She wanted to know about my friends, and my way of
living, and my dearest hopes.
`Of course it means you are going away from us for good,' she said with a
sigh. `But that don't mean I'll lose you. Look at my papa here; he's been
dead all these years, and yet he is more real to me than almost anybody
else. He never goes out of my life. I talk to him and consult him all the
time. The older I grow, the better I know him and the more I understand
him.'
She asked me whether I had learned to like big cities. `I'd always be
miserable in a city. I'd die of lonesomeness. I like to be where I know
every stack and tree, and where all the ground is friendly. I want to live
and die here. Father Kelly says everybody's put into this world for
something, and I know what I've got to do. I'm going to see that my little
girl has a better chance than ever I had. I'm going to take care of that
girl, Jim.'
I told her I knew she would. `Do you know, Antonia, since I've been away,
I think of you more often than of anyone else in this part of the world.
I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my
sister--anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part
of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of
times when I don't realize it.
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