“If you could expect nothing better, why did you come to America?” “For the sake of my children whom I wished to be born in a free land.” “Your children haven’t done so well, Mother.” Katie smiled bitterly. “There is here, what is not in the old country. In spite of hard unfamiliar things, there is here—hope. In the old country, a man can be no more than his father, providing he works hard. If his father was a carpenter, he may be a carpenter. He may not be a teacher or a priest. He may rise—but only to his father’s state. In the old country, a man is given to the past. Here he belongs to the
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