Free The Charm Bracelet by Viola Shipman

head, her eyes. “Write! And we will see you soon!”
    Mary could feel her knees buckle and her heart crumble as her parents let her go, but she could see the hope in their eyes and that alone carried her forward.
    Mary boarded and took her seat next to a window, watching her dark-haired, handsome father hold his tiny, blond wife. When the train began to move, Mary’s parents ran alongside, waving goodbye, until the platform ended.
    It would be the last time Mary saw her parents.
    When Mary arrived at port, she couldn’t believe the size of the giant hulled steamer ship and the number of people boarding. “It’s as if all of Ireland are going to America!” she said to another young girl as she waited to board.
    For a brief moment, as Mary boarded with hundreds of others, she walked the ship, wide-eyed at its opulence: Grand salons, flamboyant ballrooms, stunning dining rooms with white tablecloths, silver, and crystal. One of the ballrooms seemed as large to Mary as her whole county.
    â€œMiss! Ticket?”
    Mary jumped at the sound of the voice, and turned to find a man in a white uniform holding out his hand.
    â€œSteerage,” he said, before pointing toward a stairwell outside the ballroom. “Down. Down, down, down.”
    Mary disappeared down a steep winding steel staircase, her bag banging behind her, until she emerged at the bottom of the ship and was herded—just like she used to do with her father’s chickens—into a tiny pen.
    If the top deck were heaven, Mary learned, than steerage was more like hell: It was dark, noisy, smelly, and stuffy.
    â€œBetter find a bunk,” an older woman cautioned Mary, as people jostled one another in a near panic.
    Mary passed by a series of large bunk dormitories, with little or no privacy. She peeked into bathrooms that were open to all. A sign read that access to the open deck was limited.
    Mary tossed her suitcase on an upper bunk, crawled in, and stayed until the same elderly woman who had helped her before brought her soup that night.
    â€œI’m scared,” Mary told her. “I miss my family. Why is everyone leaving home?”
    The woman smiled at Mary and swept her locks out of her eyes. Her touch was soft and gentle, like Mary’s mother’s. It grounded her.
    â€œHope,” the woman whispered. “Hope.”
    And for seven days, Mary lay in the dark, eyes closed, fighting seasickness and homesickness whispering that word, “Hope!” to herself, as if it were a life preserver in the middle of the ocean, a parent in this vast world in which she now found herself alone.
    â€œWe’re here!” she heard one day. “We’re here!”
    A flood of people rushed for the steps, swimming up the stairs, like salmon.
    When Mary made it to the deck, exhausted, dirty, dragging her only belongings, she thought she was going blind: She had seen little light in days, and it took her eyes a while to adjust.
    Slowly, slowly, the first thing that came into focus—as her hair blew in the early summer wind—was a giant woman, wearing a crown and raising a torch in her right hand, her sandaled feet trampling a broken chain.
    â€œIs that…?” she started.
    â€œThe Statue of Liberty!” people were yelling. “America!”
    Mary didn’t know why, but she started to cry, weep, and—for the first time—she didn’t feel totally alone.
    The steamship docked at Hudson’s Pier to disembark first- and second-class passengers, while third class and steerage boarded a barge to Ellis Island. Mary stood on the barge, clutching her suitcase, the cool wind of America tossing her hair around her head, like the clouds above. The grandeur of the immigration station was unlike anything Mary had ever seen: Towering on Ellis Island was a stunning French Renaissance structure in red brick with limestone trim.
    Is America so grand? Mary thought.
    Mary was ushered with