westward. All about us we could hear the felty beat of the
raindrops on the soft dust of the farmyard. Grandmother came to the door
and said it was late, and we would get wet out there.

'In a minute we come,' Antonia called back to her. 'I like your
grandmother, and all things here,' she sighed. 'I wish my papa live to
see this summer. I wish no winter ever come again.'

'It will be summer a long while yet,' I reassured her. 'Why aren't you
always nice like this, Tony?'

'How nice?'

'Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to be
like Ambrosch?'

She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. 'If
I live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you.
But they will be hard for us.'

BOOK II. The Hired Girls

I

I HAD BEEN LIVING with my grandfather for nearly three years when he
decided to move to Black Hawk. He and grandmother were getting old for
the heavy work of a farm, and as I was now thirteen they thought I ought
to be going to school. Accordingly our homestead was rented to 'that
good woman, the Widow Steavens,' and her bachelor brother, and we bought
Preacher White's house, at the north end of Black Hawk. This was the
first town house one passed driving in from the farm, a landmark which
told country people their long ride was over.

We were to move to Black Hawk in March, and as soon as grandfather had
fixed the date he let Jake and Otto know of his intention. Otto said he
would not be likely to find another place that suited him so well; that
he was tired of farming and thought he would go back to what he called
the 'wild West.' Jake Marpole, lured by Otto's stories of adventure,
decided to go with him. We did our best to dissuade Jake. He was so
handicapped by illiteracy and by his trusting disposition that he
would be an easy prey to sharpers. Grandmother begged him to stay among
kindly, Christian people, where he was known; but there was no reasoning
with him. He wanted to be a prospector. He thought a silver mine was
waiting for him in Colorado.

Jake and Otto served us to the last. They moved us into town, put
down the carpets in our new house, made shelves and cupboards for
grandmother's kitchen, and seemed loath to leave us. But at last they
went, without warning. Those two fellows had been faithful to us through
sun and storm, had given us things that cannot be bought in any market
in the world. With me they had