line of the river bluffs, two
miles south of us. That river was to be my compensation for the lost
freedom of the farming country.

We came to Black Hawk in March, and by the end of April we felt like town
people. Grandfather was a deacon in the new Baptist Church, grandmother
was busy with church suppers and missionary societies, and I was quite
another boy, or thought I was. Suddenly put down among boys of my own age,
I found I had a great deal to learn. Before the spring term of school was
over I could fight, play "keeps," tease the little girls, and use
forbidden words as well as any boy in my class. I was restrained from
utter savagery only by the fact that Mrs. Harling, our nearest neighbor,
kept an eye on me, and if my behavior went beyond certain bounds I was not
permitted to come into her yard or to play with her jolly children.

We saw more of our country neighbors now than when we lived on the farm.
Our house was a convenient stopping-place for them. We had a big barn
where the farmers could put up their teams, and their women-folk more
often accompanied them, now that they could stay with us for dinner, and
rest and set their bonnets right before they went shopping. The more our
house was like a country hotel, the better I liked it. I was glad, when I
came home from school at noon, to see a farm wagon standing in the back
yard, and I was always ready to run downtown to get beefsteak or baker's
bread for unexpected company. All through that first spring and summer I
kept hoping that Ambrosch would bring Antonia and Yulka to see our new
house. I wanted to show them our red plush furniture, and the
trumpet-blowing cherubs the German paper-hanger had put on our parlor
ceiling.

When Ambrosch came to town, however, he came alone, and though he put his
horses in our barn, he would never stay for dinner, or tell us anything
about his mother and sisters. If we ran out and questioned him as he was
slipping through the yard, he would merely work his shoulders about in his
coat and say, "They all right, I guess."

Mrs. Steavens, who now lived on our farm, grew as fond of Antonia as we
had been, and always brought us news of her. All through the wheat season,
she told us, Ambrosch hired his sister out like a man, and she went from
farm to farm, binding sheaves or working with the thrashers. The farmers
liked her and were kind to her; said they would rather have her for a hand
than Ambrosch. When fall came she was to