Droozy went to work for JOHNNY THE GREEK. It was a restaurant bar where mostly men would come to drink beer, whiskey and wine and eat a little food with it.

Droozy was fourteen years old then and earned ten cents an hour. Johnny wouldn’t let her have the tips that customers left under their glasses for her, but she still earned a few dollars a week working in the summer. She started the job a few days before she graduated from the eighth grade. The night that the other children graduated from the stage of Edgewood School Droozy was working. She was to be honored by being the valedictorian of her class, together with a boy named Nelson Smith. A tear fell down her cheek as she waited on customers thinking how she missed her graduation. Her parents didn’t have money anyway to buy her a white skirt and blouse, the outfit required to be on stage to receive her diploma. Droozy thought about Mr. Endry, her teacher, who had written in her autograph book: “You’re a grand student, keep it up.” She thought about her classmates, especially Nelson Smith, who would present a little speech that she too would have had the honor to give. She was sorry and sad that she couldn’t be there with her head held high as she would have marched in the procession and sat up front. She knew though that she needed some money to buy what she needed and so she continued to look toward the future, and better days.

It wasn’t long before Droozy got a job washing dishes at the Weir Cove Dairy. It wasn’t bad since she ate all the banana splits she wanted. She would fix herself one of those big splits. A banana went on the bottom and three or four large scoops of ice cream came next with a lot of fudge syrup and nuts on the very top. Yumm, was that good! Sometimes she’d break a dish as she was washing it in huge grey tubs in the kitchen. She would cut her hand on the broken glass and her boss would yell at her for being so clumsy but the twenty-five cents an hour that she earned, and that delicious ice cream that she could eat, made it not so bad.

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Introduction
Pork Dumplings
Please Don't Eat the Goldfish
Pretty Shoes
Blueberry Cake
Sukkot
The Garden
Maxel
The Red Rabbit
Passover
The Lost Bathing Tickets
What Shall I Do?  The Double Message
Pieces of Gold
Aromas of the Sabbath
The Birth of a Brother
Green Apples
Herr Kübler
The Broken Leg
Boarding School
The American Calendar
Suse Puppe
Shirley Temple Eyes
Kristallnacht Nov. 9, 10, 11
Aunt (Tante) Mathilde
Ice Skates
The Cologne Cathedral
The Escape
A Belgian Holiday
Gas Balloons and the S. S. Washington
Papa
The Statue
A Bad Dream
A Pencil Thief
The West Virginia Hills
Thanksgiving
Ice Cream, Grieben and Baked Spaghetti
The Gypsy’s Song
Venetian Blinds
The Deaf One
Dimmed Lights
Marryyayo
Friendship
Norma Mae
The Spelling Bee
Run, Thief, Run!
Chances
The Candy Store
The Birthday Party
Deep, Shallow Waters
Red Riding Hood
Small Mama
Droozy In Love
Eskimo Pies
Apple Picking Time
Working Days
Easter Baskets
Valedictorian
Farewell
Blind Joe
Lessons Learned From Parents
About the Author