"To America," and then a sudden fear sprang upon him as those words
dashed through the little window out into the darkness of the village
street. Was he mad? America was 8,000 versts away! It was far across the
ocean, a place that was only a name to him, a place where he knew no
one. He wondered in the strange little silence that followed his words
if the crippled son of Poborino, the smith, had heard him. The cripple
would jeer at him if the night wind had carried the words to his ear.
Anna remained staring at her big husband for a few minutes, then she sat
down quietly at his side. There was a strange look in his big blue eyes,
the look of a man to whom has come a vision, the look which came into
the eyes of those shepherds of Judea long, long ago.
"What is it, Ivan?" she murmured softly, patting his big hand. "Tell
me."
And Big Ivan of the Bridge, slow of tongue, told of the Dream. To no one
else would he have told it. Anna understood. She had a way of patting
his hands and saying soft things when his tongue could not find words to
express his thoughts.
Ivan told how the Dream had come to him as he plowed. He told her how it
had sprung upon him, a wonderful dream born of the soft breezes, of the
sunshine, of the sweet smell of the upturned sod and of his own
strength. "It wouldn't come to weak men," he said, baring an arm that
showed great snaky muscles rippling beneath the clear skin. "It is a
dream that comes only to those who are strong and those who want--who
want something that they haven't got." Then in a lower voice he said:
"What is it that we want, Anna?"
The little wife looked out into the darkness with fear-filled eyes.
There were spies even there in that little village on the Beresina, and
it was dangerous to say words that might be construed into a reflection
on the Government. But she answered Ivan. She stooped and whispered one
word into his ear, and he slapped his thigh with his big hand.
"Ay," he cried. "That is what we want! You and I and millions like us
want it, and over there, Anna, over there we will get it. It is the
country where a muzhik is as good as a prince of the blood!"
Anna stood up, took a small earthenware jar from a side shelf, dusted it
carefully and placed it upon the mantel. From a knotted cloth about her
neck she took a ruble and dropped the coin into the jar. Big Ivan looked
at her curiously.
"It is to make legs for your Dream," she explained. "It is many versts
to America, and one rides on rubles."
"You are a good wife," he said. "I was afraid that you might laugh at
me."
"It is a great dream," she murmured. "Come, we will go to sleep."
The Dream maddened Ivan during the days that followed. It pounded within
his brain as he followed the plow. It bred a discontent that made him
hate the little village, the swift-flowing Beresina and the gray
stretches that ran toward Mogilev. He wanted to be moving, but Anna had
said that one rode on rubles, and rubles were hard to find.
And in some mysterious way the village became aware of the secret.
Donkov, the tailor, discovered it. Donkov lived in one-half of the
cottage occupied by Ivan and Anna, and Donkov had long ears. The tailor
spread the news, and Poborino, the smith, and Yanansk, the baker, would
jeer at Ivan as he passed.
"When are you going to America?" they would ask.
"Soon," Ivan would answer.
"Take us with you!" they would cry in chorus.
"It is no place for cowards," Ivan would answer. "It is a long way, and
only brave men can make the journey."
"Are you brave?" the baker screamed one day as he went by.
"I am brave enough to want liberty!" cried Ivan angrily. "I am brave
enough to want----"
"Be careful! Be careful!" interrupted the smith. "A long tongue has
given many a man a train journey that he never expected."
That night Ivan and Anna counted the rubles in the earthenware pot. The
giant looked down at his wife with a gloomy face, but she smiled and
patted his hand.
"It is slow work," he said.
"We must be patient," she answered. "You have the Dream."
"Ay," he said. "I have the Dream."
Through the hot, languorous summertime the Dream grew within the brain
of Big Ivan. He saw visions in the smoky haze that hung above the
Beresina. At times he would stand, hoe in hand, and look toward the
west, the wonderful west into which the sun slipped down each evening
like a coin dropped from the fingers of the dying day.
Autumn came, and the fretful whining winds that came down from the north
chilled the Dream. The winds whispered of the coming of the Snow King,
and the river grumbled as it listened. Big Ivan kept out of the way of
Poborino, the smith, and Yanansk, the baker. The Dream was still with
him, but autumn is a bad time for dreams.
Winter came, and the Dream weakened. It was only the earthenware pot
that kept it alive, the pot into which the industrious Anna put every
coin that could be spared. Often Big Ivan would stare at the pot as he
sat beside the stove. The pot was the cord which kept the Dream alive.
