ON SATURDAY AMBROSCH drove up to the back gate, and Antonia jumped down
from the wagon and ran into our kitchen just as she used to do. She was
wearing shoes and stockings, and was breathless and excited. She gave me a
playful shake by the shoulders. `You ain't forget about me, Jim?'
Grandmother kissed her. `God bless you, child! Now you've come, you must
try to do right and be a credit to us.'
Antonia looked eagerly about the house and admired everything. `Maybe I be
the kind of girl you like better; now I come to town,' she suggested
hopefully.
How good it was to have Antonia near us again; to see her every day and
almost every night! Her greatest fault, Mrs. Harling found, was that she
so often stopped her work and fell to playing with the children. She would
race about the orchard with us, or take sides in our hay-fights in the
barn, or be the old bear that came down from the mountain and carried off
Nina. Tony learned English so quickly that by the time school began she
could speak as well as any of us.
I was jealous of Tony's admiration for Charley Harling. Because he was
always first in his classes at school, and could mend the water-pipes or
the doorbell and take the clock to pieces, she seemed to think him a sort
of prince. Nothing that Charley wanted was too much trouble for her. She
loved to put up lunches for him when he went hunting, to mend his
ball-gloves and sew buttons on his shooting-coat, baked the kind of
nut-cake he liked, and fed his setter dog when he was away on trips with
his father. Antonia had made herself cloth working-slippers out of Mr.
Harling's old coats, and in these she went padding about after Charley,
fairly panting with eagerness to please him.
Next to Charley, I think she loved Nina best. Nina was only six, and she
was rather more complex than the other children. She was fanciful, had all
sorts of unspoken preferences, and was easily offended. At the slightest
disappointment or displeasure, her velvety brown eyes filled with tears,
and she would lift her chin and walk silently away. If we ran after her
and tried to appease her, it did no good. She walked on unmollified. I
used to think that no eyes in the world could grow so large or hold so many
tears as Nina's. Mrs. Harling and Antonia invariably took her part. We
were never given a chance to explain. The charge was simply: `You have
made Nina cry. Now, Jimmy can go home, and Sally must get her arithmetic.'
I liked Nina, too; she was so quaint and unexpected, and her eyes were
lovely; but I often wanted to shake her.
We had jolly evenings at the Harlings' when the father was away. If he was
at home, the children had to go to bed early, or they came over to my house
to play. Mr. Harling not only demanded a quiet house, he demanded all his
wife's attention. He used to take her away to their room in the west ell,
and talk over his business with her all evening. Though we did not realize
it then, Mrs. Harling was our audience when we played, and we always looked
to her for suggestions. Nothing flattered one like her quick laugh.
Mr. Harling had a desk in his bedroom, and his own easy-chair by the
window, in which no one else ever sat. On the nights when he was at home,
I could see his shadow on the blind, and it seemed to me an arrogant
shadow. Mrs. Harling paid no heed to anyone else if he was there. Before
he went to bed she always got him a lunch of smoked salmon or anchovies and
beer. He kept an alcohol lamp in his room, and a French coffee-pot, and
his wife made coffee for him at any hour of the night he happened to want
it.
Most Black Hawk fathers had no personal habits outside their domestic ones;
they paid the bills, pushed the baby-carriage after office hours, moved the
sprinkler about over the lawn, and took the family driving on Sunday. Mr.
Harling, therefore, seemed to me autocratic and imperial in his ways. He
walked, talked, put on his gloves, shook hands, like a man who felt that he
had power. He was not tall, but he carried his head so haughtily that he
looked a commanding figure, and there was something daring and challenging
in his eyes. I used to imagine that the ,nobles' of whom Antonia was
always talking probably looked very much like Christian Harling, wore caped
overcoats like his, and just such a glittering diamond upon the little
finger.
Except when the father was at home, the Harling house was never quiet.
Mrs. Harling and Nina and Antonia made as much noise as a houseful of
children, and there was usually somebody at the piano. Julia was the only
one who was held down to regular hours of practising, but they all played.
When Frances came home at noon, she played until dinner was ready. When
Sally got back from school, she sat down in her hat and coat and drummed
the plantation melodies that Negro minstrel troupes brought to town. Even
Nina played the Swedish Wedding March.
Mrs. Harling had studied the piano under a good teacher, and somehow she
managed to practise every day. I soon learned that if I were sent over on
an errand and found Mrs. Harling at the piano, I must sit down and wait
quietly until she turned to me. I can see her at this moment: her short,
square person planted firmly on the stool, her little fat hands moving
quickly and neatly over the keys, her eyes fixed on the music with
intelligent concentration.
Read next: BOOK II - The Hired Girls#Chapter 4
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