prompt:
Chapter: THE Harling children and I were never happier, never felt more contented
and secure, than in the weeks of spring which broke that long winter. We
were out all day in the thin sunshine, helping Mrs. Harling and Tony break
the ground and plant the garden, dig around the orchard trees, tie up
vines and clip the hedges. Every morning, before I was up, I could hear
Tony singing in the garden rows. After the apple and cherry trees broke
into bloom, we ran about under them, hunting for the new nests the birds
were building, throwing clods at each other, and playing hide-and-seek
with Nina. Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer
every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not
even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether
they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting.

It must have been in June, for Mrs. Harling and Antonia were preserving
cherries, when I stopped one morning to tell them that a dancing pavilion
had come to town. I had seen two drays hauling the canvas and painted
poles up from the depot.

That afternoon three cheerful-looking Italians strolled about Black Hawk,
looking at everything, and with them was a dark, stout woman who wore a
long gold watch chain about her neck and carried a black lace parasol.
They seemed especially interested in children and vacant lots. When I
overtook them and stopped to say a word, I found them affable and
confiding. They told me they worked in Kansas City in the winter, and in
summer they went out among the farming towns with their tent and taught
dancing. When business fell off in one place, they moved on to another.

The dancing pavilion was put up near the Danish laundry, on a vacant lot
surrounded by tall, arched cottonwood trees. It was very much like a
merry-go-round tent, with open sides and gay flags flying from the poles.
Before the week was over, all the ambitious mothers were sending their
children to the afternoon dancing class. At three o'clock one met little
girls in white dresses and little boys in the round-collared shirts of the
time, hurrying along the sidewalk on their way to the tent. Mrs. Vanni
received them at the entrance, always dressed in lavender with a great
deal of black lace, her important watch chain lying on her bosom. She wore
her hair on the top of her head, built up in a black tower, with red coral
combs. When she smiled, she showed two rows of strong, crooked yellow
teeth. She taught the little children herself, and her husband, the
harpist, taught the older ones.

Often the mothers brought their fancy-work and sat on the shady side of
the tent during the lesson. The popcorn man wheeled his glass wagon under
the big cottonwood by the door, and lounged in the sun, sure of a good
trade when the dancing was over. Mr. Jensen, the Danish laundryman, used
to bring a chair from his porch and sit out in the grass plot. Some ragged
little boys from the depot sold pop and iced lemonade under a white
umbrella at the corner, and made faces at the spruce youngsters who came
to dance. That vacant lot soon became the most cheerful place in town.
Even on the hottest afternoons the cottonwoods made a rustling shade, and
the air smelled of popcorn and melted butter, and Bouncing Bets wilting in
the sun. Those hardy flowers had run away from the laundryman's garden,
and the grass in the middle of the lot was pink with them.

The Vannis kept exemplary order, and closed every evening at the hour
suggested by the City Council. When Mrs. Vanni gave the signal, and the
harp struck up "Home, Sweet Home," all Black Hawk knew it was ten o'clock.
You could set your watch by that tune as confidently as by the Round House
whistle.

At last there was something to do in those long, empty summer evenings,
when the married people sat like images on their front porches, and the
boys and girls tramped and tramped the board sidewalks--northward to the
edge of the open prairie, south to the depot, then back again to the
post-office, the ice-cream parlor, the butcher shop. Now there was a place
where the girls could wear their new dresses, and where one could laugh
aloud without being reproved by the ensuing silence. That silence seemed
to ooze out of the ground, to hang under the foliage of the black maple
trees with the bats and shadows. Now it was broken by light-hearted
sounds. First the deep purring of Mr. Vanni's harp came in silvery ripples
through the blackness of the dusty-smelling night; then the violins fell
in--one of them was almost like a flute. They called so archly, so
seductively, that our feet hurried toward the tent of themselves. Why had
n't we had a tent before?

Dancing became popular now, just as roller skating had been the summer
before. The Progressive Euchre Club arranged with the Vannis for the
exclusive use of the floor on Tuesday and Friday nights. At other times
any one could dance who paid his money and was orderly; the railroad men,
the Round House mechanics, the delivery boys, the iceman, the farmhands
who lived near enough to ride into town after their day's work was over.

I never missed a Saturday night dance. The tent was open until midnight
then. The country boys came in from farms eight and ten miles away, and
all the country girls were on the floor,--Antonia and Lena and Tiny, and
the Danish laundry girls and their friends. I was not the only boy who
found these dances gayer than the others. The young men who belonged to
the Progressive Euchre Club used to drop in late and risk a tiff with
their sweethearts and general condemnation for a waltz with "the hired
girls."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: When spring comes, everyone is happy. Jim and Tony help Mrs. Harling take care of her garden, and the kids play outside. Summer is coming, which narrator-Jim says will change everything. When boys and girls are supposed to grow up, he writes, nothing can stop them. Their parents often don't remember this. In June Jim stops at the Harlings' to tell them that a dancing pavilion has come to town. Three Italian immigrants came to town and found a vacant lot to set up a tent for dancing. In the winter they work in Kansas City and in the summer they settle down in some farming town to teach dancing. Whenever business starts to slow down they just move on to another town. Soon after the tent is put up everyone starts sending their kids there to learn how to dance. Mrs. Vanni, one of the three Italians, dresses very nicely and teaches the children. Her husband, Mr. Vanni, plays the harp for them. Many of the mothers come and watch their children learn how to dance. Others come as spectators, and vendors start selling snacks there. The Vannis are very organized and always close up on time. Jim is glad that there's finally something to do other than sit on your porch all night. The girls finally have an excuse to wear new clothes. He wonders why they haven't had one of these before. Dancing becomes the new fad in town. Everyone who pays to get in is welcome. Jim goes to every Saturday night dance, when the pavilion is open until midnight. Everyone comes in, the country boys from the farms and the people from the town. Many of the hired girls are there - girls like Antonia and Tiny and Lena who used to live on farms but have come to town to work. The town boys like to dance with them, even though their girlfriends don't like the idea.


prompt:
Chapter: THERE was a curious social situation in Black Hawk. All the young men felt
the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town
to earn a living, and, in nearly every case, to help the father struggle
out of debt, or to make it possible for the younger children of the family
to go to school.

Those girls had grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and had got
little schooling themselves. But the younger brothers and sisters, for
whom they made such sacrifices and who have had "advantages," never seem
to me, when I meet them now, half as interesting or as well educated. The
older girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so much from
life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all,
like Antonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender
age from an old country to a new. I can remember a score of these country
girls who were in service in Black Hawk during the few years I lived
there, and I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of
them. Physically they were almost a race apart, and out-of-door work had
given them a vigor which, when they got over their first shyness on coming
to town, developed into a positive carriage and freedom of movement, and
made them conspicuous among Black Hawk women.

That was before the day of High-School athletics. Girls who had to walk
more than half a mile to school were pitied. There was not a tennis court
in the town; physical exercise was thought rather inelegant for the
daughters of well-to-do families. Some of the High-School girls were jolly
and pretty, but they stayed indoors in winter because of the cold, and in
summer because of the heat. When one danced with them their bodies never
moved inside their clothes; their muscles seemed to ask but one thing--not
to be disturbed. I remember those girls merely as faces in the schoolroom,
gay and rosy, or listless and dull, cut off below the shoulders, like
cherubs, by the ink-smeared tops of the high desks that were surely put
there to make us round-shouldered and hollow-chested.