"You are a good woman, Anna," Ivan would say again and again. "It was
you who thought of saving the rubles."
"But it was you who dreamed," she would answer. "Wait for the spring,
husband mine. Wait."
It was strange how the spring came to the Beresina that year. It sprang
upon the flanks of winter before the Ice King had given the order to
retreat into the fastnesses of the north. It swept up the river escorted
by a million little breezes, and housewives opened their windows and
peered out with surprise upon their faces. A wonderful guest had come to
them and found them unprepared.
Big Ivan of the Bridge was fixing a fence in the meadow on the morning
the Spring Maiden reached the village. For a little while he was not
aware of her arrival. His mind was upon his work, but suddenly he
discovered that he was hot, and he took off his overcoat. He turned to
hang the coat upon a bush, then he sniffed the air, and a puzzled look
came upon his face. He sniffed again, hurriedly, hungrily. He drew in
great breaths of it, and his eyes shone with a strange light. It was
wonderful air. It brought life to the Dream. It rose up within him, ten
times more lusty than on the day it was born, and his limbs trembled as
he drew in the hot, scented breezes that breed the _Wanderlust_ and
shorten the long trails of the world.
Big Ivan clutched his coat and ran to the little cottage. He burst
through the door, startling Anna, who was busy with her housework.
"The Spring!" he cried. "_The Spring!_"
He took her arm and dragged her to the door. Standing together they
sniffed the sweet breezes. In silence they listened to the song of the
river. The Beresina had changed from a whining, fretful tune into a
lilting, sweet song that would set the legs of lovers dancing. Anna
pointed to a green bud on a bush beside the door.
"It came this minute," she murmured.
"Yes," said Ivan. "The little fairies brought it there to show us that
spring has come to stay."
Together they turned and walked to the mantel. Big Ivan took up the
earthenware pot, carried it to the table, and spilled its contents upon
the well-scrubbed boards. He counted while Anna stood beside him, her
fingers clutching his coarse blouse. It was a slow business, because
Ivan's big blunt fingers were not used to such work, but it was over at
last. He stacked the coins into neat piles, then he straightened himself
and turned to the woman at his side.
"It is enough," he said quietly. "We will go at once. If it was not
enough, we would have to go because the Dream is upon me and I hate this
place."
"As you say," murmured Anna. "The wife of Littin, the butcher, will buy
our chairs and our bed. I spoke to her yesterday."
Poborino, the smith; his crippled son; Yanansk, the baker; Dankov, the
tailor, and a score of others were out upon the village street on the
morning that Big Ivan and Anna set out. They were inclined to jeer at
Ivan, but something upon the face of the giant made them afraid. Hand in
hand the big man and his wife walked down the street, their faces turned
toward Bobruisk, Ivan balancing upon his head a heavy trunk that no
other man in the village could have lifted.
At the end of the street a stripling with bright eyes and yellow curls
clutched the hand of Ivan and looked into his face.
"I know what is sending you," he cried.
"Ay, _you_ know," said Ivan, looking into the eyes of the other.
"It came to me yesterday," murmured the stripling. "I got it from the
breezes. They are free, so are the birds and the little clouds and the
river. I wish I could go."
"Keep your dream," said Ivan softly. "Nurse it, for it is the dream of a
man."
Anna, who was crying softly, touched the blouse of the boy. "At the back
of our cottage, near the bush that bears the red berries, a pot is
buried," she said. "Dig it up and take it home with you and when you
have a kopeck drop it in. It is a good pot."
The stripling understood. He stooped and kissed the hand of Anna, and
Big Ivan patted him upon the back. They were brother dreamers and they
understood each other.
Boris Lugan has sung the song of the versts that eat up one's courage as
well as the leather of one's shoes.
"Versts! Versts! Scores and scores of them!
Versts! Versts! A million or more of them!
Dust! Dust! And the devils who play in it,
Blinding us fools who forever must stay in it."
Big Ivan and Anna faced the long versts to Bobruisk, but they were not
afraid of the dust devils. They had the Dream. It made their hearts
light and took the weary feeling from their feet. They were on their
way. America was a long, long journey, but they had started, and every
verst they covered lessened the number that lay between them and the
Promised Land.
"I am glad the boy spoke to us," said Anna.
"And I am glad," said Ivan. "Some day he will come and eat with us in
America."
