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Page 57
The Vannis' tent brought the town boys and the country girls together on
neutral ground. Sylvester Lovett, who was cashier in his father's bank,
always found his way to the tent on Saturday night. He took all the dances
Lena Lingard would give him, and even grew bold enough to walk home with
her. If his sisters or their friends happened to be among the onlookers on
`popular nights,' Sylvester stood back in the shadow under the cottonwood
trees, smoking and watching Lena with a harassed expression. Several times
I stumbled upon him there in the dark, and I felt rather sorry for him. He
reminded me of Ole Benson, who used to sit on the drawside and watch Lena
herd her cattle. Later in the summer, when Lena went home for a week to
visit her mother, I heard from Antonia that young Lovett drove all the way
out there to see her, and took her buggy-riding. In my ingenuousness I
hoped that Sylvester would marry Lena, and thus give all the country girls
a better position in the town.
Sylvester dallied about Lena until he began to make mistakes in his work;
had to stay at the bank until after dark to make his books balance. He was
daft about her, and everyone knew it. To escape from his predicament he
ran away with a widow six years older than himself, who owned a
half-section. This remedy worked, apparently. He never looked at Lena
again, nor lifted his eyes as he ceremoniously tipped his hat when he
happened to meet her on the sidewalk.
So that was what they were like, I thought, these white-handed,
high-collared clerks and bookkeepers! I used to glare at young Lovett from
a distance and only wished I had some way of showing my contempt for him.
X
IT WAS AT THE Vannis' tent that Antonia was discovered. Hitherto she had
been looked upon more as a ward of the Harlings than as one of the `hired
girls.' She had lived in their house and yard and garden; her thoughts
never seemed to stray outside that little kingdom. But after the tent came
to town she began to go about with Tiny and Lena and their friends. The
Vannis often said that Antonia was the best dancer of them all. I
sometimes heard murmurs in the crowd outside the pavilion that Mrs. Harling
would soon have her hands full with that girl. The young men began to joke
with each other about `the Harlings' Tony' as they did about `the
Marshalls' Anna' or `the Gardeners' Tiny.'
Antonia talked and thought of nothing but the tent. She 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.'
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