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By Root 5735 0

’s Committee at the head of the procession. Don’t forget your manners, Tateh said as they followed along. When people ask you a question answer them. Speak up so they can hear you. Once past the corner of the station he noticed out on the street a line of militia with their blocked hats. They held their rifles across their chests. They were facing away from the platform. The procession stopped and backed up on itself. There was some sort of commotion at the front of the line. Then he heard a scream, police appeared everywhere, and suddenly the crowd was in a terrible turmoil. While amazed passengers looked out from the windows of the train the police started to separate the mothers from their children. They were dragging the mothers kicking and screaming to trucks at the end of the platform. The trucks were army Reo’s with pagoda hoods and chain wheel drive. Children were being stepped on. They scattered in all directions. A woman ran by with blood coming from her mouth. Steam drifted back from the engine like patches of fog. The bell quietly rang. A woman appeared in front of Tateh. She tried to say something. She was holding her stomach. She fell. Tateh lifted his daughter bodily and swung her up on the platform of the nearest car, out of harm’s way. Then he turned his attention to the fallen woman. He picked her up under the shoulders and dragged her through the crowd to a bench. As he was sitting her down he came to the attention of one of the policemen. The policeman cracked him on the shoulders and the head with his stick. What are you doing, Tateh cried. He didn’t know what the maniac wanted of him. He moved back into the crowd. He was followed and beaten. He stumbled away from the crowd and was still beaten. Finally he fell.

The authority for this police action was an order issued by the city marshal prohibiting all children from leaving Lawrence, Massachusetts. It was for their own good. They were on their knees, holding the prostrate forms of their bloodied parents. Some were in hysterics. In a few minutes the police had swept the platform clean, the trucks were driven off, the militia were marched away, and only a few sobbing battered adults and weeping children remained. One was Tateh. He leaned against a pillar to regain his strength. His mind was not clear. He began to hear sounds that had been made minutes before. He heard the little girl’s voice: Tateh, Tateh! At that moment it occurred to him that the station platform was unnaturally bright. The train was gone. The realization struck his heart like a chord. He was now completely alert. Still he heard the voice. Tateh, Tateh! He looked down the tracks and saw the last car of the train to Philadelphia some yards beyond the end of the station. It was not moving. He started to run. Tateh, Tateh! As he ran the train slowly began to move. He ran onto the tracks. He ran, stumbling, with his arm out. His hands caught the guardrail of the observation platform. The train was picking up speed. His feet were coming off the ground. The ties began to blur under him. He clung to the railing, finally hoisting his knees to the platform overhang and clinging there with his head pressed against the bars like a man in prison begging to be set free.

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Tateh was rescued by two conductors who lifted him by the arms and the seat of his pants onto the observation platform. First they had to pry his fingers from the railings. He found his daughter on the train and ignoring everyone around her, conductors, passengers, he gathered her in his arms and wept. Then he noticed that her new cloak was bloody. He looked at her hands. They were smeared with blood. Where are you hurt! he shouted. Where are you hurt! She shook her head and pointed at him and he realized that the blood all over her was his own. It came from his scalp, blackening his white hair.

A doctor who happened to be on board tended Tateh’s injuries and gave him an injection. After that he wasn’t too clear about what happened. He slept lying on his side across two seats with his arm for a pillow. He was aware of the motion of the train and his daughter sitting in the seat facing him. She looked out the window. They were the only passengers in the special car for Philadelphia. Sometimes he heard voices but he could not bestir himself to understand what they said. At the same time he clearly saw her eyes with hills of snow proceeding slowly, in a curve, over her pupils. In this way he made the trip south to Boston, then to New Haven, through the Westchester towns of Rye and New Rochelle, through the train yards of New York, across the river to Newark, New Jersey, and then to Philadelphia.