ed lips. His smile showed the strong teeth of which his wife was so
proud, and as he saw me his lively, quizzical eyes told me that he knew
all about me. He looked like a humorous philosopher who had hitched up
one shoulder under the burdens of life, and gone on his way having a
good time when he could. He advanced to meet me and gave me a hard hand,
burned red on the back and heavily coated with hair. He wore his Sunday
clothes, very thick and hot for the weather, an unstarched white shirt,
and a blue necktie with big white dots, like a little boy's, tied in
a flowing bow. Cuzak began at once to talk about his holiday--from
politeness he spoke in English.

'Mama, I wish you had see the lady dance on the slack-wire in the street
at night. They throw a bright light on her and she float through the air
something beautiful, like a bird! They have a dancing bear, like in the
old country, and two-three merry-go-around, and people in balloons, and
what you call the big wheel, Rudolph?'

'A Ferris wheel,' Rudolph entered the conversation in a deep baritone
voice. He was six foot two, and had a chest like a young blacksmith. 'We
went to the big dance in the hall behind the saloon last night, mother,
and I danced with all the girls, and so did father. I never saw so many
pretty girls. It was a Bohunk crowd, for sure. We didn't hear a word of
English on the street, except from the show people, did we, papa?'

Cuzak nodded. 'And very many send word to you, Antonia. You will
excuse'--turning to me--'if I tell her.' While we walked toward the
house he related incidents and delivered messages in the tongue he spoke
fluently, and I dropped a little behind, curious to know what their
relations had become--or remained. The two seemed to be on terms of easy
friendliness, touched with humour. Clearly, she was the impulse, and
he the corrective. As they went up the hill he kept glancing at her
sidewise, to see whether she got his point, or how she received it. I
noticed later that he always looked at people sidewise, as a work-horse
does at its yokemate. Even when he sat opposite me in the kitchen,
talking, he would turn his head a little toward the clock or the stove
and look at me from the side, but with frankness and good nature. This
trick did not suggest duplicity or secretiveness, but merely long habit,
as with the horse.

He had brought a tintype of himself and Rudolph for Antonia's
collection, and several paper bags of candy for