she begged Lena to come to church on Sundays.
Lena said she hadn't a dress in the world any less ragged than the one
on her back. Then the minister's wife went through her old trunks and
found some things she had worn before her marriage.

The next Sunday Lena appeared at church, a little late, with her hair
done up neatly on her head, like a young woman, wearing shoes and
stockings, and the new dress, which she had made over for herself
very becomingly. The congregation stared at her. Until that morning no
one--unless it were Ole--had realized how pretty she was, or that she
was growing up. The swelling lines of her figure had been hidden under
the shapeless rags she wore in the fields. After the last hymn had
been sung, and the congregation was dismissed, Ole slipped out to the
hitch-bar and lifted Lena on her horse. That, in itself, was shocking;
a married man was not expected to do such things. But it was nothing to
the scene that followed. Crazy Mary darted out from the group of women
at the church door, and ran down the road after Lena, shouting horrible
threats.

'Look out, you Lena Lingard, look out! I'll come over with a corn-knife
one day and trim some of that shape off you. Then you won't sail round
so fine, making eyes at the men!...'

The Norwegian women didn't know where to look. They were formal
housewives, most of them, with a severe sense of decorum. But Lena
Lingard only laughed her lazy, good-natured laugh and rode on, gazing
back over her shoulder at Ole's infuriated wife.

The time came, however, when Lena didn't laugh. More than once Crazy
Mary chased her across the prairie and round and round the Shimerdas'
cornfield. Lena never told her father; perhaps she was ashamed; perhaps
she was more afraid of his anger than of the corn-knife. I was at the
Shimerdas' one afternoon when Lena came bounding through the red grass
as fast as her white legs could carry her. She ran straight into the
house and hid in Antonia's feather-bed. Mary was not far behind: she
came right up to the door and made us feel how sharp her blade was,
showing us very graphically just what she meant to do to Lena. Mrs.
Shimerda, leaning out of the window, enjoyed the situation keenly,
and was sorry when Antonia sent Mary away, mollified by an apronful of
bottle-tomatoes. Lena came out from Tony's room behind the kitchen,
very pink from the heat of the feathers, but otherwise calm. She begged
Antonia and me to go with her, and h