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Page 62
`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 not be afraid of them, either!
I hated to enter the still house when I went home from the dances, and it
was long before I could get to sleep. Toward morning I used to have
pleasant dreams: sometimes Tony and I were out in the country, sliding
down straw-stacks as we used to do; climbing up the yellow mountains over
and over, and slipping down the smooth sides into soft piles of chaff.
One dream I dreamed a great many times, and it was always the same. I was
in a harvest-field full of shocks, and I was lying against one of them.
Lena Lingard came across the stubble barefoot, in a short skirt, with a
curved reaping-hook in her hand, and she was flushed like the dawn, with a
kind of luminous rosiness all about her. She sat down beside me, turned to
me with a soft sigh and said, `Now they are all gone, and I can kiss you as
much as I like.'
I used to wish I could have this flattering dream about Antonia, but I
never did.
XIII
I NOTICED ONE AFTERNOON that grandmother had been crying. Her feet seemed
to drag as she moved about the house, and I got up from the table where I
was studying and went to her, asking if she didn't feel well, and if I
couldn't help her with her work.
`No, thank you, Jim. I'm troubled, but I guess I'm well enough. Getting a
little rusty in the bones, maybe,' she added bitterly.
I stood hesitating. `What are you fretting about, grandmother? Has
grandfather lost any money?'
`No, it ain't money. I wish it was. But I've heard things. You must 'a'
known it would come back to me sometime.' She dropped into a chair, and,
covering her face with her apron, began to cry. `Jim,' she said, `I was
never one that claimed old folks could bring up their grandchildren. But
it came about so; there wasn't any other way for you, it seemed like.'
I put my arms around her. I couldn't bear to see her cry.
`What is it, grandmother? Is it the Firemen's dances?'
She nodded.
`I'm sorry I sneaked off like that. But there's nothing wrong about the
dances, and I haven't done anything wrong. I like all those country girls,
and I like to dance with them. That's all there is to it.'
`But it ain't right to deceive us, son, and it brings blame on us. People
say you are growing up to be a bad boy, and that ain't just to us.'
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