window, left open in warm weather, that
looked out into the stars. Ambrosch and Leo
cuddled up in a hay-cave, back under the
eaves, and lay giggling and whispering. They
tickled each other and tossed and tumbled
in the hay; and then, all at once, as if they had
been shot, they were still. There was hardly
a minute between giggles and bland slumber.

I lay awake for a long while, until the slow-
moving moon passed my window on its way
up the heavens. I was thinking about Anto-
nia and her children; about Anna's solicitude
for her, Ambrosch's grave affection, Leo's
jealous, animal little love. That moment,
when they all came tumbling out of the cave
into the light, was a sight any man might
have come far to see. Antonia had always been
one to leave images in the mind that did not
fade -- that grew stronger with time. In my
memory there was a succession of such pictures,
fixed there like the old woodcuts of one's
first primer: Antonia kicking her bare legs
against the sides of my pony when we came
home in triumph with our snake; Antonia in
her black shawl and fur cap, as she stood by
her father's grave in the snowstorm; Antonia
coming in with her work-team along the eve-

[[397]]

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v?