to take pride in their whiteness -- she said
she'd been living in a brick block, where she
didn't have proper conveniences to wash
them.

"The next time I saw Antonia, she was out
in the fields ploughing corn. All that spring
and summer she did the work of a man on
the farm; it seemed to be an understood
thing. Ambrosch didn't get any other hand
to help him. Poor Marek had got violent and
been sent away to an institution a good while
back. We never even saw any of Tony's
pretty dresses. She didn't take them out
of her trunks. She was quiet and steady.
Folks respected her industry and tried to
treat her as if nothing had happened. They
talked, to be sure; but not like they would
if she'd put on airs. She was so crushed and
quiet that nobody seemed to want to humble
her. She never went anywhere. All that sum-
mer she never once came to see me. At first
I was hurt, but I got to feel that it was be-
cause this house reminded her of too much.
I went over there when I could, but the times
when she was in from the fields were the
times when I was busiest here. She talked
about the grain and the weather as if she'd

[[355]]

p354 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p355w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p356

v?