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breathing.
    I asked her if we could talk to Mrs. Browning. Perhaps we could convince her to allow me to finish lessons on my own time, to remain in school. It was such a rare chance. I brought up Jacob Riis, and all the good things the Department of Health and Sanitation has done for this city.
    I clutched my hands together and waited.
    Marm said, finally, “We will go see Mrs. Browning privately, and hear what she says. But you must listen to her verdict. If she does not agree, you must stay in school.”
    I hugged my own waist and held in my reply; Marm turned away from me and started supper, and we spoke no more of it.
    We have a meeting with Mrs. Browning this evening in her parlor.
    I can’t help it; I feel angry at Marm.
She
was the one who taught me about the body and illness, she encouraged me to use my brain, she showed me how to pry into scientific matters, to be curious, always. Now she wants me to be a bookkeeper—why? Most offices hire girls as typists the same way they would buy a vase for flowers; doesn’t Marm want me to be smarter than that? My interviewer goes that one step further, he asks me to get my brain involved. It is unusual, I agree, but its very strangeness is what makes it so special.
    I feel as if Marm has dropped me from a tall tower, as if she is no longer beside me. I can’t find a foothold as to what is right. Take the job and possibly have to leave school, or not take the job and be miserable for the rest of my life. I wish I didn’t have to choose between school and work.

October 13, 1906
    I took the job, I’m leaving school. I feel as if something inside me has broken, a cord attaching me to a familiar world. I don’t know if it’s the right thing. So many of our neighborhood girls forgo school to earn money for their families. I hear the Feldman sisters tromping up the stairs and creaking into bed at all hours of the night and have always felt secretly grateful I wasn’t in their position. I know I’ve been held in special esteem by our neighbors, the way Marm has been able to keep me in school. They all thought I would go far, and now I don’t know what they’ll think.
    I must do my best with this job, learn all I can and make something of myself. Maybe I could one day be like Florence Nightingale, a heroic nurse healing the wounded. But she was born into an upper-class English family and could afford to attend the best schools. A future in science seems like suchan impossible dream involving faraway, expensive schools that certainly would not accept a lower-class American Jewish girl.
    The meeting at Mrs. Browning’s has shown me the shabbiness of my own life.
    I got that feeling the moment her maid brought us into her parlor. I have never been in such an extravagant home. Hanging from the walls were tiger and lion heads, teeth bared, eyes glaring. Between two elephant tusks hung photographs of Mr. Browning with a group of hunters on a safari in Africa. Another large photo showed Mrs. Browning being hefted in a conveyance by several men, long peacock feathers decorating her hat.
    Marm sat at the edge of a finely upholstered chair, and I slipped onto the hard surface of a carved wooden bench. Crystal lamps shimmered on the side tables, lace curtains covered the windows. My teacher’s home seemed to perfectly follow the rules of decorative furnishings we’d studied in the
Ladies’ Home Journal
. Even down to the obese Persian cat that lay on the Oriental carpet, swishing its tail, watching us with careful eyes.
    Marm played with her purse, popping it and snapping it. I sat with my hat in hand and stared at the painting of Maryand Jesus on the far wall. I felt Mrs. Browning had us wait those several minutes in order to fully absorb her providence.
    Finally she came in, followed by her butler, with tea. How strange it felt to be served by a real butler. He poured and left us and Mrs. Browning chattered with Marm for a