m frantically impatient of
deliberate judgments. He always knew what he wanted without thinking.

After dressing in the hay, I washed my face in cold water at the
windmill. Breakfast was ready when I entered the kitchen, and Yulka was
baking griddle-cakes. The three older boys set off for the fields early.
Leo and Yulka were to drive to town to meet their father, who would
return from Wilber on the noon train.

'We'll only have a lunch at noon,' Antonia said, and cook the geese for
supper, when our papa will be here. I wish my Martha could come down to
see you. They have a Ford car now, and she don't seem so far away from
me as she used to. But her husband's crazy about his farm and about
having everything just right, and they almost never get away except on
Sundays. He's a handsome boy, and he'll be rich some day. Everything
he takes hold of turns out well. When they bring that baby in here, and
unwrap him, he looks like a little prince; Martha takes care of him so
beautiful. I'm reconciled to her being away from me now, but at first I
cried like I was putting her into her coffin.'

We were alone in the kitchen, except for Anna, who was pouring cream
into the churn. She looked up at me. 'Yes, she did. We were just ashamed
of mother. She went round crying, when Martha was so happy, and the rest
of us were all glad. Joe certainly was patient with you, mother.'

Antonia nodded and smiled at herself. 'I know it was silly, but I
couldn't help it. I wanted her right here. She'd never been away from me
a night since she was born. If Anton had made trouble about her when she
was a baby, or wanted me to leave her with my mother, I wouldn't have
married him. I couldn't. But he always loved her like she was his own.'

'I didn't even know Martha wasn't my full sister until after she was
engaged to Joe,' Anna told me.

Toward the middle of the afternoon, the wagon drove in, with the father
and the eldest son. I was smoking in the orchard, and as I went out to
meet them, Antonia came running down from the house and hugged the two
men as if they had been away for months.

'Papa,' interested me, from my first glimpse of him. He was shorter than
his older sons; a crumpled little man, with run-over boot-heels, and he
carried one shoulder higher than the other. But he moved very quickly,
and there was an air of jaunty liveliness about him. He had a strong,
ruddy colour, thick black hair, a little grizzled, a curly moustache,
and r