My Antonia

nlight, but there was a shiver of coming winter in the air. I had seen ice on the little horse-pond that morning, and as

w highly esteemed our friend the badger was in her part of the world, and how men kept a special kind of dog, with very short legs, to hunt him. Those dogs, she said, went down into the hole after the badger and killed him there in a terrific struggle

ch of bluestem. He missed it, fell back, and sat with his head sunk between his long legs, his antenn? quivering, as if he were waiting for something to come and finish him. Tony made a warm nest for him in her hands; talked to him gayly and indulgently in Bohemian. Presently he began to sing for us-a thin, rusty little chirp. She held him close to her ear and laughed, but a moment afterward I saw ther

at were we to do with the frail little creature we had lured back to life by false pretenses? I offered my pockets, but Tony shook her head and carefully put the green insect in her hair, tying her big handk

ny other time of the day. The blond cornfields were red gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows. The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed

ie under that magnificence! And always two long black shadows fl

r, when we saw a figure moving on the edge of the upland, a gun over his shoulder. He was walki

e," Tony panted as we fle

cheek. She was the only one of his family who could rouse the old man from the torpor in which he seemed to live. He took the bag from his belt

tle hat for win-ter!" she exclaimed joyfully. "Meat for eat

idly. I heard the name of old Hata. He untied the handkerchief, separated her hair with his fingers, and stood

head on the cock. When he saw me examining it, he turned to me with his far-away look that always made

elong to a great man, very rich, like what you not got here; many fields, many forests, many

tantial presents in return. We stood there in friendly silence, while the feeble minstrel sheltered in ántonia's hair went on with its scratchy chirp. The old man's smile, as he listened, was so full of sadness, of pity for thin

g