ing-horse.

Once when they had quarrelled about household expenses, Mrs. Cutter
put on her brocade and went among their friends soliciting orders for
painted china, saying that Mr. Cutter had compelled her 'to live by her
brush.' Cutter wasn't shamed as she had expected; he was delighted!

Cutter often threatened to chop down the cedar trees which half-buried
the house. His wife declared she would leave him if she were stripped
of the I privacy' which she felt these trees afforded her. That was his
opportunity, surely; but he never cut down the trees. The Cutters seemed
to find their relations to each other interesting and stimulating, and
certainly the rest of us found them so. Wick Cutter was different from
any other rascal I have ever known, but I have found Mrs. Cutters
all over the world; sometimes founding new religions, sometimes being
forcibly fed--easily recognizable, even when superficially tamed.

XII

AFTER ANTONIA WENT TO live with the Cutters, she seemed to care about
nothing but picnics and parties and having a good time. When she was
not going to a dance, she sewed until midnight. Her new clothes were
the subject of caustic comment. Under Lena's direction she copied
Mrs. Gardener's new party dress and Mrs. Smith's street costume so
ingeniously in cheap materials that those ladies were greatly annoyed,
and Mrs. Cutter, who was jealous of them, was secretly pleased.

Tony wore gloves now, and high-heeled shoes and feathered bonnets, and
she went downtown nearly every afternoon with Tiny and Lena and the
Marshalls' Norwegian Anna. We high-school boys used to linger on the
playground at the afternoon recess to watch them as they came tripping
down the hill along the board sidewalk, two and two. They were growing
prettier every day, but as they passed us, I used to think with pride
that Antonia, like Snow-White in the fairy tale, was still 'fairest of
them all.'

Being a senior now, I got away from school early. Sometimes I overtook
the girls downtown and coaxed them into the ice-cream parlour, where
they would sit chattering and laughing, telling me all the news from the
country.

I remember how angry Tiny Soderball made me one afternoon. She declared
she had heard grandmother was going to make a Baptist preacher of me. 'I
guess you'll have to stop dancing and wear a white necktie then. Won't
he look funny, girls?'

Lena laughed. 'You'll have to hurry up, Jim. If you're going to be a
preacher