Sometimes she used to bring them over the west hill, there, and
I would run to meet her and walk north a piece with her. She had thirty
cattle in her bunch; it had been dry, and the pasture was short, or she
would n't have brought them so far.
"It was a fine open fall, and she liked to be alone. While the steers
grazed, she used to sit on them grassy banks along the draws and sun
herself for hours. Sometimes I slipped up to visit with her, when she had
n't gone too far.
"'It does seem like I ought to make lace, or knit like Lena used to,' she
said one day, 'but if I start to work, I look around and forget to go on.
It seems such a little while ago when Jim Burden and I was playing all
over this country. Up here I can pick out the very places where my father
used to stand. Sometimes I feel like I'm not going to live very long, so
I'm just enjoying every day of this fall.'
"After the winter begun she wore a man's long overcoat and boots, and a
man's felt hat with a wide brim. I used to watch her coming and going, and
I could see that her steps were getting heavier. One day in December, the
snow began to fall. Late in the afternoon I saw Antonia driving her cattle
homeward across the hill. The snow was flying round her and she bent to
face it, looking more lonesome-like to me than usual. 'Deary me,' I says
to myself, 'the girl's stayed out too late.
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