The children are most loath to return; especially those who have gone to school here and who in their migrations to and fro, have learned the difference.
Anushka, a bright twelve year old girl goes from a Pennsylvania town, to the Frenczin district in Hungary. She is dressed “American fashion,” has gone to the public school and speaks English fairly well.
“Anushka moya, tell me, do you like to go back to Hungary?” and the little girl tells me: “No, siree. America is the best country. There we have white bread and butter and candy, and I can chew gum to beat the band;” and tears fill her eyes at the memory of the American luxuries which she has tasted. If she stays in her mountain village she will degenerate into the common life about her, and marry a peasant lad with whom she will hover between enough and starvation, all the days of her life. Yet she will never forget America, the white bread and butter, the candy and the chewing-gum.
In a little village in Hungary I know a woman who in her youth had tasted all these things and the freedom of life in Chicago. Now, although she has been married fifteen years and has lived away from America longer than that, she speaks with glowing eyes of the time when she lived on South Halstad Street, ate thin bread with thick jam on it, and the land was flowing with sausages, lager beer and chewing-gum.
Most blessed are the girls who have been in service in American families. They have learned English well, and also the ways of the American household. They have tasted of the spirit of Democracy which permeates our serving class, and when such an one returns to her native village she unsettles the relations of servant and mistress. Therefore, her coming is dreaded by the “Hausfrau” who has had one servant-girl through many years, paying her fifteen dollars a year and treating her like a beast. Shall I quote one of those mistresses? “What kind of country is that anyway, that America? These servant girls come back with gold teeth in their mouths, and with long dresses which sweep the streets, and with unbearable manners. They do not kiss our hands when they meet us, and when they speak of their mistress in America they speak of her as if they were her equals. When one of those girls comes home with her finery and her money, we are liable to lose every servant; and wages are going up fabulously.”