SILHOUETTES.
“And some by Thy commandMust live in every land.”
I.
WE were cruising about the bay in a revenue cutter. The needs of the government service slewed the vessel from side to side, and the Statue of Liberty could be studied from every possible angle of vision. We spoke a Japanese on board a Porto Rican vessel, and we looked upon Germans direct from the homeland. We sped from dirty tramps to floating hotels, nothing came amiss to the phlegmatic investigators who collect the customs.
While we were seeking to welcome a friend, we learned something of the eternal human pilgrimage that goes on unceasingly on the great wastes of water. We steamed up to the “St. Paul,” whose great hull stood out high above our tiny vessel. The proud first-class on board withstood all curiosity, but the steerage pressed forward to get its first glimpse of things American.
Near the rail stood two women, both in black, a mother and her daughter. The girl, extremely pallid, attracted us by her beautiful, spiritual face. They were Jewesses, and from the deck of the cutter, there were four of us, we hailed them with a Sholem Aleichem. We repeated our call; they heard, looked down, and the girl's pallor gave place to a flush of color, and her eyes sparkled with pleasure. A wondrous sight this, the friendship discovered in the password of the Jew. Who and what we were they knew not, nor asked; but told us at once whence they came, and how long they were travelling.
They asked of the war, and were told the latest news. Then a man pressed forward, and, bending down, asked more particularly of Port Arthur and the Yalu.
“Gute Nachrichten,” he shouted back, as he heard the details; and away he scampered to tell other co-religionists from Northern Europe.
The ladder by which the revenue officers had ascended to the ship was removed, but Jacob's ladder between soul and soul remained; and as we sped away we four were all moved to breathe over the quiet waters one of the verses of “Hatikwoh.”
II.
Steel drills, piercing steel girders set in place to make some monstrous office building, were making ear splitting noise. We heard the racking sound the more because the metal skeleton hid from view the red brick of Ellis Island. From now the hesitating immigrant will behold of the metropolis of the new world nothing but sky-climbing towers of Babel, enough to make him doubt whether there is heaven above, or earth beneath. Five-foot-eight of doubtful humanity entered.
“I am X—you have a letter about me.” We nodded. “I know Hebrew, Russian, Yiddish and French. Please help me find work.”
Nothing unusual in this, nothing uncommon: a quadri-lingualist in search of bread and butter. From Russia and Odessa at that.
The why and wherefore of his pilgrimage was simple enough; he did not rel-