'An Old and New World'

By Bernard G. Richards

My maternal grandfather, Yakov Herz Sirk -- everybody called him Herz Yankel -- usually rose with the first signs of dawn. Often he got ahead of the dawn. "I work fast, I eat fast, I sleep fast," he would say. He loved company and conversation so much that whichever grandson was staying with him at the time was roused from his' sleep soon after the fire was lighted and the morning activities begun. His method of waking the household was to walk through all the rooms and call out, "Get up, kinder - it's six, seven, eight, nine o'clock! Get up, kinder." Or he would announce to my grandmother that it was high time to get up and start household affairs going because "der bettler is schein in zibetn dorf! (the itinerant beggar has already reached his seventh village!)." 

For the visiting little grandson to climb down from the high warm sleeping perch built into the oven, to dress and wash and hurry through the morning prayers, the incentive was the privilege of participating in all the early household operations. There was wood chopping, there were odd repair jobs around the house, butter churning, preparations for cheese making, to say nothing of feeding the cow and the chickens and perhaps a goose or a couple of ducks. If the domestic animals -- including the all-wise Spitzka, the dog -- had been increased in numbers by the arrival of a new-born calf, then the barn back of the house was the special center of attraction. 

My grandfather was not satisfied with the regular arrangement for the pasture of his cow in summertime. A Polish peasant boy would come every morning, assemble all the "Jewish cows" from our street in a vacant field, and then drive them all to a field "up the hill," a distant and nebulous spot. At the close of the day the boy would bring them back to the border of the town: then, ready to be milked and fed, the animals would come plodding through the streets and find their respective homes and barns. My grandfather, however, must needs get in an hour of pre-official pasture. When it was still dark he would take the cow out and give her a special treat of some high, sweet, luscious grass, in a spot near the town that only he knew how to find. 

In all the household chores, multiplied by the restless energy of my grandfather, the six-or seven-year old grandson somehow was credited with making practical suggestions and thus was prematurely promoted to chief assistant and advisor, In this elevation he undoubtedly found compensation for the minor status bestowed upon him by two elder brothers, who always played more vigorously, fought harder, ran faster, and swam better than he did. 

My grandfather's intrusions and improvisations in the housekeeping tasks of the family were largely actuated, aside from the need of letting out his surplus energy, by the special interests of the domestic animals. Whether handling cereals, cutting bread, or preparing vegetables or fruits for cooking, he would so manage as to leave behind sufficient surplus or waste to benefit beast or fowl. My grandmother Reva, rising much later than her husband, would be horrified to find several pots filled with peeled potatoes, beets, mound of peelings so thick and lavish as to redound only to the advantages of the livestock. Then too, as the amount of vegetables prepared was far above the immediate needs of the family, the animals would benefit some more. Grandmother would scold in her mild, restrained manner. Grandfather would explain and apologize. But he remained incorrigible, just as he never ceased being proud and boastful among his neighbors of the fine sleek appearance of his animals. As for the exploits of Spitzka, faithful guardian of the home, protector of the chickens and the ducks, the children and the grandchildren -- Spitzka, who one dark night returned from a distance of over fifty miles, after having been sold, for a sum much needed by the family, to a dog-fancying poritz, or landowner -- how could one stop talking about Spitzka? 

My grandfather's home, where I spent so much of my childhood, is more familiar to me than the successive domiciles of my parents Grandfather's house, built of logs partially covered with boards in the primitive manner of the time, was the last but one on the street named after the river Smilga and paralleling its winding course. In the rear of the houses were truck gardens extending to the river's bank. This was the lower end of the town. The last house on the street, also built of logs, with a straw-thatched roof, belonged to my grandmother's brother, Baruch Kamber, whose family hailed from a dorf, or farm settlement, not far from Keidan, called Kaneberaz. The road at the end of the street, passing the soldier's barracks and stables on the right and the drill grounds on the left, led to the open country with fields and woods on all sides. 

A quarter of a mile above the town was the bridge that crossed the deep, wide Neviaszhe River, into which the Smilga flowed. Farther away, about four miles from the town in the other direction, was the railroad station, a place of special wonder to the children, who would occasionally be taken there. 

The arrival of the train, pulled by a bellowing and clanging engine, the ceremonial waving by the flagman to hold back all bystanders, the formal salute of the station master to the conductors in their military-style uniforms as they alighted from the cars and in most resounding Russian announced the name of the station and the length of the stop, the emotional meetings between arriving passengers and their friends, the frantic farewells as the loud bell over the engine signaled imminent departure - this was enough thrilled excitement to last a young lifetime. 

The railroad was of course our chief means of communication and contact with the great world outside, or at least with the large cities of Russia, which then held Lithuania as well as Poland under its domination. Beyond were far-off marvelous cities and lands about which we children spun our fancies, drawing upon tales we heard from our elders about Germany, France, England, and, above all, miraculous America, to which a good number of natives had betaken themselves and from which they sent letters describing incredible happenings. 

