That year the soil came out from under the snow rich and malmy to the
plow, and Mosher started heavy with his peddler's pack and returned
light. It was no trick now for Sara to tie her sons to an iron ring in
the door jamb and, her strong legs straining and her sweat willing,
undertake household chores of water lugging, furniture heaving,
marketing with baskets that strained her arms from the sockets as she
carted them from the open square to their house on the outskirts, her
massive silhouette moving as solemnly as a caravan against the sky line.
Rich months these were and easy to bear because they were backed by a
dream that each day, however relentless in its toil, brought closer to
reality.
"America!"
The long evenings full of the smell of tallow; maps that curled under
the fingers; the well-thumbed letters from Aaron Turkletaub, older
brother to Mosher and already a successful pieceworker on skirts in
Brooklyn. The picture postcards from him of the Statue of Liberty! Of
the three of them, Aaron, Gussie, his wife, and little Leo, with donkey
bodies sporting down a beach labeled "Coney.
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