By hard frugality, to be her competence

In the free home, came eagerly in nineteen seven

Into These States,

With her little earnings furled

In a large handkerchief—but with a heart

Too rich to be contained, for she had done her part:

She had come

With faith to Heaven.

But there was a panic that year,

No work, no wages in These States.

And a great fear

Seized on the immigrant. And so she took her pence

All of them, furled

Safe in her handkerchief, to a government cashier—

A clerk in the post-office. (And he relates

Her errand as a joke, yet tenderly

For I watched him telling me.)

... Not knowing English, being dumb,

She had brought with her a thin-faced lad

To interpret. And he made it clear,

 Prev. P 20/58 next