recognize her, where Jimmie had found Lizzie. She was five years
older than he, a Bohemian, having been brought to America when she
was a baby. Her former name--you could hardly call it her "maiden"
name, considering the circumstances--was Elizabeth Huszar, which
she pronounced so that for a long time Jimmie had understood it to
be Eleeza Betooser.

Jimmie snatched a bite of bread and drank a cup of metallic tasting
tea, and packed the family into the baby-carriage, and trudged the
mile and half to the centre of the city. When they arrived, Lizzie
took the biggest child, and Jimmie the other two, and so they
trudged into the Opera-house. On this hot night it was like holding
three stoves in your arms, and if the babies woke up and began to
cry, the parents would have the painful choice of missing something,
or else facing the disgusted looks of everyone about them. In
Belgium, at the "People's House", the Socialists maintained a
creche, but the American movement had not yet discovered that
useful institution.

Already the hall was half-full, and a stream of people pouring in.
Jimmie got himself and family seated, and then turned his eager eyes
proudly to survey the scene. The would-be-congressman's circulars
which he had placed in the seats were now being read by the sitters;
the banners he had so laboriously hung were resplendent on the
walls; there was a pitcher of ice water on the speaker's table, and
a bouquet of flowers and a gavel for the chairman; the seats in the
rear of the platform for the Liederkranz were neatly ranged, most of
them already occupied by solid German figures topped by rosy German
faces: to each detail of which achievements Jimmie had lent a hand.
He had a pride of possession in this great buzzing throng, and in