Down the open road, which connected with the outlying farm settlements of Lithuanian and Polish peasants, came all the traffic from those sections. The farmers, with their crude wooden wagons heavily loaded and drawn by stalwart country horses, wended their way up Smilga Gas to the center of the town and the main market place. 

It was the practice of the small traders and brokers, the hendlers and meklers of Keidan to converge on this street and walk down the road as far as the bridge in the early morning of the market. Accosting the incoming farmers, they would start negotiations with them while in transit. "What have you to sell?" was the usual question: "Zo mas pseditz?" in Polish,"Ko turo pardot?" in the more difficult Lithuanian. 
If the two parties hit it off, or if they knew each other from previous dealings, the peasant would invite the prospective purchaser or agent to jump on the wagon and take a seat beside him. They would continue their discussion as they rode on together toward the center of the town. The subject of their bargaining might be several bushels of wheat or corn, or a few bags of potatoes, or some pairs of ducks or chickens contained in a covered basket in the back of the wagon. If a price was agreed upon, the trader would ride with his host into the town, looking proud of his capture of business. In less favorable circumstances the trader would walk along beside the farmer's wagon until his final offer was either accepted or rejected. 

Some of these hendlers and meklers were old colleagues and cronies of my grandfather, and his warm and always hospitable house at the foot of the street, in the path of their pursuit of trade, offered a welcome retreat on stormy and bitterly cold winter days. These early morning visitors would be asked to join us at the frugal breakfast table and offered some hot tea or coffee with perhaps a beigel or a slice of chala. After hours of exposure to the raw and biting Russian frost this was a most grateful opportunity to warm up and relax for a few minutes. 

ABOVE THIS BLEAK existence of uncertainty and privation as I now recall it, over this sordid haggling and bargaining, rose a gleam of hope for those harried people, beckoning like a rainbow of promise -- from far-off America. To that land of mystery and wonder some of our younger neighbors and friends had emigrated, traveling singly in advance of their families. Some of the older and less adventurous denizens of our town had sent their sons to explore the new country. These husbands and sons soon sent rosy reports and remittances that served not only to raise the spirits of their families but to keep the Russian wolf from the door. 

During their fleeting moments of rest the motley and weary chasers after the perambulating market would stop to dilate on their news from the distant and incredible land. Not the least quaint feature of these conversations was the naming of the various centers of population in the New World from which letters and messages and money had been received. Outside of New York and Brooklyn, cities less known, like Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, were bewildering appellations. Philadelphia was called "the Second America," Boston "the Third," Baltimore "the Fourth"; and any new city discovered was given a higher number, until perhaps Chicago became "the Sixteenth America." 

Reflecting upon episodes of those distant days I recall, more distinctly than other incidents in my boyhood, not the turmoil attending my arrival in America -- with the excitement of entering Castle Garden and being taken on another long journey to a place called Brooklyn -- but my return from the United States to my native town of Keidan. Then I had the thrill of being hailed as "an American boy," a strange phenomenon who was followed and admired for months, and whose unfamiliar English speech was listened to with wide-eyed awe and wonder. 

Like most immigrants of that time before the turn of the century, my father had sailed for America ahead of the family with the expectation, which all those doughty explorers shared, of sending for their wives and children a year or two later, after securing an economic foothold. But my father did rather better, or worse. He had proceeded to the New World with the eldest of three boys, and he sent for the rest of the family after a little less than a year, long before he was well enough established in his small dry-goods business. 

My mother's retiring nature and almost morbid dread of change and excitement, her rustic small-town habits of life, her utter inability to adjust herself to the bustle and rush of New York existence - even in those calmer days -- served to aggravate a situation which was much more difficult and complicated than the average problem of adaptation to a new, bewildering environment. After prolonged discussion in the family circle and consultations with landsleit over a period of more than a year, it was decided that my mother and the two younger children -- myself, aged eight, and a younger sister, of seven -- return to the home country to live with our grandparents in Keidan. Since the old folks had their own home, with some small means of subsistence, it seemed best that we stay with them for a year or two, or until such time as my father should be more firmly settled in the new land. 

TRAVELING BACK TO Europe we experienced anew all the hardships, perplexities, and mishaps of steerage passengers. Then the long train journey through Germany, from Hamburg to Kovno, with many changes, stopovers, and losses of baggage, caused my mother such anxiety and anguish that she was driven to distraction. Whatever luggage was left, after most of it had been lost or stolen on the way, was taken in charge by pretended travel agent or guides who offered to befriend us in the name of some society. They managed to take us across the frontier all right but they never came back with the bags and satchels of clothes they had promised to deliver. We were pushed and hustled into another train before we could ask any questions. 

