Chương Chương 29 · Chapter X

It was at the Vannis’ tent that Ántonia was discovered. Hitherto she

had been looked upon more as a ward of the Harlings than as one of the

‘hired girls.’ She had lived in their house and yard and garden; her

thoughts never seemed to stray outside that little kingdom. But after

the tent came to town she began to go about with Tiny and Lena and

their friends. The Vannis often said that Ántonia was the best dancer

of them all. I sometimes heard murmurs in the crowd outside the

pavilion that Mrs. Harling would soon have her hands full with that

girl. The young men began to joke with each other about ‘the Harlings’

Tony’ as they did about ‘the Marshalls’ Anna’ or ‘the Gardeners’ Tiny.’

Ántonia talked and thought of nothing but the tent. She hummed the

dance tunes all day. When supper was late, she hurried with her dishes,

dropped and smashed them in her excitement. At the first call of the

music, she became irresponsible. If she hadn’t time to dress, she

merely flung off her apron and shot out of the kitchen door. Sometimes

I went with her; the moment the lighted tent came into view she would

break into a run, like a boy. There were always partners waiting for

her; she began to dance before she got her breath.

Ántonia’s success at the tent had its consequences. The iceman lingered

too long now, when he came into the covered porch to fill the

refrigerator. The delivery boys hung about the kitchen when they

brought the groceries. Young farmers who were in town for Saturday came

tramping through the yard to the back door to engage dances, or to

invite Tony to parties and picnics. Lena and Norwegian Anna dropped in

to help her with her work, so that she could get away early. The boys

who brought her home after the dances sometimes laughed at the back

gate and wakened Mr. Harling from his first sleep. A crisis was

inevitable.

One Saturday night Mr. Harling had gone down to the cellar for beer. As

he came up the stairs in the dark, he heard scuffling on the back

porch, and then the sound of a vigorous slap. He looked out through the

side door in time to see a pair of long legs vaulting over the picket

fence. Ántonia was standing there, angry and excited. Young Harry

Paine, who was to marry his employer’s daughter on Monday, had come to

the tent with a crowd of friends and danced all evening. Afterward, he

begged Ántonia to let him walk home with her. She said she supposed he

was a nice young man, as he was one of Miss Frances’s friends, and she

didn’t mind. On the back porch he tried to kiss her, and when she

protested—because he was going to be married on Monday—he caught her

and kissed her until she got one hand free and slapped him.

Mr. Harling put his beer-bottles down on the table. ‘This is what I’ve

been expecting, Ántonia. You’ve been going with girls who have a

reputation for being free and easy, and now you’ve got the same

reputation. I won’t have this and that fellow tramping about my back

yard all the time. This is the end of it, tonight. It stops, short. You

can quit going to these dances, or you can hunt another place. Think it

over.’

The next morning when Mrs. Harling and Frances tried to reason with

Ántonia, they found her agitated but determined. ‘Stop going to the

tent?’ she panted. ‘I wouldn’t think of it for a minute! My own father

couldn’t make me stop! Mr. Harling ain’t my boss outside my work. I

won’t give up my friends, either. The boys I go with are nice fellows.

I thought Mr. Paine was all right, too, because he used to come here. I

guess I gave him a red face for his wedding, all right!’ she blazed out

indignantly.

‘You’ll have to do one thing or the other, Ántonia,’ Mrs. Harling told

her decidedly. ‘I can’t go back on what Mr. Harling has said. This is

his house.’

‘Then I’ll just leave, Mrs. Harling. Lena’s been wanting me to get a

place closer to her for a long while. Mary Svoboda’s going away from

the Cutters’ to work at the hotel, and I can have her place.’

Mrs. Harling rose from her chair. ‘Ántonia, if you go to the Cutters’

to work, you cannot come back to this house again. You know what that

man is. It will be the ruin of you.’

Tony snatched up the teakettle and began to pour boiling water over the

glasses, laughing excitedly. ‘Oh, I can take care of myself! I’m a lot

stronger than Cutter is. They pay four dollars there, and there’s no

children. The work’s nothing; I can have every evening, and be out a

lot in the afternoons.’

‘I thought you liked children. Tony, what’s come over you?’

‘I don’t know, something has.’ Ántonia tossed her head and set her jaw.

‘A girl like me has got to take her good times when she can. Maybe

there won’t be any tent next year. I guess I want to have my fling,

like the other girls.’

Mrs. Harling gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘If you go to work for the

Cutters, you’re likely to have a fling that you won’t get up from in a

hurry.’

Frances said, when she told grandmother and me about this scene, that

every pan and plate and cup on the shelves trembled when her mother

walked out of the kitchen. Mrs. Harling declared bitterly that she

wished she had never let herself get fond of Ántonia.