"Of course it means you are going away from us for good," she said with a
sigh. "But that don't mean I'll lose you. Look at my papa here; he's been
dead all these years, and yet he is more real to me than almost anybody
else. He never goes out of my life. I talk to him and consult him all the
time. The older I grow, the better I know him and the more I understand
him."
She asked me whether I had learned to like big cities. "I'd always be
miserable in a city. I'd die of lonesomeness. I like to be where I know
every stack and tree, and where all the ground is friendly. I want to live
and die here. Father Kelly says everybody's put into this world for
something, and I know what I've got to do. I'm going to see that my little
girl has a better chance than ever I had. I'm going to take care of that
girl, Jim."
I told her I knew she would. "Do you know, Antonia, since I've been away,
I think of you more often than of any one else in this part of the world.
I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my
sister--anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of
my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of
times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me."
She turned her bright, believing eyes to me, and the tears came up in them
slowly. "How can it be like that, when you know so many people, and when
I've disappointed you so? Ain't it wonderful, Jim, how much people can
mean to each other? I'm so glad we had each other when we were little.
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