The daughters of Black Hawk merchants had a confident, uninquiring belief
that they were "refined," and that the country girls, who "worked out,"
were not. The American farmers in our county were quite as hard-pressed as
their neighbors from other countries. All alike had come to Nebraska with
little capital and no knowledge of the soil they must subdue. All had
borrowed money on their land. But no matter in what straits the
Pennsylvanian or Virginian found himself, he would not let his daughters
go out into service. Unless his girls could teach a country school, they
sat at home in poverty. The Bohemian and Scandinavian girls could not get
positions as teachers, because they had had no opportunity to learn the
language. Determined to help in the struggle to clear the homestead from
debt, they had no alternative but to go into service. Some of them, after
they came to town, remained as serious and as discreet in behavior as they
had been when they ploughed and herded on their father's farm. Others,
like the three Bohemian Marys, tried to make up for the years of youth
they had lost. But every one of them did what she had set out to do, and
sent home those hard-earned dollars. The girls I knew were always helping
to pay for ploughs and reapers, brood-sows, or steers to fatten.

One result of this family solidarity was that the foreign farmers in our
county were the first to become prosperous. After the fathers were out of
debt, the daughters married the sons of neighbors,--usually of like
nationality,--and the girls who once worked in Black Hawk kitchens are
to-day managing big farms and fine families of their own; their children
are better off than the children of the town women they used to serve.

I thought the attitude of the town people toward these girls very stupid.
If I told my schoolmates that Lena Lingard's grandfather was a clergyman,
and much respected in Norway, they looked at me blankly. What did it
matter? All foreigners were ignorant people who could n't speak English.
There was not a man in Black Hawk who had the intelligence or cultivation,
much less the personal distinction, of Antonia's father. Yet people saw no
difference between her and the three Marys; they were all Bohemians, all
"hired girls."

I always knew I should live long enough to see my country girls come into
their own, and I have. To-day the best that a harassed Black Hawk merchant
can hope for is to sell provisions and farm machinery and automobiles to
the rich farms where that first crop of stalwart Bohemian and Scandinavian
girls are now the mistresses.

The Black Hawk boys looked forward to marrying Black Hawk girls, and
living in a brand-new little house with best chairs that must not be sat
upon, and hand-painted china that must not be used. But sometimes a young
fellow would look up from his ledger, or out through the grating of his
father's bank, and let his eyes follow Lena Lingard, as she passed the
window with her slow, undulating walk, or Tiny Soderball, tripping by in
her short skirt and striped stockings.

The country girls were considered a menace to the social order. Their
beauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background. But anxious
mothers need have felt no alarm. They mistook the mettle of their sons.
The respect for respectability was stronger than any desire in Black Hawk
youth.

Our young man of position was like the son of a royal house; the boy who
swept out his office or drove his delivery wagon might frolic with the
jolly country girls, but he himself must sit all evening in a plush parlor
where conversation dragged so perceptibly that the father often came in
and made blundering efforts to warm up the atmosphere. On his way home
from his dull call, he would perhaps meet Tony and Lena, coming along the
sidewalk whispering to each other, or the three Bohemian Marys in their
long plush coats and caps, comporting themselves with a dignity that only
made their eventful histories the more piquant. If he went to the hotel to
see a traveling man on business, there was Tiny, arching her shoulders at
him like a kitten. If he went into the laundry to get his collars, there
were the four Danish girls, smiling up from their ironing-boards, with
their white throats and their pink cheeks.

The three Marys were the heroines of a cycle of scandalous stories, which
the old men were fond of relating as they sat about the cigar-stand in the
drug-store. Mary Dusak had been housekeeper for a bachelor rancher from
Boston, and after several years in his service she was forced to retire
from the world for a short time. Later she came back to town to take the
place of her friend, Mary Svoboda, who was similarly embarrassed. The
three Marys were considered as dangerous as high explosives to have about
the kitchen, yet they were such good cooks and such admirable housekeepers
that they never had to look for a place.

The Vannis' tent brought the town boys and the country girls together on
neutral ground. Sylvester Lovett, who was cashier in his father's bank,
always found his way to the tent on Saturday night. He took all the dances
Lena Lingard would give him, and even grew bold enough to walk home with
her. If his sisters or their friends happened to be among the onlookers on
"popular nights," Sylvester stood back in the shadow under the cottonwood
trees, smoking and watching Lena with a harassed expression. Several times
I stumbled upon him there in the dark, and I felt rather sorry for him. He
reminded me of Ole Benson, who used to sit on the draw-side and watch Lena
herd her cattle. Later in the summer, when Lena went home for a week to
visit her mother, I heard from Antonia that young Lovett drove all the way
out there to see her, and took her buggy-riding. In my ingenuousness I
hoped that Sylvester would marry Lena, and thus give all the country girls
a better position in the town.

Sylvester dallied about Lena until he began to make mistakes in his work;
had to stay at the bank until after dark to make his books balance. He was
daft about her, and every one knew it. To escape from his predicament he
ran away with a widow six years older than himself, who owned a
half-section. This remedy worked, apparently. He never looked at Lena
again, nor lifted his eyes as he ceremoniously tipped his hat when he
happened to meet her on the sidewalk.

So that was what they were like, I thought, these white-handed,
high-collared clerks and bookkeepers! I used to glare at young Lovett from
a distance and only wished I had some way of showing my contempt for him.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Jim explains the social situation in Black Hawk. The men who live in town are attracted to the country girls. The country girls grew up with hard lives, like Antonia, and they aren't formally educated. But Jim thinks they are smarter and more interesting than those who are more privileged. Physically they are strong and fit, especially compared to the town girls who rarely go outside. This means they're better dancers. And yet, the town girls still think that they're better than the country girls. Jim notes that these girls' own families had just as hard a time when they were farmers, but that Americans weren't willing to send their daughters out to work the way the immigrants were. All the Americans' daughters can do is teach, but the immigrant daughters don't know English well-enough for that, so they have to do service work. This is why, says Jim, the foreign farmers are the ones who become successful first, and the younger generation ends up more wealthy than the American families they used to work for. Jim thinks it's dumb that the town people don't respect the hired girls. He knows that many of the immigrants used to be respectable in their old countries - Lena's grandfather was a clergyman, for example. Narrator-Jim is glad that he lived to see the day where the immigrants are more successful than the people they served once. The town boys plan on marrying the town girls, but they are attracted to the immigrant girls. Because of this, the immigrants threaten to upset the social order. But this is an empty threat, since the town boys wouldn't dare to marry any of them. Yet the immigrant girls are still a temptation for any young man of position. He would run into them all over town and be tempted by their beauty. Jim talks a bit about the three Marys, immigrant girls who also worked in town. Mary Dusak worked as a housekeeper for a bachelor, but he got her pregnant. Later she ended up working in the place of Mary Svoboda, who also got pregnant by her employer. Because of this, the three Marys are considered dangerous to have around. But they are very good at cooking and cleaning. The dancing tent brings together everyone in town from different social positions. Sylvester Lovett is a town boy who always dances with Lena on Saturday nights and even walks her home. But he tries to hide if his friends walk by. He reminds Jim of Ole. Jim finds out that Sylvester drove out to see Lena when she was visiting her family on the farm. He took her buggy riding. Jim hopes that Sylvester will marry Lena and erase the taboo about socializing with hired girls. But instead, Sylvester marries a widow who is six years his senior. Then he was no longer tempted by Lena. Jim dislikes Sylvester a lot on account of this.


prompt:
Chapter: IT was at the Vannis' tent that Antonia 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 Antonia 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."

