Bridge lifted up his voice when he cried out the words 50 "To America," and then a sudden fear sprang upon him as those words dashed through the little window out into the darkness of the village street. Was he mad? America was 8000 versts away! It was far across the ocean, a place that was only a name to him, a place where he knew no one. He wondered in the strange little silence that followed his words 60 if the crippled son of Poborino, the smith, had heard him. The cripple would jeer at him if the night wind had carried the words to his ear.

Anna remained staring at her big husband for a few minutes, then she sat down quietly at his side. There was a strange look in his big blue eyes, the look of a man to whom has come a vision, the look which 70 came into the eyes of those shepherds of Judea long, long ago.

"What is it, Ivan?" she murmured softly, patting his big hand. "Tell

me.

And Big Ivan of the Bridge, slow of tongue, told of the Dream: To no one else would he have told it. Anna understood. She had a way of patting his hands and saying soft 80 things when his tongue could not find words to express his thoughts.

Ivan told how the Dream had come to him as he plowed. He told her how it had sprung upon him, a wonderful dream born of the soft breezes, of the sunshine, of the sweet smell of the upturned sod, and of his own strength. "It wouldn't come to weak men," he said, baring an arm that 90 showed great snaky muscles rippling beneath the clear skin. "It is a dream that comes only to those who are strong and those who want-who want something that they haven't

got." Then in a lower voice he said, "What is it that we want, Anna?"

The little wife looked out into the darkness with fear-filled eyes. There were spies even there in that little village on the Beresina, and it was dangerous to say words that might be construed into a reflection on the Government. But she answered Ivan.

. 10 She stooped and whispered one word into his ear, and he slapped his thigh with his big hand.

"Aye," he cried. "That is what we want! You and I and millions like us want it, and over there, Anna, over there we will get it. It is the country where a muzhik is as good as a prince of the blood!"

Anna stood up, took a small earth20 enware jar from a side shelf, dusted it carefully, and placed it upon the mantel. From a knotted cloth about her neck she took a ruble and dropped the coin into the jar. Big Ivan looked at her curiously.

"It is to make legs for your Dream," she explained. "It is many versts to America, and one rides on rubles."

"You are a good wife," he said. "I 30 was afraid that you might laugh at me."

"It is a great dream," she murmured. "Come, we will go to sleep.'

The Dream maddened Ivan during the days that followed. It pounded within his brain as he followed the plow. It bred a discontent that made him hate the little village, the swift-flowing Beresina, and the gray 40 stretches that ran toward Mogilev.

He wanted to be moving, but Anna had said that one rode on rubles, and rubles were hard to find.

And in some mysterious way the village became aware of the secret. Donkov, the tailor, discovered it.

Donkov lived in one-half of the cottage occupied by Ivan and Anna, and Donkov had long ears. The tailor spread the news, and Poborino, 50 the smith, and Yanansk, the baker, would jeer at Ivan as he passed.

"When are you going to America?" they would ask.

"Soon," Ivan would answer. "Take us with you!" they would cry in chorus.

"It is no place for cowards," Ivan would answer. "It is a long way, and only brave men can make the 60 journey."

"Are you brave?" the baker screamed one day as he went by.

"I am brave enough to want liberty!" cried Ivan angrily. "I am brave enough to want—”

"Be careful! Be careful!" interrupted the smith. "A long tongue has given many a man a train journey that he never expected."

That night Ivan and Anna counted the rubles in the earthenware pot. The giant looked down at his wife with a gloomy face, but she smiled and patted his hand.

"It is slow work," he said.

"We must be patient," she answered. "You have the Dream." "Aye," he said. "I have the Dream.'

Through the hot, languorous summertime the Dream grew within the brain of Big Ivan. He saw visions in the smoky haze that hung above the Beresina. At times he would stand, hoe in hand, and look toward the west, the wonderful west into which the sun slipped down each evening like a coin dropped from the fingers of the dying day.

Autumn came, and the fretful, whining winds that came down from the north chilled the Dream. The winds whispered of the coming of the Snow King, and the river grumbled

70

90

as it listened. Big Ivan kept out of the way of Poborino, the smith, and Yanansk, the baker. The Dream was still with him, but autumn is a bad time for dreams.

Winter came, and the Dream weakened. It was only the earthenware pot that kept it alive, the pot into which the industrious Anna put every 10 coin that could be spared. Often Big Ivan would stare at the pot as he sat beside the stove. The pot was the cord which kept the Dream alive.

"You are a good woman, Anna," Ivan would say again and again. "It was you who thought of saving the rubles."

"But it was you who dreamed," 20 she would answer. "Wait for the spring, husband mine. Wait."

It was strange how the spring came to the Beresina that year. It sprang upon the flanks of winter before the Ice King had given the order to retreat into the fastnesses of the north. It swept up the river, escorted by a million little breezes, and housewives opened their windows and 30 peered out with surprise upon their faces. A wonderful guest had come to them and found them unprepared.

Big Ivan of the Bridge was fixing a fence in the meadow on the morning the Spring Maiden reached the village. For a little while he was not aware of her arrival. His mind was upon his work, but suddenly he discovered that he was hot, and he took off his over40 coat. He turned to hang the coat upon a bush, then he sniffed the air, and a puzzled look came upon his face. He sniffed again, hurriedly, hungrily. He drew in great breaths of it, and his eyes shone with a strange light. It was wonderful air. It brought life to the Dream. It rose up within him, ten times more lusty than on the day it was born,

and his limbs trembled as he drew 50 in the hot, scented breezes that breed the Wanderlust and shorten the long trails of the world.

Big Ivan clutched his coat and ran to the little cottage. He burst through the door, startling Anna, who was busy with her housework.

"The Spring!" he cried. "The Spring!"

He took her arm and dragged her co to the door. Standing together they sniffed the sweet breezes. In silence they listened to the song of the river. The Beresina had changed from a whining, fretful tune into a lilting, sweet song that would set the legs of lovers dancing. Anna pointed to a green bud on a bush beside the door.

"It came this minute," she mur- 70 mured.

"Yes," said Ivan. "The little fairies brought it there to show us that spring has come to stay."

Together they turned and walked to the mantel. Big Ivan took up the earthenware pot, carried it to the table, and spilled its contents upon the well-scrubbed boards. He counted. while Anna stood beside him, her so fingers clutching his coarse blouse. It was a slow business, because Ivan's big blunt fingers were not used to such work, but it was over at last. He stacked the coins into neat piles, then he straightened himself and turned to the woman at his side.

"It is enough," he said quietly. "We will go at once. If it was not enough, we would have to go because 90 the Dream is upon me and I hate this place."

"As you say," murmured Anna. "The wife of Littin, the butcher, will buy our chairs and our bed. I spoke to her yesterday."

52. Wanderlust, intense desire for roaming.