They came to Bobruisk. Holding hands, they walked into it late one
afternoon. They were eighty-nine versts from the little village on the
Beresina, but they were not afraid. The Dream spoke to Ivan, and his big
hand held the hand of Anna. The railway ran through Bobruisk, and that
evening they stood and looked at the shining rails that went out in the
moonlight like silver tongs reaching out for a low-hanging star.
And they came face to face with the Terror that evening, the Terror that
had helped the spring breezes and the sunshine to plant the Dream in the
brain of Big Ivan.
They were walking down a dark side street when they saw a score of men
and women creep from the door of a squat, unpainted building. The little
group remained on the sidewalk for a minute as if uncertain about the
way they should go, then from the corner of the street came a cry of
"Police!" and the twenty pedestrians ran in different directions.
It was no false alarm. Mounted police charged down the dark thoroughfare
swinging their swords as they rode at the scurrying men and women who
raced for shelter. Big Ivan dragged Anna into a doorway, and toward
their hiding place ran a young boy who, like themselves, had no
connection with the group and who merely desired to get out of harm's
way till the storm was over.
The boy was not quick enough to escape the charge. A trooper pursued
him, overtook him before he reached the sidewalk, and knocked him down
with a quick stroke given with the flat of his blade. His horse struck
the boy with one of his hoofs as the lad stumbled on his face.
Big Ivan growled like an angry bear, and sprang from his hiding place.
The trooper's horse had carried him on to the sidewalk, and Ivan seized
the bridle and flung the animal on its haunches. The policeman leaned
forward to strike at the giant, but Ivan of the Bridge gripped the left
leg of the horseman and tore him from the saddle.
The horse galloped off, leaving its rider lying beside the moaning boy
who was unlucky enough to be in a street where a score of students were
holding a meeting.
Anna dragged Ivan back into the passageway. More police were charging
down the street, and their position was a dangerous one.
"Ivan!" she cried, "Ivan! Remember the Dream! America, Ivan! _America!_
Come this way! Quick!"
With strong hands she dragged him down the passage. It opened into a
narrow lane, and, holding each other's hands, they hurried toward the
place where they had taken lodgings. From far off came screams and
hoarse orders, curses and the sound of galloping hoofs. The Terror was
abroad.
Big Ivan spoke softly as they entered the little room they had taken.
"He had a face like the boy to whom you gave the lucky pot," he said.
"Did you notice it in the moonlight when the trooper struck him down?"
"Yes," she answered. "I saw."
They left Bobruisk next morning. They rode away on a great, puffing,
snorting train that terrified Anna. The engineer turned a stopcock as
they were passing the engine, and Anna screamed while Ivan nearly
dropped the big trunk. The engineer grinned, but the giant looked up at
him and the grin faded. Ivan of the Bridge was startled by the rush of
hot steam, but he was afraid of no man.
The train went roaring by little villages and great pasture stretches.
The real journey had begun. They began to love the powerful engine. It
was eating up the versts at a tremendous rate. They looked at each other
from time to time and smiled like two children.
They came to Minsk, the biggest town they had ever seen. They looked out
from the car windows at the miles of wooden buildings, at the big church
of St. Catharine, and the woolen mills. Minsk would have frightened them
if they hadn't had the Dream. The farther they went from the little
village on the Beresina the more courage the Dream gave to them.
On and on went the train, the wheels singing the song of the road.
Fellow travelers asked them where they were going. "To America," Ivan
would answer.
"To America?" they would cry. "May the little saints guide you. It is a
long way, and you will be lonely."
"No, we shall not be lonely," Ivan would say.
"Ha! you are going with friends?"
"No, we have no friends, but we have something that keeps us from being
lonely." And when Ivan would make that reply Anna would pat his hand and
the questioner would wonder if it was a charm or a holy relic that the
bright-eyed couple possessed.
They ran through Vilna, on through flat stretches of Courland to Libau,
where they saw the sea. They sat and stared at it for a whole day,
talking little but watching it with wide, wondering eyes. And they
stared at the great ships that came rocking in from distant ports, their
sides gray with the salt from the big combers which they had battled
with.
No wonder this America of ours is big. We draw the brave ones from the
old lands, the brave ones whose dreams are like the guiding sign that
was given to the Israelites of old--a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar
of fire by night.
The harbormaster spoke to Ivan and Anna as they watched the restless
waters.
