Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/275

 the elevated train noised its way to the Battery, I imagined myself having succeeded, having amassed wealth, from which I made gifts to the thousands of toilers in that scorched city. I planted trees for them everywhere, along the streets, along the avenues; and wherever there was a little vacant plot of land I converted it into a tiny park. There I saw the people sitting under the shade of my trees, and so real did my dream become that I began actually to live it, and suffered less from the heat myself; for I was constantly on the look out for new spots where I could plant more trees.

At luncheon time I used to go out for a little stroll on the Battery, and there I used to see immigrant women, dressed partially in their native costumes, and surrounded by numbers of their little ones, jabbering in their own lingo. One day I sat down near a solitary woman, unmistakably an Italian peasant.

"Hot to-day, isn't it?" I said in her own tongue.

From the sea, slowly she raised her eyes to me. I smiled at her, but received no response.

"You look very tired," I said, "and so am I. I suppose you are thinking of your own country, of fields and trees, are you not?"

"How did you know?" she demanded sullenly.

"Because I do the same myself. I also am