ing moon passed my
window on its way up the heavens. I was thinking about Antonia and her
children; about Anna's solicitude for her, Ambrosch's grave affection,
Leo's jealous, animal little love. That moment, when they all came
tumbling out of the cave into the light, was a sight any man might have
come far to see. Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind
that did not fade--that grew stronger with time. In my memory there
was a succession of such pictures, fixed there like the old woodcuts of
one's first primer: Antonia kicking her bare legs against the sides
of my pony when we came home in triumph with our snake; Antonia in
her black shawl and fur cap, as she stood by her father's grave in
the snowstorm; Antonia coming in with her work-team along the evening
sky-line. She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we
recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken.
She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that
something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath
for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in
common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand
on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the
goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong
things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in
serving generous emotions.

It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich
mine of life, like the founders of early races.

II

WHEN I AWOKE IN THE morning, long bands of sunshine were coming in at
the window and reaching back under the eaves where the two boys lay.
Leo was wide awake and was tickling his brother's leg with a dried
cone-flower he had pulled out of the hay. Ambrosch kicked at him and
turned over. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. Leo lay on
his back, elevated one foot, and began exercising his toes. He picked up
dried flowers with his toes and brandished them in the belt of sunlight.
After he had amused himself thus for some time, he rose on one elbow and
began to look at me, cautiously, then critically, blinking his eyes in
the light. His expression was droll; it dismissed me lightly. 'This old
fellow is no different from other people. He doesn't know my secret.'
He seemed conscious of possessing a keener power of enjoyment than
other people; his quick recognitions made hi