ife. I talk to him and consult
him all the time. The older I grow, the better I know him and the more I
understand him.'

She asked me whether I had learned to like big cities. 'I'd always be
miserable in a city. I'd die of lonesomeness. I like to be where I know
every stack and tree, and where all the ground is friendly. I want to
live and die here. Father Kelly says everybody's put into this world
for something, and I know what I've got to do. I'm going to see that my
little girl has a better chance than ever I had. I'm going to take care
of that girl, Jim.'

I told her I knew she would. 'Do you know, Antonia, since I've been
away, I think of you more often than of anyone else in this part of the
world. I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my
mother or my sister--anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of
you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my
tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part
of me.'

She turned her bright, believing eyes to me, and the tears came up in
them slowly, 'How can it be like that, when you know so many people, and
when I've disappointed you so? Ain't it wonderful, Jim, how much people
can mean to each other? I'm so glad we had each other when we were
little. I can't wait till my little girl's old enough to tell her about
all the things we used to do. You'll always remember me when you think
about old times, won't you? And I guess everybody thinks about old
times, even the happiest people.'

As we walked homeward across the fields, the sun dropped and lay like a
great golden globe in the low west. While it hung there, the moon rose
in the east, as big as a cart-wheel, pale silver and streaked with rose
colour, thin as a bubble or a ghost-moon. For five, perhaps ten minutes,
the two luminaries confronted each other across the level land, resting
on opposite edges of the world.

In that singular light every little tree and shock of wheat, every
sunflower stalk and clump of snow-on-the-mountain, drew itself up high
and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up
sharply. I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes
out of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy
again, and that my way could end there.

We reached the edge of the field, where our ways parted. I took her
hands and held them against my breast, feeling once more how strong and
warm