bler.'

'That would be a poor way to get on,' said Anna sarcastically. 'I wish
I could teach school, like Selma Kronn. Just think! She'll be the first
Scandinavian girl to get a position in the high school. We ought to be
proud of her.'

Selma was a studious girl, who had not much tolerance for giddy things
like Tiny and Lena; but they always spoke of her with admiration.

Tiny moved about restlessly, fanning herself with her straw hat. 'If I
was smart like her, I'd be at my books day and night. But she was born
smart--and look how her father's trained her! He was something high up
in the old country.'

'So was my mother's father,' murmured Lena, 'but that's all the good it
does us! My father's father was smart, too, but he was wild. He married
a Lapp. I guess that's what's the matter with me; they say Lapp blood
will out.'

'A real Lapp, Lena?' I exclaimed. 'The kind that wear skins?'

'I don't know if she wore skins, but she was a Lapps all right, and his
folks felt dreadful about it. He was sent up North on some government
job he had, and fell in with her. He would marry her.'

'But I thought Lapland women were fat and ugly, and had squint eyes,
like Chinese?' I objected.

'I don't know, maybe. There must be something mighty taking about the
Lapp girls, though; mother says the Norwegians up North are always
afraid their boys will run after them.'

In the afternoon, when the heat was less oppressive, we had a lively
game of 'Pussy Wants a Corner,' on the flat bluff-top, with the little
trees for bases. Lena was Pussy so often that she finally said she
wouldn't play any more. We threw ourselves down on the grass, out of
breath.

'Jim,' Antonia said dreamily, 'I want you to tell the girls about how
the Spanish first came here, like you and Charley Harling used to talk
about. I've tried to tell them, but I leave out so much.'

They sat under a little oak, Tony resting against the trunk and the
other girls leaning against her and each other, and listened to the
little I was able to tell them about Coronado and his search for the
Seven Golden Cities. At school we were taught that he had not got so far
north as Nebraska, but had given up his quest and turned back somewhere
in Kansas. But Charley Harling and I had a strong belief that he had
been along this very river. A farmer in the county north of ours, when
he was breaking sod, had turned up a metal stirrup of fine workmanship,
and a sword with a Spanish in