Antonia 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 had n'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.

Antonia'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. Antonia
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 Antonia 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 did n'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, Antonia. 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, to-night. 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
Antonia, they found her agitated but determined. "Stop going to the tent?"
she panted. "I would n't think of it for a minute! My own father could n'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, Antonia," 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. "Antonia, 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 tea-kettle 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." Antonia 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 Antonia.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Until the dances began, Antonia wasn't considered one of the more attractive hired girls. She was just a girl who worked for and lived with the Harlings. But once the dances start, she begins hanging out with Tiny and Lena a lot. Also, she is a great dancer. The boys start to talk about her the same way they talk about Tiny. Antonia is in love with the dances. She becomes a bit irresponsible around the house in her excitement. Everyone always waits to dance with Antonia at the Vannis'. Trouble begins. Delivery boys who come to the Harlings' stay longer because they want to flirt with Antonia. Boys come to visit her to ask for dances. Sometimes the boys who walk her home on Saturday night wake Mr. Harling up with their voices. One Saturday night Mr. Harling hears a scuffle and slap on the porch. It turns out that Antonia was with a boy named Harry Paine. He is engaged to be married on Monday, but Antonia let him walk her home from the dance because she thought he was just a nice guy. When he tried to kiss her she fought and slapped him. Mr. Harling is not happy to hear this. He tells Antonia that she brought this on herself by hanging out with girls like Lena and Tiny who have bad reputations. He tells her that she's not allowed to go to the dances anymore if she wants to live with them. Antonia decides to leave the Harlings' rather than stop going to the dances. Frances and her mother try to get her to change her mind, but Antonia is adamant. She says that she's going to go work for Wick Cutter. Mrs. Harling warns her against this, since Cutter has a reputation for knocking up the girls who work for him. She tells Antonia that if she goes to work for Cutter, she's not allowed to come back to the Harlings'. Antonia argues that she has to take her good times when she can get them. She worries there won't be a dancing tent next year. Mrs. Harling warns her again that she might get pregnant if she works for Cutter. Mrs. Harling is angry at Antonia for her decision. She says she wishes that she had never gotten to like the girl so much.


prompt:
Chapter: WICK CUTTER was the money-lender who had fleeced poor Russian Peter. When
a farmer once got into the habit of going to Cutter, it was like gambling
or the lottery; in an hour of discouragement he went back.

Cutter's first name was Wycliffe, and he liked to talk about his pious
bringing-up. He contributed regularly to the Protestant churches, "for
sentiment's sake," as he said with a flourish of the hand. He came from a
town in Iowa where there were a great many Swedes, and could speak a
little Swedish, which gave him a great advantage with the early
Scandinavian settlers.

In every frontier settlement there are men who have come there to escape
restraint. Cutter was one of the "fast set" of Black Hawk business men. He
was an inveterate gambler, though a poor loser. When we saw a light
burning in his office late at night, we knew that a game of poker was
going on. Cutter boasted that he never drank anything stronger than
sherry, and he said he got his start in life by saving the money that
other young men spent for cigars. He was full of moral maxims for boys.
When he came to our house on business, he quoted "Poor Richard's Almanack"
to me, and told me he was delighted to find a town boy who could milk a
cow. He was particularly affable to grandmother, and whenever they met he
would begin at once to talk about "the good old times" and simple living.
I detested his pink, bald head, and his yellow whiskers, always soft and
glistening. It was said he brushed them every night, as a woman does her
hair. His white teeth looked factory-made. His skin was red and rough, as
if from perpetual sunburn; he often went away to hot springs to take mud
baths. He was notoriously dissolute with women. Two Swedish girls who had
lived in his house were the worse for the experience. One of them he had
taken to Omaha and established in the business for which he had fitted
her. He still visited her.

Cutter lived in a state of perpetual warfare with his wife, and yet,
apparently, they never thought of separating. They dwelt in a fussy,
scroll-work house, painted white and buried in thick evergreens, with a
fussy white fence and barn. Cutter thought he knew a great deal about
horses, and usually had a colt which he was training for the track. On
Sunday mornings one could see him out at the fair grounds, speeding around
the race-course in his trotting-buggy, wearing yellow gloves and a
black-and-white-check traveling cap, his whiskers blowing back in the
breeze. If there were any boys about, Cutter would offer one of them a
quarter to hold the stop-watch, and then drive off, saying he had no
change and would "fix it up next time." No one could cut his lawn or wash
his buggy to suit him. He was so fastidious and prim about his place that
a boy would go to a good deal of trouble to throw a dead cat into his back
yard, or to dump a sackful of tin cans in his alley. It was a peculiar
combination of old-maidishness and licentiousness that made Cutter seem so
despicable.

He had certainly met his match when he married Mrs. Cutter. She was a
terrifying-looking person; almost a giantess in height, raw-boned, with
iron-gray hair, a face always flushed, and prominent, hysterical eyes.
When she meant to be entertaining and agreeable, she nodded her head
incessantly and snapped her eyes at one. Her teeth were long and curved,
like a horse's; people said babies always cried if she smiled at them. Her
face had a kind of fascination for me; it was the very color and shape of
anger. There was a gleam of something akin to insanity in her full,
intense eyes. She was formal in manner, and made calls in rustling,
steel-gray brocades and a tall bonnet with bristling aigrettes.

Mrs. Cutter painted china so assiduously that even her washbowls and
pitchers, and her husband's shaving-mug, were covered with violets and
lilies. Once when Cutter was exhibiting some of his wife's china to a
caller, he dropped a piece. Mrs. Cutter put her handkerchief to her lips
as if she were going to faint and said grandly: "Mr. Cutter, you have
broken all the Commandments--spare the finger-bowls!"

They quarreled from the moment Cutter came into the house until they went
to bed at night, and their hired girls reported these scenes to the town
at large. Mrs. Cutter had several times cut paragraphs about unfaithful
husbands out of the newspapers and mailed them to Cutter in a disguised
handwriting. Cutter would come home at noon, find the mutilated journal in
the paper-rack, and triumphantly fit the clipping into the space from
which it had been cut. Those two could quarrel all morning about whether
he ought to put on his heavy or his light underwear, and all evening about
whether he had taken cold or not.

The Cutters had major as well as minor subjects for dispute. The chief of
these was the question of inheritance: Mrs. Cutter told her husband it was
plainly his fault they had no children. He insisted that Mrs. Cutter had
purposely remained childless, with the determination to outlive him and to
share his property with her "people," whom he detested. To this she would
reply that unless he changed his mode of life, she would certainly outlive
him. After listening to her insinuations about his physical soundness,
Cutter would resume his dumb-bell practice for a month, or rise daily at
the hour when his wife most liked to sleep, dress noisily, and drive out
to the track with his trotting-horse.

Once when they had quarreled about household expenses, Mrs. Cutter put on
her brocade and went among their friends soliciting orders for painted
china, saying that Mr. Cutter had compelled her "to live by her brush."
Cutter was n't shamed as she had expected; he was delighted!

