living with his fiddle, how different Antonia's life might have
been!

Antonia often went to the dances with Larry Donovan, a passenger
conductor who was a kind of professional ladies' man, as we said. I
remember how admiringly all the boys looked at her the night she first
wore her velveteen dress, made like Mrs. Gardener's black velvet. She
was lovely to see, with her eyes shining, and her lips always a little
parted when she danced. That constant, dark colour in her cheeks never
changed.

One evening when Donovan was out on his run, Antonia came to the hall
with Norwegian Anna and her young man, and that night I took her home.
When we were in the Cutters' yard, sheltered by the evergreens, I told
her she must kiss me good night.

'Why, sure, Jim.' A moment later she drew her face away and whispered
indignantly, 'Why, Jim! You know you ain't right to kiss me like that.
I'll tell your grandmother on you!'

'Lena Lingard lets me kiss her,' I retorted, 'and I'm not half as fond
of her as I am of you.'

'Lena does?' Tony gasped. 'If she's up to any of her nonsense with you,
I'll scratch her eyes out!' She took my arm again and we walked out of
the gate and up and down the sidewalk. 'Now, don't you go and be a fool
like some of these town boys. You're not going to sit around here and
whittle store-boxes and tell stories all your life. You are going away
to school and make something of yourself. I'm just awful proud of you.
You won't go and get mixed up with the Swedes, will you?'

'I don't care anything about any of them but you,' I said. 'And you'll
always treat me like a kid, suppose.'

She laughed and threw her arms around me. 'I expect I will, but you're a
kid I'm awful fond of, anyhow! You can like me all you want to, but if
I see you hanging round with Lena much, I'll go to your grandmother, as
sure as your name's Jim Burden! Lena's all right, only--well, you know
yourself she's soft that way. She can't help it. It's natural to her.'

If she was proud of me, I was so proud of her that I carried my head
high as I emerged from the dark cedars and shut the Cutters' gate softly
behind me. Her warm, sweet face, her kind arms, and the true heart in
her; she was, oh, she was still my Antonia! I looked with contempt at
the dark, silent little houses about me as I walked home, and thought of
the stupid young men who were asleep in some of them. I knew where the
real women were, though I was only a boy; and I would no