I was then nineteen years old.
BOOK IV--THE PIONEER WOMAN'S STORY
I
TWO years after I left Lincoln I completed my academic course at Harvard.
Before I entered the Law School I went home for the summer vacation. On
the night of my arrival Mrs. Harling and Frances and Sally came over to
greet me. Everything seemed just as it used to be. My grandparents looked
very little older. Frances Harling was married now, and she and her
husband managed the Harling interests in Black Hawk. When we gathered in
grandmother's parlor, I could hardly believe that I had been away at all.
One subject, however, we avoided all evening.
When I was walking home with Frances, after we had left Mrs. Harling at
her gate, she said simply, "You know, of course, about poor Antonia."
Poor Antonia! Every one would be saying that now, I thought bitterly. I
replied that grandmother had written me how Antonia went away to marry
Larry Donovan at some place where he was working; that he had deserted
her, and that there was now a baby. This was all I knew.
"He never married her," Frances said. "I have n't seen her since she came
back. She lives at home, on the farm, and almost never comes to town. She
brought the baby in to show it to mama once. I'm afraid she's settled down
to be Ambrosch's drudge for good."
I tried to shut Antonia out of my mind.
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