Cutter often threatened to chop down the cedar trees which half-buried the
house. His wife declared she would leave him if she were stripped of the
"privacy" which she felt these trees afforded her. That was his
opportunity, surely; but he never cut down the trees. The Cutters seemed
to find their relations to each other interesting and stimulating, and
certainly the rest of us found them so. Wick Cutter was different from any
other rascal I have ever known, but I have found Mrs. Cutters all over the
world; sometimes founding new religions, sometimes being forcibly
fed--easily recognizable, even when superficially tamed.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Wick Cutter is the moneylender we've already heard about. He's a bad guy. His first name is Wycliffe and he is Protestant. He comes from Iowa and speaks a bit of Swedish. Cutter gambles a lot and is a bad loser. He always tells people how to act morally and says not to drink very hard liquor or smoke cigars. Cutter likes Jim's grandmother, and they always reminisce about the old days. Jim hates Cutter and the way he looks. He has fake-looking white teeth and yellow whiskers. Jim implies that Cutter got two of the girls who worked with him pregnant. He took one of them to Omaha and he still visits her sometimes. Cutter and his wife argue all the time. He has a thing for horses and trains them for the track. He's very nit-picky about his house and yard. Mrs. Cutter is tall and has long teeth. Babies don't like her. She is also very formal. She likes to paint china as a hobby and sells it to her neighbors when she and Mr. Cutter have arguments about money. Cutter wants to cut down the trees around their house, but his wife says that she'll divorce him if he does. She likes that the trees provide her with privacy. Jim says that he hasn't found anyone like Mr. Cutter, but that he's seen other people who are like Mrs. Cutter in his life.


prompt:
Chapter: AFTER Antonia went to live with the Cutters, she seemed to care about
nothing but picnics and parties and having a good time. When she was not
going to a dance, she sewed until midnight. Her new clothes were the
subject of caustic comment. Under Lena's direction she copied Mrs.
Gardener's new party dress and Mrs. Smith's street costume so ingeniously
in cheap materials that those ladies were greatly annoyed, and Mrs.
Cutter, who was jealous of them, was secretly pleased.

Tony wore gloves now, and high-heeled shoes and feathered bonnets, and she
went downtown nearly every afternoon with Tiny and Lena and the Marshalls'
Norwegian Anna. We High-School boys used to linger on the playground at
the afternoon recess to watch them as they came tripping down the hill
along the board sidewalk, two and two. They were growing prettier every
day, but as they passed us, I used to think with pride that Antonia, like
Snow-White in the fairy tale, was still "fairest of them all."

Being a Senior now, I got away from school early. Sometimes I overtook the
girls downtown and coaxed them into the ice-cream parlor, where they would
sit chattering and laughing, telling me all the news from the country. I
remember how angry Tiny Soderball made me one afternoon. She declared she
had heard grandmother was going to make a Baptist preacher of me. "I guess
you'll have to stop dancing and wear a white necktie then. Won't he look
funny, girls?"

Lena laughed. "You'll have to hurry up, Jim. If you're going to be a
preacher, I want you to marry me. You must promise to marry us all, and
then baptize the babies."

Norwegian Anna, always dignified, looked at her reprovingly.

"Baptists don't believe in christening babies, do they, Jim?"

I told her I did n't know what they believed, and did n't care, and that I
certainly was n't going to be a preacher.

"That's too bad," Tiny simpered. She was in a teasing mood. "You'd make
such a good one. You're so studious. Maybe you'd like to be a professor.
You used to teach Tony, did n't you?"

Antonia broke in. "I've set my heart on Jim being a doctor. You'd be good
with sick people, Jim. Your grandmother's trained you up so nice. My papa
always said you were an awful smart boy."

I said I was going to be whatever I pleased. "Won't you be surprised, Miss
Tiny, if I turn out to be a regular devil of a fellow?"

They laughed until a glance from Norwegian Anna checked them; the
High-School Principal had just come into the front part of the shop to buy
bread for supper. Anna knew the whisper was going about that I was a sly
one. People said there must be something queer about a boy who showed no
interest in girls of his own age, but who could be lively enough when he
was with Tony and Lena or the three Marys.

The enthusiasm for the dance, which the Vannis had kindled, did not at
once die out. After the tent left town, the Euchre Club became the Owl
Club, and gave dances in the Masonic Hall once a week. I was invited to
join, but declined. I was moody and restless that winter, and tired of the
people I saw every day. Charley Harling was already at Annapolis, while I
was still sitting in Black Hawk, answering to my name at roll-call every
morning, rising from my desk at the sound of a bell and marching out like
the grammar-school children. Mrs. Harling was a little cool toward me,
because I continued to champion Antonia. What was there for me to do after
supper? Usually I had learned next day's lessons by the time I left the
school building, and I could n't sit still and read forever.

In the evening I used to prowl about, hunting for diversion. There lay the
familiar streets, frozen with snow or liquid with mud. They led to the
houses of good people who were putting the babies to bed, or simply
sitting still before the parlor stove, digesting their supper. Black Hawk
had two saloons. One of them was admitted, even by the church people, to
be as respectable as a saloon could be. Handsome Anton Jelinek, who had
rented his homestead and come to town, was the proprietor. In his saloon
there were long tables where the Bohemian and German farmers could eat the
lunches they brought from home while they drank their beer. Jelinek kept
rye bread on hand, and smoked fish and strong imported cheeses to please
the foreign palate. I liked to drop into his bar-room and listen to the
talk. But one day he overtook me on the street and clapped me on the
shoulder.

"Jim," he said, "I am good friends with you and I always like to see you.
But you know how the church people think about saloons. Your grandpa has
always treated me fine, and I don't like to have you come into my place,
because I know he don't like it, and it puts me in bad with him."

So I was shut out of that.

One could hang about the drug-store, and listen to the old men who sat
there every evening, talking politics and telling raw stories. One could
go to the cigar factory and chat with the old German who raised canaries
for sale, and look at his stuffed birds. But whatever you began with him,
the talk went back to taxidermy. There was the depot, of course; I often
went down to see the night train come in, and afterward sat awhile with
the disconsolate telegrapher who was always hoping to be transferred to
Omaha or Denver, "where there was some life." He was sure to bring out his
pictures of actresses and dancers. He got them with cigarette coupons, and
nearly smoked himself to death to possess these desired forms and faces.
For a change, one could talk to the station agent; but he was another
malcontent; spent all his spare time writing letters to officials
requesting a transfer. He wanted to get back to Wyoming where he could go
trout-fishing on Sundays. He used to say "there was nothing in life for
him but trout streams, ever since he'd lost his twins."

These were the distractions I had to choose from. There were no other
lights burning downtown after nine o'clock. On starlight nights I used to
pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little,
sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered back
porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly built of light
wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by the turning-lathe.
Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envy and unhappiness
some of them managed to contain! The life that went on in them seemed to
me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to save cooking, to save
washing and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongue of gossip. This
guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's
speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed.
Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution.
The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice
in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over
the surface of things in the dark. The growing piles of ashes and cinders
in the back yards were the only evidence that the wasteful, consuming
process of life went on at all. On Tuesday nights the Owl Club danced;
then there was a little stir in the streets, and here and there one could
see a lighted window until midnight. But the next night all was dark
again.

After I refused to join "the Owls," as they were called, I made a bold
resolve to go to the Saturday night dances at Firemen's Hall. I knew it
would be useless to acquaint my elders with any such plan. Grandfather did
n't approve of dancing anyway; he would only say that if I wanted to dance
I could go to the Masonic Hall, among "the people we knew." It was just my
point that I saw altogether too much of the people we knew.

