My
Antonia, that had so much good in her, had come home disgraced. And that
Lena Lingard, that was always a bad one, say what you will, had turned out
so well, and was coming home here every summer in her silks and her satins,
and doing so much for her mother. I give credit where credit is due, but
you know well enough, Jim Burden, there is a great difference in the
principles of those two girls. And here it was the good one that had come
to grief! I was poor comfort to her. I marvelled at her calm. As we went
back to the house, she stopped to feel of her clothes to see if they was
drying well, and seemed to take pride in their whiteness--she said she'd
been living in a brick block, where she didn't have proper conveniences to
wash them.
`The next time I saw Antonia, she was out in the fields ploughing corn.
All that spring and summer she did the work of a man on the farm; it seemed
to be an understood thing. Ambrosch didn't get any other hand to help him.
Poor Marek had got violent and been sent away to an institution a good
while back. We never even saw any of Tony's pretty dresses. She didn't
take them out of her trunks. She was quiet and steady. Folks respected
her industry and tried to treat her as if nothing had happened. They
talked, to be sure; but not like they would if she'd put on airs.
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