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indicating the plates of fruit with a nod of her head.
    â€œThat’s our shop,” my mother said proudly. “We have a shop now.” She was smiling, and she was probably anticipating their own joy.
    There was nothing like it, though, on their faces. They were all silent for a moment, staring at the display of faded fruit in the window.
    Then Joe spoke. “I thought we were going to have a parlor.”
    â€œAnd a piano,” Saul squeaked.
    â€œWell, you will,” my mother said, and she could sense their disappointment now, and it threw a damper on her own spirits. “Of course you’ll have a parlor,” she reassured, “and a piano and everything. Only we’ll have to have the shop for a while so we can get these things. That’s what the shop’s for, so we can make some money from it to buy all the things we need, and as soon as we do I promise you we’ll give up the shop and turn it into a parlor.”
    â€œYou’re a liar!” It was Rose who spoke, her voice choked and trembling. She had been standing at the very back of the group, but had pushed her way forward, and was now right in front of my mother, half crouched in front of her, eyes blazing. It had been a crushing blow to her, much worse than for the others. It had taken away her duchy, her drawing room, her butler, and her retinue of servants. We were all staring at her petrified, and my mother’s face had gone white. Rose was beside herself with rage. “You’re a liar,” she repeated. “You’re never going to turn this into a parlor. It’s always going to be a shop, because you’re the shopkeeper type, a common Polish peasant woman. It was our room and you stole it from us. You’re a thief, and a witch, and I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”
    Then, before my mother could stop her, she dashed forward and with both hands swept all the plates off the cartons. They went crashing to the floor, spilling their contents all over, the plums, the apples, the oranges, and they rolled into corners, around our feet, everywhere. Having done this Rose ran out of the room, weeping.
    In the shocked silence that followed, I saw my mother glance around her, bewildered, at the ruins of her shop on the floor. Then she put her face in her hands and wept, brokenly.

Chapter Three
    THE REST OF THE SUMMER SLIPPED BY RAPIDLY , AND THE AUTUMN WEATHER began, chill and rainy for the most part, with an occasional good day when the sun broke through the clouds and shone with a hard brilliance. But it was a gray, cloudy day when school started.
    I awoke early, tense and excited. It was far too early to get up yet. It was barely daylight, and people were going to work. I could hear the sound of their clogs marching rhythmically down the street, and the very sound increased my excitement because it made me think of my clogs that I was going to wear for the first time that day.
    I lay back in bed, chafing with impatience. School was less important to me than wearing these clogs. I had been up half the night thinking of them, and it had been that way ever since my mother had taken me back to Hamer’s to be fitted for a pair. She’d given up the idea of shoes; she’d had to. Mr. Hamer had been tactful; he hadn’t mentioned them, as if she’d come in for the first time, and he’d gone about fitting me with a pair swiftly and efficiently. But he’d stuck up for me when I wanted to go out of the shop wearing them.
    â€œYou don’t want ’im to put these things on again, do you?” he said, holding up my torn shoes between two fingers with something like disgust.
    â€œHe’ll have to,” my mother said firmly. “I want him to keep the clogs for school. At least, they’ll be new when he goes into school.”
    There was no talking her out of it, and I had to content myself with just stealing glimpses of them in the box between then and now. I