"Where are you going, children?"
"To America," answered Ivan.
"A long way. Three ships bound for America went down last month."
"Our ship will not sink," said Ivan.
"Why?"
"Because I know it will not."
The harbor master looked at the strange blue eyes of the giant, and
spoke softly. "You have the eyes of a man who sees things," he said.
"There was a Norwegian sailor in the _White Queen_, who had eyes like
yours, and he could see death."
"I see life!" said Ivan boldly. "A free life----"
"Hush!" said the harbor master. "Do not speak so loud." He walked
swiftly away, but he dropped a ruble into Anna's hand as he passed her
by. "For luck," he murmured. "May the little saints look after you on
the big waters."
They boarded the ship, and the Dream gave them a courage that surprised
them. There were others going aboard, and Ivan and Anna felt that those
others were also persons who possessed dreams. She saw the dreams in
their eyes. There were Slavs, Poles, Letts, Jews, and Livonians, all
bound for the land where dreams come true. They were a little
afraid--not two per cent of them had ever seen a ship before--yet their
dreams gave them courage.
The emigrant ship was dragged from her pier by a grunting tug and went
floundering down the Baltic Sea. Night came down, and the devils who,
according to the Esthonian fishermen, live in the bottom of the Baltic,
got their shoulders under the stern of the ship and tried to stand her
on her head. They whipped up white combers that sprang on her flanks and
tried to crush her, and the wind played a devil's lament in her rigging.
Anna lay sick in the stuffy women's quarters, and Ivan could not get
near her. But he sent her messages. He told her not to mind the sea
devils, to think of the Dream, the Great Dream that would become real in
the land to which they were bound. Ivan of the Bridge grew to full
stature on that first night out from Libau. The battered old craft that
carried him slouched before the waves that swept over her decks, but he
was not afraid. Down among the million and one smells of the steerage he
induced a thin-faced Livonian to play upon a mouth organ, and Big Ivan
sang Paleer's "Song of Freedom" in a voice that drowned the creaking of
the old vessel's timbers, and made the seasick ones forget their
sickness. They sat up in their berths and joined in the chorus, their
eyes shining brightly in the half gloom:
"Freedom for serf and for slave,
Freedom for all men who crave
Their right to be free
And who hate to bend knee
But to Him who this right to them gave."
It was well that these emigrants had dreams. They wanted them. The sea
devils chased the lumbering steamer. They hung to her bows and pulled
her for'ard deck under emerald-green rollers. They clung to her stern
and hoisted her nose till Big Ivan thought that he could touch the door
of heaven by standing on her blunt snout. Miserable, cold, ill, and
sleepless, the emigrants crouched in their quarters, and to them Ivan
and the thin-faced Livonian sang the "Song of Freedom."
The emigrant ship pounded through the Cattegat, swung southward through
the Skagerrack and the bleak North Sea. But the storm pursued her. The
big waves snarled and bit at her, and the captain and the chief officer
consulted with each other. They decided to run into the Thames, and the
harried steamer nosed her way in and anchored off Gravesend.
An examination was made, and the agents decided to transship the
emigrants. They were taken to London and thence by train to Liverpool,
and Ivan and Anna sat again side by side, holding hands and smiling at
each other as the third-class emigrant train from Euston raced down
through the green Midland counties to grimy Liverpool.
"You are not afraid?" Ivan would say to her each time she looked at him.
"It is a long way, but the Dream has given me much courage," she said.
"To-day I spoke to a Lett whose brother works in New York City," said
the giant. "Do you know how much money he earns each day?"
"How much?" she questioned.
"Three rubles, and he calls the policemen by their first names."
"You will earn five rubles, my Ivan," she murmured. "There is no one as
strong as you."
Once again they were herded into the bowels of a big ship that steamed
away through the fog banks of the Mersey out into the Irish Sea. There
were more dreamers now, nine hundred of them, and Anna and Ivan were
more comfortable. And these new emigrants, English, Irish, Scotch,
French, and German, knew much concerning America. Ivan was certain that
he would earn at least three rubles a day. He was very strong.
On the deck he defeated all comers in a tug of war, and the captain of
the ship came up to him and felt his muscles.
"The country that lets men like you get away from it is run badly," he
said. "Why did you leave it?"
The interpreter translated what the captain said, and through the
interpreter Ivan answered.
"I had a Dream," he said, "a Dream of freedom."
