hummed the
dance tunes all day. When supper was late, she hurried with her dishes,
dropped and smashed them in her excitement. At the first call of the
music, she became irresponsible. If she hadn't time to dress, she merely
flung off her apron and shot out of the kitchen door. Sometimes I went
with her; the moment the lighted tent came into view she would break
into a run, like a boy. There were always partners waiting for her; she
began to dance before she got her breath.

Antonia's success at the tent had its consequences. The iceman
lingered too long now, when he came into the covered porch to fill the
refrigerator. The delivery boys hung about the kitchen when they brought
the groceries. Young farmers who were in town for Saturday came tramping
through the yard to the back door to engage dances, or to invite Tony to
parties and picnics. Lena and Norwegian Anna dropped in to help her with
her work, so that she could get away early. The boys who brought her
home after the dances sometimes laughed at the back gate and wakened Mr.
Harling from his first sleep. A crisis was inevitable.

One Saturday night Mr. Harling had gone down to the cellar for beer. As
he came up the stairs in the dark, he heard scuffling on the back porch,
and then the sound of a vigorous slap. He looked out through the side
door in time to see a pair of long legs vaulting over the picket fence.
Antonia was standing there, angry and excited. Young Harry Paine, who
was to marry his employer's daughter on Monday, had come to the tent
with a crowd of friends and danced all evening. Afterward, he begged
Antonia to let him walk home with her. She said she supposed he was a
nice young man, as he was one of Miss Frances's friends, and she
didn't mind. On the back porch he tried to kiss her, and when she
protested--because he was going to be married on Monday--he caught her
and kissed her until she got one hand free and slapped him.

Mr. Harling put his beer-bottles down on the table. 'This is what
I've been expecting, Antonia. You've been going with girls who have
a reputation for being free and easy, and now you've got the same
reputation. I won't have this and that fellow tramping about my back
yard all the time. This is the end of it, tonight. It stops, short. You
can quit going to these dances, or you can hunt another place. Think it
over.'

The next morning when Mrs. Harling and Frances tried to reason with
Antonia, they found her agitated but d