“In America is a law called ‘ladies first,’” the letter went on. “In the cars the men must get up to give their seats to the women. The men hold the babies on their hands and carry the bundles for the women, and even help with the dishes. There are not enough women to go around in America. And the men run after the women, and not like in Poland, the women running after the men.” Gewalt! What an excitement began to burn through the whole village when they heard of Hanneh Hayyeh’s luck! The ticket agents from the ship companies seeing how Hanneh Hayyeh’s letter was working like yeast in the air for America, posted up big signs by all the market fairs: “Go to America, the New World. Fifty rubles a ticket.” “Fifty rubles! Only fifty rubles! And there waits your lover!” cried my heart. Oi weh! How I was hungering to go to America after that! By day and by night I was tearing and turning over the earth, how to get to my lover on the other side of the world. “Nu, Zalmon?” said my mother, twisting my father around to what I wanted. “It’s not so far from sense what Sara Reisel is saying. In Savel, without a dowry, she had no chance to get a man, and if we got to wait much longer she will be too old to get one anywhere.” “But from where can we get together the fifty rubles?” asked my father. “Why don’t it will itself in you to give your daughter the moon?” I could no more think on how to get the money than they. But I was so dying to go, I felt I could draw the money out from the sky. One night I could not fall asleep. I lay in the darkness and stillness, my wild, beating heart on fire with dreams of my lover. I put out my hungry hands and prayed to my lover through the darkness: “Oh, love, love! How can I get the fifty rubles to come to you?” In the morning I got up like one choking for air. We were sitting down to eat breakfast, but I couldn’t taste nothing. I felt my head drop into my hands from weakness. “Why don’t you try to eat something?” begged my mother, going over to me. “Eat?” I cried, jumping up like one mad. “How can I eat? How can I sleep? How can I breathe in this deadness? I want to go to America. I _must_ go, and I _will_ go!” My mother began wringing her hands. “Oi weh! Mine heart! The knife is on our neck. The landlord is hollering for the unpaid rent, and it wills itself in you America?” “Are you out of your head?” cried my father. “What are you dreaming of golden hills on the sky? How can we get together the fifty rubles for a ticket?” I stole a look at Yosef, my younger brother. Nothing that was sensible ever laid in his head to do; but if there was anything wild, up in the air that willed itself in him, he could break through stone walls to get it. Yosef gave a look around the house. Everything was old and poor, and not a thing to get money on--nothing except father’s Saifer Torah--the Holy Scrolls--and mother’s silver candlesticks, her wedding present from our grandmother.