While we were disputing about the ring, I heard a mournful voice calling,
"An-tonia, An-tonia!" She sprang up like a hare. "Tatinek, Tatinek!" she
shouted, and we ran to meet the old man who was coming toward us. Antonia
reached him first, took his hand and kissed it. When I came up, he touched
my shoulder and looked searchingly down into my face for several seconds.
I became somewhat embarrassed, for I was used to being taken for granted
by my elders.
We went with Mr. Shimerda back to the dugout, where grandmother was
waiting for me. Before I got into the wagon, he took a book out of his
pocket, opened it, and showed me a page with two alphabets, one English
and the other Bohemian. He placed this book in my grandmother's hands,
looked at her entreatingly, and said with an earnestness which I shall
never forget, "Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my An-tonia!"
IV
ON the afternoon of that same Sunday I took my first long ride on my pony,
under Otto's direction. After that Dude and I went twice a week to the
post-office, six miles east of us, and I saved the men a good deal of time
by riding on errands to our neighbors. When we had to borrow anything, or
to send about word that there would be preaching at the sod schoolhouse, I
was always the messenger. Formerly Fuchs attended to such things after
working hours.
All the years that have passed have not dimmed my memory of that first
glorious autumn.
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