I can remember something unusual and en-
gaging about each of them. Physically they
were almost a race apart, and out-of-door
work had given them a vigor which, when they
got over their first shyness on coming to town,
developed into a positive carriage and freedom
of movement, and made them conspicuous
among Black Hawk women.

That was before the day of High-School
athletics. Girls who had to walk more than
half a mile to school were pitied. There was
not a tennis court in the town; physical exer-
cise was thought rather inelegant for the
daughters of well-to-do families. Some of the
High-School girls were jolly and pretty, but
they stayed indoors in winter because of the
cold, and in summer because of the heat.
When one danced with them their bodies
never moved inside their clothes; their mus-
cles seemed to ask but one thing -- not to be
disturbed. I remember those girls merely as
faces in the schoolroom, gay and rosy, or list-
less and dull, cut off below the shoulders, like
cherubs, by the ink-smeared tops of the high
desks that were surely put there to make us
round-shouldered and hollow-chested.

The daughters of Black Hawk merchants

[[226]]

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v?