My bedroom was on the ground floor, and as I studied there, I had a stove
in it. I used to retire to my room early on Saturday night, change my
shirt and collar and put on my Sunday coat. I waited until all was quiet
and the old people were asleep, then raised my window, climbed out, and
went softly through the yard. The first time I deceived my grandparents I
felt rather shabby, perhaps even the second time, but I soon ceased to
think about it.

The dance at the Firemen's Hall was the one thing I looked forward to all
the week. There I met the same people I used to see at the Vannis' tent.
Sometimes there were Bohemians from Wilber, or German boys who came down
on the afternoon freight from Bismarck. Tony and Lena and Tiny were always
there, and the three Bohemian Marys, and the Danish laundry girls.

The four Danish girls lived with the laundryman and his wife in their
house behind the laundry, with a big garden where the clothes were hung
out to dry. The laundryman was a kind, wise old fellow, who paid his girls
well, looked out for them, and gave them a good home. He told me once that
his own daughter died just as she was getting old enough to help her
mother, and that he had been "trying to make up for it ever since." On
summer afternoons he used to sit for hours on the sidewalk in front of his
laundry, his newspaper lying on his knee, watching his girls through the
big open window while they ironed and talked in Danish. The clouds of
white dust that blew up the street, the gusts of hot wind that withered
his vegetable garden, never disturbed his calm. His droll expression
seemed to say that he had found the secret of contentment. Morning and
evening he drove about in his spring wagon, distributing freshly ironed
clothes, and collecting bags of linen that cried out for his suds and
sunny drying-lines. His girls never looked so pretty at the dances as they
did standing by the ironing-board, or over the tubs, washing the fine
pieces, their white arms and throats bare, their cheeks bright as the
brightest wild roses, their gold hair moist with the steam or the heat and
curling in little damp spirals about their ears. They had not learned much
English, and were not so ambitious as Tony or Lena; but they were kind,
simple girls and they were always happy. When one danced with them, one
smelled their clean, freshly ironed clothes that had been put away with
rosemary leaves from Mr. Jensen's garden.

There were never girls enough to go round at those dances, but every one
wanted a turn with Tony and Lena. Lena moved without exertion, rather
indolently, and her hand often accented the rhythm softly on her partner's
shoulder. She smiled if one spoke to her, but seldom answered. The music
seemed to put her into a soft, waking dream, and her violet-colored eyes
looked sleepily and confidingly at one from under her long lashes. When
she sighed she exhaled a heavy perfume of sachet powder. To dance "Home,
Sweet Home," with Lena was like coming in with the tide. She danced every
dance like a waltz, and it was always the same waltz--the waltz of coming
home to something, of inevitable, fated return. After a while one got
restless under it, as one does under the heat of a soft, sultry summer
day.

When you spun out into the floor with Tony, you did n't return to
anything. You set out every time upon a new adventure. I liked to
schottische with her; she had so much spring and variety, and was always
putting in new steps and slides. She taught me to dance against and around
the hard-and-fast beat of the music. If, instead of going to the end of
the railroad, old Mr. Shimerda had stayed in New York and picked up a
living with his fiddle, how different Antonia's life might have been!

Antonia often went to the dances with Larry Donovan, a passenger conductor
who was a kind of professional ladies' man, as we said. I remember how
admiringly all the boys looked at her the night she first wore her
velveteen dress, made like Mrs. Gardener's black velvet. She was lovely to
see, with her eyes shining, and her lips always a little parted when she
danced. That constant, dark color in her cheeks never changed.

One evening when Donovan was out on his run, Antonia came to the hall with
Norwegian Anna and her young man, and that night I took her home. When we
were in the Cutter's yard, sheltered by the evergreens, I told her she
must kiss me good-night.

"Why, sure, Jim." A moment later she drew her face away and whispered
indignantly, "Why, Jim! You know you ain't right to kiss me like that.
I'll tell your grandmother on you!"

"Lena Lingard lets me kiss her," I retorted, "and I'm not half as fond of
her as I am of you."

"Lena does?" Tony gasped. "If she's up to any of her nonsense with you,
I'll scratch her eyes out!" She took my arm again and we walked out of the
gate and up and down the sidewalk. "Now, don't you go and be a fool like
some of these town boys. You're not going to sit around here and whittle
store-boxes and tell stories all your life. You are going away to school
and make something of yourself. I'm just awful proud of you. You won't go
and get mixed up with the Swedes, will you?"

"I don't care anything about any of them but you," I said. "And you'll
always treat me like a kid, I suppose."

She laughed and threw her arms around me. "I expect I will, but you're a
kid I'm awful fond of, anyhow! You can like me all you want to, but if I
see you hanging round with Lena much, I'll go to your grandmother, as sure
as your name's Jim Burden! Lena's all right, only--well, you know yourself
she's soft that way. She can't help it. It's natural to her."

If she was proud of me, I was so proud of her that I carried my head high
as I emerged from the dark cedars and shut the Cutters' gate softly behind
me. Her warm, sweet face, her kind arms, and the true heart in her; she
was, oh, she was still my Antonia! I looked with contempt at the dark,
silent little houses about me as I walked home, and thought of the stupid
young men who were asleep in some of them. I knew where the real women
were, though I was only a boy; and I would not be afraid of them, either!

I hated to enter the still house when I went home from the dances, and it
was long before I could get to sleep. Toward morning I used to have
pleasant dreams: sometimes Tony and I were out in the country, sliding
down straw-stacks as we used to do; climbing up the yellow mountains over
and over, and slipping down the smooth sides into soft piles of chaff.

One dream I dreamed a great many times, and it was always the same. I was
in a harvest-field full of shocks, and I was lying against one of them.
Lena Lingard came across the stubble barefoot, in a short skirt, with a
curved reaping-hook in her hand, and she was flushed like the dawn, with a
kind of luminous rosiness all about her. She sat down beside me, turned to
me with a soft sigh and said, "Now they are all gone, and I can kiss you
as much as I like."

I used to wish I could have this flattering dream about Antonia, but I
never did.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Once Antonia leaves the Harlings, she becomes even more interested in partying. She always makes clothes with Lena's help, copying the fancy dresses of older, wealthy women in town. This makes these rich women upset. She also starts wearing gloves and high heels, which attract attention. Jim is in high school now and at recess he always watches the girls walk by. He likes to think that Antonia is prettier than all the others. He hangs out with the hired girls a lot after school. One day they tease him because his grandmother said she wanted Jim to be a preacher. There's a lot of flirting all around. Antonia says that she wants Jim to be a doctor. Jim says that he's going to be what he wants, not what other people want. People in town start talking about how Jim is always hanging out with the hired girls. They think it's weird that he would rather hang out with them than town girls his own age. After the Vannis' dance tent leaves town, dancing remains a fad. The Owl Club holds dances, but Jim doesn't go. He is moody because he's a teenager, and he's tired of his small town. Mrs. Harling isn't nice to Jim because he's friends with Antonia. Jim gets bored in the evenings when there's nothing to do. Sometimes he walks around town looking for activity. Black Hawk has two saloons, one of which is a nice place, owned by Anton Jelinek. Jim goes in there sometimes, until Anton asks him not to. Anton says that he's friends with Jim's grandfather, who wouldn't like his grandson going to a saloon. Sometimes Jim hangs out at the drugstore listening to the old men who sit around there telling stories. Other times he goes to the depot to watch the trains come in. He talks with the telegrapher who shows him pictures of famous people, or with the station agent who is generally unhappy. Jim really doesn't like his town anymore. He's bored and he thinks people are too guarded. Instead of going to dances at the Owl Club, Jim decides to go to dances at the Fireman's Hall, because it is a different crowd. But he can't tell his grandparents about it because they wouldn't approve. So Jim has to sneak out of his house at night. He has fun at the dances, and the hired girls are always there. Four Danish hired girls work for the laundryman. He pays them well and they live with him and his wife. He seems like a fairly happy man. Jim notices that these girls aren't as ambitious as Tony or Lena and they don't know as much English, but he thinks they're nice anyway. Tony and Lena are the most popular girls at these dances. Lena doesn't talk much and dances every dance as though it is a waltz. Tony adds more variety and is more lively. Jim wonders what Antonia's life would have been like if her father hadn't died but had stayed in New York and made a living playing his fiddle. Antonia starts dating Larry Donovan, a passenger conductor and a bit of a player. One night when Larry is out of town, Jim walks Antonia home from the dance. He tells her to kiss him good night. She says sure. After they kiss, Antonia chastises Jim for kissing her that way and threatens to tell his grandmother. Jim replies that Lena lets him kiss her that way. This upsets Antonia. She doesn't want Lena to start something with Jim. Then she tells Jim that he has to go away to school and make something of his life. She tells him not to get mixed up with the Swedes. Jim tells her not to treat him like a kid. Antonia laughs. After he leaves, Jim reflects that he is proud of Antonia. She is still his Antonia, he thinks. He might be just a boy, but he knows who the real women in town are. Jim goes home to sleep. Sometimes he dreams that he and Antonia are frolicking around in the country together. Sometimes he dreams sexy dreams about Lena. He wishes he could have sexy dreams about Antonia, but he never does.