"Good," cried the captain. "Why should a man with muscles like yours
have his face ground into the dust?"
The soul of Big Ivan grew during those days. He felt himself a man, a
man who was born upright to speak his thoughts without fear.
The ship rolled into Queenstown one bright morning, and Ivan and his
nine hundred steerage companions crowded the for'ard deck. A boy in a
rowboat threw a line to the deck, and after it had been fastened to a
stanchion he came up hand over hand. The emigrants watched him
curiously. An old woman sitting in the boat pulled off her shoes, sat in
a loop of the rope, and lifted her hand as a signal to her son on deck.
"Hey, fellers," said the boy, "help me pull me muvver up. She wants to
sell a few dozen apples, an' they won't let her up the gangway!"
Big Ivan didn't understand the words, but he guessed what the boy
wanted. He made one of a half dozen who gripped the rope and started to
pull the ancient apple woman to the deck.
They had her halfway up the side when an undersized third officer
discovered what they were doing. He called to a steward, and the steward
sprang to obey.
"Turn a hose on her!" cried the officer. "Turn a hose on the old woman!"
The steward rushed for the hose. He ran with it to the side of the ship
with the intention of squirting on the old woman, who was swinging in
midair and exhorting the six men who were dragging her to the deck.
"Pull!" she cried. "Sure, I'll give every one of ye a rosy red apple an'
me blessing with it."
The steward aimed the muzzle of the hose, and Big Ivan of the Bridge let
go of the rope and sprang at him. The fist of the great Russian went out
like a battering ram; it struck the steward between the eyes, and he
dropped upon the deck. He lay like one dead, the muzzle of the hose
wriggling from his limp hands.
The third officer and the interpreter rushed at Big Ivan, who stood
erect, his hands clenched.
"Ask the big swine why he did it," roared the officer.
"Because he is a coward!" cried Ivan. "They wouldn't do that in
America!"
"What does the big brute know about America?" cried the officer.
"Tell him I have dreamed of it," shouted Ivan. "Tell him it is in my
Dream. Tell him I will kill him if he turns the water on this old
woman."
The apple seller was on deck then, and with the wisdom of the Celt she
understood. She put her lean hand upon the great head of the Russian and
blessed him in Gaelic. Ivan bowed before her, then as she offered him a
rosy apple he led her toward Anna, a great Viking leading a withered old
woman who walked with the grace of a duchess.
"Please don't touch him," she cried, turning to the officer. "We have
been waiting for your ship for six hours, and we have only five dozen
apples to sell. It's a great man he is. Sure he's as big as Finn
MacCool."
Some one pulled the steward behind a ventilator and revived him by
squirting him with water from the hose which he had tried to turn upon
the old woman. The third officer slipped quietly away.
The Atlantic was kind to the ship that carried Ivan and Anna. Through
sunny days they sat up on deck and watched the horizon. They wanted to
be among those who would get the first glimpse of the wonderland.
They saw it on a morning with sunshine and soft wind. Standing together
in the bow, they looked at the smear upon the horizon, and their eyes
filled with tears. They forgot the long road to Bobruisk, the rocking
journey to Libau, the mad buckjumping boat in whose timbers the sea
devils of the Baltic had bored holes. Everything unpleasant was
forgotten, because the Dream filled them with a great happiness.
The inspectors at Ellis Island were interested in Ivan. They walked
around him and prodded his muscles, and he smiled down upon them
good-naturedly.
"A fine animal," said one. "Gee, he's a new white hope! Ask him can he
fight?"
An interpreter put the question, and Ivan nodded. "I have fought," he
said.
"Gee!" cried the inspector. "Ask him was it for purses or what?"
"For freedom," answered Ivan. "For freedom to stretch my legs and
straighten my neck!"
Ivan and Anna left the Government ferryboat at the Battery. They started
to walk uptown, making for the East Side, Ivan carrying the big trunk
that no other man could lift.
It was a wonderful morning. The city was bathed in warm sunshine, and
the well-dressed men and women who crowded the sidewalks made the two
immigrants think that it was a festival day. Ivan and Anna stared at
each other in amazement. They had never seen such dresses as those worn
by the smiling women who passed them by; they had never seen such
well-groomed men.
"It is a feast day for certain," said Anna.
"They are dressed like princes and princesses," murmured Ivan. "There
are no poor here, Anna. None."