Once when I
was abroad I went into Bohemia, and from Prague I sent Antonia some
photographs of her native village. Months afterward came a letter from
her, telling me the names and ages of her many children, but little else;
signed, `Your old friend, Antonia Cuzak.' When I met Tiny Soderball in Salt
Lake, she told me that Antonia had not `done very well'; that her husband
was not a man of much force, and she had had a hard life. Perhaps it was
cowardice that kept me away so long. My business took me West several
times every year, and it was always in the back of my mind that I would
stop in Nebraska some day and go to see Antonia. But I kept putting it off
until the next trip. I did not want to find her aged and broken; I really
dreaded it. In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many
illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are
realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.
I owe it to Lena Lingard that I went to see Antonia at last. I was in San
Francisco two summers ago when both Lena and Tiny Soderball were in town.
Tiny lives in a house of her own, and Lena's shop is in an apartment house
just around the corner. It interested me, after so many years, to see the
two women together.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313