prompt:
Chapter: I NOTICED one afternoon that grandmother had been crying. Her feet seemed
to drag as she moved about the house, and I got up from the table where I
was studying and went to her, asking if she did n't feel well, and if I
could n't help her with her work.

"No, thank you, Jim. I'm troubled, but I guess I'm well enough. Getting a
little rusty in the bones, maybe," she added bitterly.

I stood hesitating. "What are you fretting about, grandmother? Has
grandfather lost any money?"

"No, it ain't money. I wish it was. But I've heard things. You must 'a'
known it would come back to me sometime." She dropped into a chair, and
covering her face with her apron, began to cry. "Jim," she said, "I was
never one that claimed old folks could bring up their grandchildren. But
it came about so; there was n't any other way for you, it seemed like."

I put my arms around her. I could n't bear to see her cry.

"What is it, grandmother? Is it the Firemen's dances?"

She nodded.

"I'm sorry I sneaked off like that. But there's nothing wrong about the
dances, and I have n't done anything wrong. I like all those country
girls, and I like to dance with them. That's all there is to it."

"But it ain't right to deceive us, son, and it brings blame on us. People
say you are growing up to be a bad boy, and that ain't just to us."

"I don't care what they say about me, but if it hurts you, that settles
it. I won't go to the Firemen's Hall again."

I kept my promise, of course, but I found the spring months dull enough. I
sat at home with the old people in the evenings now, reading Latin that
was not in our High-School course. I had made up my mind to do a lot of
college requirement work in the summer, and to enter the freshman class at
the University without conditions in the fall. I wanted to get away as
soon as possible.

Disapprobation hurt me, I found,--even that of people whom I did not
admire. As the spring came on, I grew more and more lonely, and fell back
on the telegrapher and the cigar-maker and his canaries for companionship.
I remember I took a melancholy pleasure in hanging a May-basket for Nina
Harling that spring. I bought the flowers from an old German woman who
always had more window plants than any one else, and spent an afternoon
trimming a little work-basket. When dusk came on, and the new moon hung in
the sky, I went quietly to the Harlings' front door with my offering, rang
the bell, and then ran away as was the custom. Through the willow hedge I
could hear Nina's cries of delight, and I felt comforted.

On those warm, soft spring evenings I often lingered downtown to walk home
with Frances, and talked to her about my plans and about the reading I was
doing. One evening she said she thought Mrs. Harling was not seriously
offended with me.

"Mama is as broad-minded as mothers ever are, I guess. But you know she
was hurt about Antonia, and she can't understand why you like to be with
Tiny and Lena better than with the girls of your own set."

"Can you?" I asked bluntly.

Frances laughed. "Yes, I think I can. You knew them in the country, and
you like to take sides. In some ways you're older than boys of your age.
It will be all right with mama after you pass your college examinations
and she sees you're in earnest."

"If you were a boy," I persisted, "you would n't belong to the Owl Club,
either. You'd be just like me."

She shook her head. "I would and I would n't. I expect I know the country
girls better than you do. You always put a kind of glamour over them. The
trouble with you, Jim, is that you're romantic. Mama's going to your
Commencement. She asked me the other day if I knew what your oration is to
be about. She wants you to do well."

I thought my oration very good. It stated with fervor a great many things
I had lately discovered. Mrs. Harling came to the Opera House to hear the
Commencement exercises, and I looked at her most of the time while I made
my speech. Her keen, intelligent eyes never left my face. Afterward she
came back to the dressing-room where we stood, with our diplomas in our
hands, walked up to me, and said heartily: "You surprised me, Jim. I did
n't believe you could do as well as that. You did n't get that speech out
of books." Among my graduation presents there was a silk umbrella from
Mrs. Harling, with my name on the handle.

I walked home from the Opera House alone. As I passed the Methodist
Church, I saw three white figures ahead of me, pacing up and down under
the arching maple trees, where the moonlight filtered through the lush
June foliage. They hurried toward me; they were waiting for me--Lena and
Tony and Anna Hansen.

"Oh, Jim, it was splendid!" Tony was breathing hard, as she always did
when her feelings outran her language. "There ain't a lawyer in Black Hawk
could make a speech like that. I just stopped your grandpa and said so to
him. He won't tell you, but he told us he was awful surprised himself, did
n't he, girls?"

Lena sidled up to me and said teasingly: "What made you so solemn? I
thought you were scared. I was sure you'd forget."

Anna spoke wistfully. "It must make you happy, Jim, to have fine thoughts
like that in your mind all the time, and to have words to put them in. I
always wanted to go to school, you know."

"Oh, I just sat there and wished my papa could hear you! Jim,"--Antonia
took hold of my coat lapels,--"there was something in your speech that made
me think so about my papa!"

"I thought about your papa when I wrote my speech, Tony," I said. "I
dedicated it to him."

She threw her arms around me, and her dear face was all wet with tears.

