It always grew
in our yard and my papa had a green bench and a table under the bushes. In
summer, when they were in bloom, he used to sit there with his friend that
played the trombone. When I was little I used to go down there to hear
them talk--beautiful talk, like what I never hear in this country."
"What did they talk about?" I asked her.
She sighed and shook her head. "Oh, I don't know! About music, and the
woods, and about God, and when they were young." She turned to me suddenly
and looked into my eyes. "You think, Jimmy, that maybe my father's spirit
can go back to those old places?"
I told her about the feeling of her father's presence I had on that winter
day when my grandparents had gone over to see his dead body and I was left
alone in the house. I said I felt sure then that he was on his way back to
his own country, and that even now, when I passed his grave, I always
thought of him as being among the woods and fields that were so dear to
him.
Antonia had the most trusting, responsive eyes in the world; love and
credulousness seemed to look out of them with open faces. "Why did n't you
ever tell me that before? It makes me feel more sure for him." After a
while she said: "You know, Jim, my father was different from my mother. He
did not have to marry my mother, and all his brothers quarreled with him
because he did. I used to hear the old people at home whisper about it.
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