"It makes me homesick, Jimmy, this flower,
this smell," she said softly. "We have this
flower very much at home, in the old country.
It always grew in our yard and my papa had
a green bench and a table under the bushes.
In summer, when they were in bloom, he used
to sit there with his friend that played the
trombone. When I was little I used to go
down there to hear them talk -- beautiful
talk, like what I never hear in this country."

"What did they talk about?" I asked her.

She sighed and shook her head. "Oh, I
don't know! About music, and the woods,
and about God, and when they were young."
She turned to me suddenly and looked into
my eyes. "You think, Jimmy, that maybe my
father's spirit can go back to those old places?"

I told her about the feeling of her father's
presence I had on that winter day when my
grandparents had gone over to see his dead
body and I was left alone in the house. I said
I felt sure then that he was on his way back
to his own country, and that even now, when
I passed his grave, I always thought of him
as being among the woods and fields that were
so dear to him.

Antonia had the most trusting, responsive

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