I stood watching their white dresses glimmer smaller and smaller down the
sidewalk as they went away. I have had no other success that pulled at my
heartstrings like that one.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: One afternoon Jim finds his grandmother crying. Finally she admits that she knows that he's been sneaking out to the Firemen's dances. Jim tries to tell her that there's nothing wrong with those dances and that he likes spending time with the country girls. But she argues that it isn't right for Jim to deceive his grandparents. People in town are saying that he is a bad boy. Jim doesn't care what people say, but he agrees to stop going to the dances to make his grandparents happy. Now it's Spring and Jim is more bored than ever. He stays at home at night and studies Latin. He's trying to get a lot of college work done over the summer so that he's ahead once he goes to college. Jim gets lonely and hangs out with the cigar-maker and the telegrapher. He hangs a May basket for Nina Harling, which makes him happy. Many nights he walks Frances Harling home and talks to her about his plans for the future. She tells him that her mother Mrs. Harling isn't too angry with Jim. She just doesn't understand why he likes girls like Tiny and Lena. But Frances says that she understands it. She thinks he is more mature than other boys his age. She assures him that her mother will like him after he passes his college exams. Jim claims that if Frances were a boy she would act like him. Frances thinks that Jim sees the hired girls with rose-colored glasses. She calls him a Romantic and asks what his speech is going to be about at graduation. Jim thinks that his oration is good. We don't get to hear any of it, but he assures us of this fact. Mrs. Harling is there listening to it and he looks at her while he delivers the speech. After graduation, Mrs. Harling tells Jim that the speech was great. Later, Jim gets a graduation present from her: a silk umbrella with his name on the handle. After the ceremony, while he is walking home, Jim runs into Lena and Tony and another hired girl named Anna Hansen. Tony congratulates Jim on the speech. Lena wants to know why Jim was so solemn as he gave his speech. Anna also thinks that he did a good job. She says that she always wanted to go to school. Antonia wishes that her father could have been there to hear it. Jim tells her that he dedicated the speech to her father. They share a moment while she cries. Narrator-Jim reflects that he never experienced as touching a moment as that one.


prompt:
Chapter: THE day after Commencement I moved my books and desk upstairs, to an empty
room where I should be undisturbed, and I fell to studying in earnest. I
worked off a year's trigonometry that summer, and began Virgil alone.
Morning after morning I used to pace up and down my sunny little room,
looking off at the distant river bluffs and the roll of the blond pastures
between, scanning the AEneid aloud and committing long passages to memory.
Sometimes in the evening Mrs. Harling called to me as I passed her gate,
and asked me to come in and let her play for me. She was lonely for
Charley, she said, and liked to have a boy about. Whenever my grandparents
had misgivings, and began to wonder whether I was not too young to go off
to college alone, Mrs. Harling took up my cause vigorously. Grandfather
had such respect for her judgment that I knew he would not go against her.

I had only one holiday that summer. It was in July. I met Antonia downtown
on Saturday afternoon, and learned that she and Tiny and Lena were going
to the river next day with Anna Hansen--the elder was all in bloom now, and
Anna wanted to make elder-blow wine.

"Anna's to drive us down in the Marshalls' delivery wagon, and we'll take
a nice lunch and have a picnic. Just us; nobody else. Could n't you happen
along, Jim? It would be like old times."

I considered a moment. "Maybe I can, if I won't be in the way."

On Sunday morning I rose early and got out of Black Hawk while the dew was
still heavy on the long meadow grasses. It was the high season for summer
flowers. The pink bee-bush stood tall along the sandy roadsides, and the
cone-flowers and rose mallow grew everywhere. Across the wire fence, in
the long grass, I saw a clump of flaming orange-colored milkweed, rare in
that part of the State. I left the road and went around through a stretch
of pasture that was always cropped short in summer, where the gaillardia
came up year after year and matted over the ground with the deep, velvety
red that is in Bokhara carpets. The country was empty and solitary except
for the larks that Sunday morning, and it seemed to lift itself up to me
and to come very close.

The river was running strong for midsummer; heavy rains to the west of us
had kept it full. I crossed the bridge and went upstream along the wooded
shore to a pleasant dressing-room I knew among the dogwood bushes, all
overgrown with wild grapevines. I began to undress for a swim. The girls
would not be along yet. For the first time it occurred to me that I would
be homesick for that river after I left it. The sandbars, with their clean
white beaches and their little groves of willows and cottonwood seedlings,
were a sort of No Man's Land, little newly-created worlds that belonged to
the Black Hawk boys. Charley Harling and I had hunted through these woods,
fished from the fallen logs, until I knew every inch of the river shores
and had a friendly feeling for every bar and shallow.

After my swim, while I was playing about indolently in the water, I heard
the sound of hoofs and wheels on the bridge. I struck downstream and
shouted, as the open spring wagon came into view on the middle span. They
stopped the horse, and the two girls in the bottom of the cart stood up,
steadying themselves by the shoulders of the two in front, so that they
could see me better. They were charming up there, huddled together in the
cart and peering down at me like curious deer when they come out of the
thicket to drink. I found bottom near the bridge and stood up, waving to
them.

"How pretty you look!" I called.

"So do you!" they shouted altogether, and broke into peals of laughter.
Anna Hansen shook the reins and they drove on, while I zigzagged back to
my inlet and clambered up behind an overhanging elm. I dried myself in the
sun, and dressed slowly, reluctant to leave that green enclosure where the
sunlight flickered so bright through the grapevine leaves and the
woodpecker hammered away in the crooked elm that trailed out over the
water. As I went along the road back to the bridge I kept picking off
little pieces of scaly chalk from the dried water gullies, and breaking
them up in my hands.

When I came upon the Marshalls' delivery horse, tied in the shade, the
girls had already taken their baskets and gone down the east road which
wound through the sand and scrub. I could hear them calling to each other.
The elder bushes did not grow back in the shady ravines between the
bluffs, but in the hot, sandy bottoms along the stream, where their roots
were always in moisture and their tops in the sun. The blossoms were
unusually luxuriant and beautiful that summer.

I followed a cattle path through the thick underbrush until I came to a
slope that fell away abruptly to the water's edge. A great chunk of the
shore had been bitten out by some spring freshet, and the scar was masked
by elder bushes, growing down to the water in flowery terraces. I did not
touch them. I was overcome by content and drowsiness and by the warm
silence about me. There was no sound but the high, sing-song buzz of wild
bees and the sunny gurgle of the water underneath. I peeped over the edge
of the bank to see the little stream that made the noise; it flowed along
perfectly clear over the sand and gravel, cut off from the muddy main
current by a long sandbar. Down there, on the lower shelf of the bank, I
saw Antonia, seated alone under the pagoda-like elders. She looked up when
she heard me, and smiled, but I saw that she had been crying. I slid down
into the soft sand beside her and asked her what was the matter.

"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 eyes in the world; love and
credulousness seemed to look out of them with open faces. "Why did n't you
ever tell me that before? It makes me feel more sure for him." After a
while she said: "You know, Jim, my father was different from my mother. He
did not have to marry my mother, and all his brothers quarreled with him
because he did. I used to hear the old people at home whisper about it.
They said he could have paid my mother money, and not married her. But he
was older than she was, and he was too kind to treat her like that. He
lived in his mother's house, and she was a poor girl come in to do the
work. After my father married her, my grandmother never let my mother come
into her house again. When I went to my grandmother's funeral was the only
time I was ever in my grandmother's house. Don't that seem strange?"

While she talked, I lay back in the hot sand and looked up at the blue sky
between the flat bouquets of elder. I could hear the bees humming and
singing, but they stayed up in the sun above the flowers and did not come
down into the shadow of the leaves. Antonia seemed to me that day exactly
like the little girl who used to come to our house with Mr. Shimerda.

"Some day, Tony, I am going over to your country, and I am going to the
little town where you lived. Do you remember all about it?"

"Jim," she said earnestly, "if I was put down there in the middle of the
night, I could find my way all over that little town; and along the river
to the next town, where my grandmother lived. My feet remember all the
little paths through the woods, and where the big roots stick out to trip
you. I ain't never forgot my own country."

There was a crackling in the branches above us, and Lena Lingard peered
down over the edge of the bank.

"You lazy things!" she cried. "All this elder, and you two lying there!
Did n't you hear us calling you?" Almost as flushed as she had been in my
dream, she leaned over the edge of the bank and began to demolish our
flowery pagoda. I had never seen her so energetic; she was panting with
zeal, and the perspiration stood in drops on her short, yielding upper
lip. I sprang to my feet and ran up the bank.

