down in her favorite rocking-chair and set-
tled a little stool comfortably under her tired
feet. "I'm troubled with callouses, Jim; get-
ting old," she sighed cheerfully. She crossed
her hands in her lap and sat as if she were at
a meeting of some kind.

"Now, it's about that dear Antonia you
want to know? Well, you've come to the
right person. I've watched her like she'd
been my own daughter.

"When she came home to do her sewing
that summer before she was to be married,
she was over here about every day. They've
never had a sewing machine at the Shimer-
das', and she made all her things here. I
taught her hemstitching, and I helped her
to cut and fit. She used to sit there at that
machine by the window, pedaling the life
out of it -- she was so strong -- and always
singing them queer Bohemian songs, like she
was the happiest thing in the world.

"'Antonia,' I used to say, 'don't run that
machine so fast. You won't hasten the day
none that way.'

"Then she'd laugh and slow down for a
little, but she'd soon forget and begin to
pedal and sing again. I never saw a girl

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