He was neatly dressed. Under his
coat he wore a knitted gray vest, and, instead of a collar, a silk scarf
of a dark bronze-green, carefully crossed and held together by a red coral
pin. While Krajiek was translating for Mr. Shimerda, Antonia came up to me
and held out her hand coaxingly. In a moment we were running up the steep
drawside together, Yulka trotting after us.
When we reached the level and could see the gold tree-tops, I pointed
toward them, and Antonia laughed and squeezed my hand as if to tell me how
glad she was I had come. We raced off toward Squaw Creek and did not stop
until the ground itself stopped--fell away before us so abruptly that the
next step would have been out into the tree-tops. We stood panting on the
edge of the ravine, looking down at the trees and bushes that grew below
us. The wind was so strong that I had to hold my hat on, and the girls'
skirts were blown out before them. Antonia seemed to like it; she held her
little sister by the hand and chattered away in that language which seemed
to me spoken so much more rapidly than mine. She looked at me, her eyes
fairly blazing with things she could not say.
"Name? What name?" she asked, touching me on the shoulder. I told her my
name, and she repeated it after me and made Yulka say it. She pointed into
the gold cottonwood tree behind whose top we stood and said again, "What
name?"
We sat down and made a nest in the long red grass.
Pages:
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38