"I know it was silly, but I could
n't help it. I wanted her right here. She'd never been away from me a
night since she was born. If Anton had made trouble about her when she was
a baby, or wanted me to leave her with my mother, I would n't have married
him. I could n't. But he always loved her like she was his own."
"I did n't even know Martha was n't my full sister until after she was
engaged to Joe," Anna told me.
Toward the middle of the afternoon the wagon drove in, with the father and
the eldest son. I was smoking in the orchard, and as I went out to meet
them, Antonia came running down from the house and hugged the two men as
if they had been away for months.
"Papa" interested me, from my first glimpse of him. He was shorter than
his older sons; a crumpled little man, with run-over boot heels, and he
carried one shoulder higher than the other. But he moved very quickly, and
there was an air of jaunty liveliness about him. He had a strong, ruddy
color, thick black hair, a little grizzled, a curly mustache, and red
lips. His smile showed the strong teeth of which his wife was so proud,
and as he saw me his lively, quizzical eyes told me that he knew all about
me. He looked like a humorous philosopher who had hitched up one shoulder
under the burdens of life, and gone on his way having a good time when he
could. He advanced to meet me and gave me a hard hand, burned red on the
back and heavily coated with hair.
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