Chapter 1: Downtown Chicago October 8, 1871 Sunday evening 9:30 p.m.
By Salima Alikhan
The night the Great Chicago Fire started changed Papa’s and my lives forever. The air was dry and windy as I ran up our downtown street to O’Malley’s Saloon. Church had just ended. People were strolling around in their Sunday best, wearing huge grins in the warm weather.
Papa had said that if I was quick about it, I could go listen to the Irish music pouring out of the saloon.
I hurried up to O’Malley’s, tripping over my skirts in my excitement. A dry wind ripped through our neighborhood. But it was a nice night for October.
I skidded to a stop outside O’Malley’s Saloon. People were already dancing to the fiddle music spilling out of the front doors.
I figured no one would notice me if I stayed in the background and tried to blend in. So I stood behind the circle, clapping my hands to the melody.
I loved Irish music. It had a way of making me feel less homesick for Germany. Papa had said it would make us happier and more prosperous if we came all the way to the new land of America. I still wasn’t sure about that.
Before we’d come to Chicago two years ago, I had no idea what it was like to feel different. In Germany, I fit in with everyone. But now, I couldn’t seem to forget that the people in Chicago weren’t always happy about immigrants like us.
The music made me forget all that for a minute. I started stomping my feet with even more excitement, stepping from side to side.
The fiddle reminded me of the way the sea had sounded when Papa and I were on the ship coming to America, way out in the middle of the huge Atlantic Ocean. The water had continually lapped under the ship. Sometimes it had been fast and wild, sometimes slow and dreamy—just like the fiddle.
I stopped clapping. Thinking about our journey here made me sad.
I’d thought our lives were perfectly fine back in Europe. Our beloved town in Germany was called Sonneberg, and there was often dancing and music. The air was fresh and clean. There were high, beautiful mountains and a river. The thick forest was deep, dark green.
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Adapted from Emmi in the City: A Great Chicago Fire Survival Story, by Salima Alikhan, ©️ by Capstone. Reprinted with permission.
Which sentence helps the reader know that there is a first-person narrator?
“Church had just ended.”
“People were already dancing to the fiddle music spilling out of the front doors.”
“The music made me forget all that for a minute.”
“The thick forest was deep, dark green.”