If I told my schoolmates that Lena Lingard's grandfather was a clergyman,
and much respected in Norway, they looked at me blankly. What did it
matter? All foreigners were ignorant people who couldn't speak English.
There was not a man in Black Hawk who had the intelligence or cultivation,
much less the personal distinction, of Antonia's father. Yet people saw no
difference between her and the three Marys; they were all Bohemians, all
`hired girls.'
I always knew I should live long enough to see my country girls come into
their own, and I have. To-day the best that a harassed Black Hawk merchant
can hope for is to sell provisions and farm machinery and automobiles to
the rich farms where that first crop of stalwart Bohemian and Scandinavian
girls are now the mistresses.
The Black Hawk boys looked forward to marrying Black Hawk girls, and living
in a brand-new little house with best chairs that must not be sat upon, and
hand-painted china that must not be used. But sometimes a young fellow
would look up from his ledger, or out through the grating of his father's
bank, and let his eyes follow Lena Lingard, as she passed the window with
her slow, undulating walk, or Tiny Soderball, tripping by in her short
skirt and striped stockings.
The country girls were considered a menace to the social order.
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