At the station four miles out of Keidan we arrived with only one traveling basket of belongings. But we wore American clothes, and that was enough to attract attention. 

No sooner had the crude wooden wagon that served as a droshke driven up to our grandfather's house than we became the cynosure of all eyes. All the neighbors of Smilga Gas flocked to the end of the street and surrounded the house to catch a glimpse of the new arrivals from the far-off land of wonder. Those who were not invited, or could not be accommodated indoors, shamelessly stared in through the low windows of the small house to see the guests from abroad. All day long, people went back and forth, peeping, tiptoeing, expostulating and chattering about the Americans who had come to Keidan, and especially about the "American children." 

After a day or two the hubbub subsided. No longer afraid of the advances of the curiosity-seekers, my sister and I at length ventured out of doors to renew our acquaintance with the street, the things around the house, the vegetable patches in back of the row of houses. These sloping grounds, when cleared of their harvests, were trampled on by the youngsters of the neighborhood for a direct route to the pebbly and purling river running below. But instead of their usual frolic and play at the riverside, the children persisted in following tee two young Amerikaner around, plying them with questions, and above all straining their ears to hear the strange, outlandish American language they spoke. 

Whether, pathetically enough, we were striving to retain our knowledge of the few precious English words we had brought from the marvelous land whence we had been ruthlessly torn away, or whether we sought, childlike, to show off our accomplishments, we did lapse into English, such as it was, every now and then, and our former playmates listened spellbound. How pitifully limited that vocabulary was, how halting the speech, how hopelessly intermixed it was with Yiddish expressions (it may have been only Americanized Yiddish), there was no one present to determine. Nor did anyone within our hearing know that, while I had attended public school in Brooklyn for several weeks my sister had had no such advantage and had picked up the few words she knew from hearing them pronounced, or rather mispronounced, at home or on the street. Yet our conversations in the unknown tongue were listened to by young and old with intense interest with admiration. 

There was one red-letter day which may well have been entered in the pinkes, the official register of the community, among the records of expanding relations, transactions, and communications between obscure Keidan and the grand New World beyond the seas. That day a full-fledged "American," an adult native who had returned, walked up the road with our little man. Both displayed their American attire, and both conversed in the outlandish but fascinating language. Getzel Glusonock, back from the United States after a sojourn of four years, may have wished only to question the boy about where he had lived there, and at the same time perhaps indulge in a little practice in the baffling and fast-slipping language. Whatever his motive, he surely was not conscious of the sensation he was to create. 

It was on a Saturday afternoon, when many of the burghers with their families were out for their Sabbath walk, wending their way up the road at the end of town that led to the highway, the railroad station, and the great world beyond. Some boisterous and romping youngsters had passed the word, "They are talking English!" There was a rush of old and young to follow them closely, to overhear their talk, so that the conversationalists were plainly disconcerted by the eager intruders. Nevertheless, Mr. Glusonock was too proud of his knowledge to quail before the distraction of many eyes and ears. So the dialogue, meager and monosyllabic though it was, went on until the enthusiastic pursuers grew weary of hearing sounds whose meaning they did not understand, and the cluster of people gradually fell away. Walking back, my fellow American and I reached the Smilga Gas and parted. 

As far as hazy memory can produce, our talk proceeded something like this: 

"How long you in America?" 
"Two years nearly." 
"Where you live?" 
"Brooklyn!" 
"You go to school?" 
"Yes, four weeks." 
"What grade?" 
"I no remember." 
"You like America?" 
"Very much!" 
"Why you come back?" 
"My mother no like." 
"Oh. Here you like to stay?" 
"Am glad to see my bobe and zaide ." 
"You going back to America, bye and bye?" 
"Sure when I grow big." 

After this encounter, Mr. Glusonock often noticed and spoke to me on the street. It was always; "Well, how you getting along here? When you go back to America?" 

I would answer in a vague and general manner, not being able to announce any family plans. But it was always enough of an incomprehensible conversation to make any bystanders prick up their ears and listen. After a while, however, these salutations became less frequent, and the English words and sounds and names gradually faded and became obliterated from memory, just as my American kapelush (blocked hat), my jacket, knickers, and shoes grew discolored and dilapidated. 

My heart sank as these outward insignia of the new life abroad were gradually discarded. I donned long pants with the bottoms shoved into high boots, put on a Russian shirt and longish coat and a cap with shining black visor, after the fashion of Keidan. I was no longer an American. 

I was soon indistinguishable from the forty-odd other little boys of similar appearance with whom I sat at the long tables of the cheder (Hebrew school), reciting the Bible lessons in singsong and plaintive melody, and there was hardly any trace left of former distinction among these pupils and playmates. It was five years before I was shipped back, as a lone boy-passenger, to the United States; and it took much longer for the other members of my family to return to the New World.