The Keeping Quilt

When my Great-Gramma Anna came to America, she wore the same thick overcoat and big boots she had worn for farm work. But her family weren’t dirt farmers anymore. In New York City, her father’s work was hauling things on a wagon, and the rest of the family made artificial flowers all day.
Everyone was in a hurry, and it was so crowded, not like back home Russia. But all the same it was their home, and most of their neighbors were just like them.
When Anna went to school, English sounded to her like pebbles dropping into shallow. water. Shhhhhh… Shhhhhh…. Shhhhhh. In six months she was speaking English. Her parents almost never learned, so she spoke English for them, too.