were once formed, we had
little to fear from dry weather. The men were working so hard in the
wheatfields that they did not notice the heat--though I was kept busy
carrying water for them--and grandmother and Antonia had so much to do
in the kitchen that they could not have told whether one day was hotter
than another. Each morning, while the dew was still on the grass,
Antonia went with me up to the garden to get early vegetables for
dinner. Grandmother made her wear a sunbonnet, but as soon as we reached
the garden she threw it on the grass and let her hair fly in the breeze.
I remember how, as we bent over the pea-vines, beads of perspiration
used to gather on her upper lip like a little moustache.

'Oh, better I like to work out-of-doors than in a house!' she used to
sing joyfully. 'I not care that your grandmother say it makes me like
a man. I like to be like a man.' She would toss her head and ask me to
feel the muscles swell in her brown arm.

We were glad to have her in the house. She was so gay and responsive
that one did not mind her heavy, running step, or her clattery way with
pans. Grandmother was in high spirits during the weeks that Antonia
worked for us.

All the nights were close and hot during that harvest season. The
harvesters slept in the hayloft because it was cooler there than in the
house. I used to lie in my bed by the open window, watching the heat
lightning play softly along the horizon, or looking up at the gaunt
frame of the windmill against the blue night sky. One night there was a
beautiful electric storm, though not enough rain fell to damage the cut
grain. The men went down to the barn immediately after supper, and when
the dishes were washed, Antonia and I climbed up on the slanting roof
of the chicken-house to watch the clouds. The thunder was loud and
metallic, like the rattle of sheet iron, and the lightning broke in
great zigzags across the heavens, making everything stand out and
come close to us for a moment. Half the sky was chequered with black
thunderheads, but all the west was luminous and clear: in the lightning
flashes it looked like deep blue water, with the sheen of moonlight on
it; and the mottled part of the sky was like marble pavement, like the
quay of some splendid seacoast city, doomed to destruction. Great warm
splashes of rain fell on our upturned faces. One black cloud, no bigger
than a little boat, drifted out into the clear space unattended, and
kept moving