sic harmony between Antonia and her mistress. They had
strong, independent natures, both of them. They knew what they liked, and
were not always trying to imitate other people. They loved children and
animals and music, and rough play and digging in the earth. They liked to
prepare rich, hearty food and to see people eat it; to make up soft white
beds and to see youngsters asleep in them. They ridiculed conceited people
and were quick to help unfortunate ones. Deep down in each of them there
was a kind of hearty joviality, a relish of life, not over-delicate, but
very invigorating. I never tried to define it, but I was distinctly
conscious of it. I could not imagine Antonia's living for a week in any
other house in Black Hawk than the Harlings'.

VII

WINTER lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and
shabby, old and sullen. On the farm the weather was the great fact, and
men's affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice.
But in Black Hawk the scene of human life was spread out shrunken and
pinched, frozen down to the bare stalk.

Through January and February I went to the river with the Harlings on
clear nights, and we skated up to the big island and made bonfires on the
frozen sand. But by March the ice was rough and choppy, and the snow on
the river bluffs was gray and mournful-looking. I was tired of school,
tired of winter clothes, of the rutted streets, of the dirty drifts and
the piles of cinders that had lain in the yards so long. There was only
one break in the dreary monotony of that month; when Blind d'Arnault, the
negro pianist, came to town. He gave a concert at the Opera House on
Monday night, and he and his manager spent Saturday and Sunday at our
comfortable hotel. Mrs. Harling had known d'Arnault for years. She told
Antonia she had better go to see Tiny that Saturday evening, as there
would certainly be music at the Boys' Home.

Saturday night after supper I ran downtown to the hotel and slipped
quietly into the parlor. The chairs and sofas were already occupied, and
the air smelled pleasantly of cigar smoke. The parlor had once been two
rooms, and the floor was sway-backed where the partition had been cut
away. The wind from without made waves in the long carpet. A coal stove
glowed at either end of the room, and the grand piano in the middle stood
open.

There was an atmosphere of unusual freedom about the house that night, for
Mrs. Gardener had go