V-III

After dinner the next day I said goodbye
and drove back to Hastings to take the train
for Black Hawk. Antonia and her children
gathered round my buggy before I started,
and even the little ones looked up at me with
friendly faces. Leo and Ambrosch ran ahead
to open the lane gate. When I reached the
bottom of the hill, I glanced back. The group
was still there by the windmill. Antonia was
waving her apron.

At the gate Ambrosch lingered beside my
buggy, resting his arm on the wheel-rim. Leo
slipped through the fence and ran off into the
pasture.

"That's like him," his brother said with a
shrug. "He's a crazy kid. Maybe he's sorry
to have you go, and maybe he's jealous. He's
jealous of anybody mother makes a fuss over,
even the priest."

I found I hated to leave this boy, with his
pleasant voice and his fine head and eyes. He
looked very manly as he stood there without

[[415]]

p414 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p415w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p416

v?