We
were out all day in the thin sunshine, helping Mrs. Harling and Tony break
the ground and plant the garden, dig around the orchard trees, tie up vines
and clip the hedges. Every morning, before I was up, I could hear Tony
singing in the garden rows. After the apple and cherry trees broke into
bloom, we ran about under them, hunting for the new nests the birds were
building, throwing clods at each other, and playing hide-and-seek with
Nina. Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer
every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not
even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether
they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting.
It must have been in June, for Mrs. Harling and Antonia were preserving
cherries, when I stopped one morning to tell them that a dancing pavilion
had come to town. I had seen two drays hauling the canvas and painted
poles up from the depot.
That afternoon three cheerful-looking Italians strolled about Black Hawk,
looking at everything, and with them was a dark, stout woman who wore a
long gold watch-chain about her neck and carried a black lace parasol.
They seemed especially interested in children and vacant lots. When I
overtook them and stopped to say a word, I found them affable and
confiding.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199