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his work in silence and Peter went upstairs to get Esther. When they came down, all the lights in the store were turned off. They sat down self-consciously in the dark where Turner told them. Excited as Peter was about seeing the moving pictures, at the same time he was glad there weren’t many people on the street to see him.
    “Ready?” Turner asked.
    “Yes,” Peter answered.
    Suddenly a bright light flashed on the screen that Turner had set up in front of where they sat. Some printed words, which blurred, then became clearer as Turner focused the lens. Then the words were off the screen before they had a chance to read them and there was a train, small in the corner of the screen, smoke belching from it. It was moving toward them, growing larger every second.
    Then it was upon them. It seemed to leap from the screen into their faces.
    Esther made a small cry and buried her face on Peter’s shoulder, her hand grasping for his. Peter held her hand tightly. His throat was dry, he couldn’t speak, and his face was pale with sweat.
    “Is it gone?” Esther asked, her voice muffled against his shoulder.
    “It’s gone,” Peter answered, surprised that he could speak.
    Almost before the words had left his mouth, they were on a beach and some girls were going swimming and they stood around and smiled; and then they were on a ferryboat coming into New York Harbor and the familiar buildings looked so real that they were tempted to reach out and touch them, but before they could they were out at the race track in Sheepshead Bay and the horses were running and the crowd was milling around and one horse, running mightily, finished ahead of the others and it was all over. A bright light flashed on the screen again, hurting their eyes.
    Surprised, Peter still found Esther’s hand in his. He heard Turner’s voice saying: “How did you like it?”
    Peter stood up, still blinking his eyes. He saw Turner smiling at him. He brushed his hands over his eyes wonderingly. “If I didn’t see it myself, I still wouldn’t believe it.”
    Turner laughed. “They all say that at first.” He turned on the store lights.
    Then Peter first saw the crowd. They were standing in the street, their faces vague and anonymous, pressed up against the windows of the store, their eyes filled with the same wonder and amazement as his. He turned to Esther. “What do you think?”
    “I don’t know what to think,” she answered. “I never saw anything like this before.”
    The door opened and the crowd came pouring in. Peter began to recognize people and faces. They were all talking at once.
    “What is it?” one of them asked.
    “Moving pictures, from New York,” Peter heard Turner reply.
    “You going to show them here?”
    “I don’t know,” Turner answered. “That depends on Mr. Kessler.”
    The crowd looked at Peter.
    Peter stood there a second without speaking, his mind still filled with what he had just seen. Suddenly he heard himself saying: “Sure, sure we’re going to show them here. We’ll be open by Saturday night.”
    Esther grabbed him by the arm. “
Bist du meshuggeh?
” she asked; “Saturday is the day after tomorrow!”
    He whispered to her: “Crazy? Me? With all these people wanting to pay to see moving pictures?”
    She didn’t answer.
    Peter began to feel big, his heart started to pound. He would open by Saturday night. After all, Esther didn’t say no.
    ***
    It was a little less than six weeks later that Johnny came back to Rochester. His valise in one hand, he walked up the street toward the arcade. He stopped on the sidewalk in front of the building. The hardware store was still the same but the penny arcade was no more. The old sign had been taken down and a new one put up: Kessler’s Nickelodeon.
    It was early in the morning and the street was still deserted. Johnny stood there looking at the sign for a minute; then, shifting his grip on the valise from one hand to the other, he walked into Peter’s store.