It was noon now, and so hot that the dogwoods and scrub-oaks began to turn
up the silvery under-side of their leaves, and all the foliage looked soft
and wilted. I carried the lunch-basket to the top of one of the chalk
bluffs, where even on the calmest days there was always a breeze. The
flat-topped, twisted little oaks threw light shadows on the grass. Below
us we could see the windings of the river, and Black Hawk, grouped among
its trees, and, beyond, the rolling country, swelling gently until it met
the sky. We could recognize familiar farmhouses and windmills. Each of the
girls pointed out to me the direction in which her father's farm lay, and
told me how many acres were in wheat that year and how many in corn.

"My old folks," said Tiny Soderball, "have put in twenty acres of rye.
They get it ground at the mill, and it makes nice bread. It seems like my
mother ain't been so homesick, ever since father's raised rye flour for
her."

"It must have been a trial for our mothers," said Lena, "coming out here
and having to do everything different. My mother had always lived in town.
She says she started behind in farm-work, and never has caught up."

"Yes, a new country's hard on the old ones, sometimes," said Anna
thoughtfully. "My grandmother's getting feeble now, and her mind wanders.
She's forgot about this country, and thinks she's at home in Norway. She
keeps asking mother to take her down to the waterside and the fish market.
She craves fish all the time. Whenever I go home I take her canned salmon
and mackerel."

"Mercy, it's hot!" Lena yawned. She was supine under a little oak, resting
after the fury of her elder-hunting, and had taken off the high-heeled
slippers she had been silly enough to wear. "Come here, Jim. You never got
the sand out of your hair." She began to draw her fingers slowly through
my hair.

Antonia pushed her away. "You'll never get it out like that," she said
sharply. She gave my head a rough touzling and finished me off with
something like a box on the ear. "Lena, you ought n't to try to wear those
slippers any more. They're too small for your feet. You'd better give them
to me for Yulka."

"All right," said Lena good-naturedly, tucking her white stockings under
her skirt. "You get all Yulka's things, don't you? I wish father did n't
have such bad luck with his farm machinery; then I could buy more things
for my sisters. I'm going to get Mary a new coat this fall, if the sulky
plough's never paid for!"

Tiny asked her why she did n't wait until after Christmas, when coats
would be cheaper. "What do you think of poor me?" she added; "with six at
home, younger than I am? And they all think I'm rich, because when I go
back to the country I'm dressed so fine!" She shrugged her shoulders.
"But, you know, my weakness is playthings. I like to buy them playthings
better than what they need."

"I know how that is," said Anna. "When we first came here, and I was
little, we were too poor to buy toys. I never got over the loss of a doll
somebody gave me before we left Norway. A boy on the boat broke her, and I
still hate him for it."

"I guess after you got here you had plenty of live dolls to nurse, like
me!" Lena remarked cynically.

"Yes, the babies came along pretty fast, to be sure. But I never minded. I
was fond of them all. The youngest one, that we did n't any of us want, is
the one we love best now."

Lena sighed. "Oh, the babies are all right; if only they don't come in
winter. Ours nearly always did. I don't see how mother stood it. I tell
you what girls," she sat up with sudden energy; "I'm going to get my
mother out of that old sod house where she's lived so many years. The men
will never do it. Johnnie, that's my oldest brother, he's wanting to get
married now, and build a house for his girl instead of his mother. Mrs.
Thomas says she thinks I can move to some other town pretty soon, and go
into business for myself. If I don't get into business, I'll maybe marry a
rich gambler."

"That would be a poor way to get on," said Anna sarcastically. "I wish I
could teach school, like Selma Kronn. Just think! She'll be the first
Scandinavian girl to get a position in the High School. We ought to be
proud of her."

Selma was a studious girl, who had not much tolerance for giddy things
like Tiny and Lena; but they always spoke of her with admiration.

Tiny moved about restlessly, fanning herself with her straw hat. "If I was
smart like her, I'd be at my books day and night. But she was born
smart--and look how her father's trained her! He was something high up in
the old country."

"So was my mother's father," murmured Lena, "but that's all the good it
does us! My father's father was smart, too, but he was wild. He married a
Lapp. I guess that's what's the matter with me; they say Lapp blood will
out."

"A real Lapp, Lena?" I exclaimed. "The kind that wear skins?"

"I don't know if she wore skins, but she was a Lapp all right, and his
folks felt dreadful about it. He was sent up north on some Government job
he had, and fell in with her. He would marry her."

"But I thought Lapland women were fat and ugly, and had squint eyes, like
Chinese?" I objected.

"I don't know, maybe. There must be something mighty taking about the Lapp
girls, though; mother says the Norwegians up north are always afraid their
boys will run after them."

In the afternoon, when the heat was less oppressive, we had a lively game
of "Pussy Wants a Corner," on the flat bluff-top, with the little trees
for bases. Lena was Pussy so often that she finally said she would n't
play any more. We threw ourselves down on the grass, out of breath.

"Jim," Antonia said dreamily, "I want you to tell the girls about how the
Spanish first came here, like you and Charley Harling used to talk about.
I've tried to tell them, but I leave out so much."

They sat under a little oak, Tony resting against the trunk and the other
girls leaning against her and each other, and listened to the little I was
able to tell them about Coronado and his search for the Seven Golden
Cities. At school we were taught that he had not got so far north as
Nebraska, but had given up his quest and turned back somewhere in Kansas.
But Charley Harling and I had a strong belief that he had been along this
very river. A farmer in the county north of ours, when he was breaking
sod, had turned up a metal stirrup of fine workmanship, and a sword with a
Spanish inscription on the blade. He lent these relics to Mr. Harling, who
brought them home with him. Charley and I scoured them, and they were on
exhibition in the Harling office all summer. Father Kelly, the priest, had
found the name of the Spanish maker on the sword, and an abbreviation that
stood for the city of Cordova.

"And that I saw with my own eyes," Antonia put in triumphantly. "So Jim
and Charley were right, and the teachers were wrong!"

The girls began to wonder among themselves. Why had the Spaniards come so
far? What must this country have been like, then? Why had Coronado never
gone back to Spain, to his riches and his castles and his king? I could
n't tell them. I only knew the school books said he "died in the
wilderness, of a broken heart."

"More than him has done that," said Antonia sadly, and the girls murmured
assent.

We sat looking off across the country, watching the sun go down. The curly
grass about us was on fire now. The bark of the oaks turned red as copper.
There was a shimmer of gold on the brown river. Out in the stream the
sandbars glittered like glass, and the light trembled in the willow
thickets as if little flames were leaping among them. The breeze sank to
stillness. In the ravine a ringdove mourned plaintively, and somewhere off
in the bushes an owl hooted. The girls sat listless, leaning against each
other. The long fingers of the sun touched their foreheads.

Presently we saw a curious thing: There were no clouds, the sun was going
down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disc
rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great black figure
suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet, straining
our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. On some upland
farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking
just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it
stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the
disc; the handles, the tongue, the share--black against the molten red.
There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun.

Even while we whispered about it, our vision disappeared; the ball dropped
and dropped until the red tip went beneath the earth. The fields below us
were dark, the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten plough had sunk
back to its own littleness somewhere on the prairie.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The next day Jim starts studying for college right away. That summer he learns trigonometry and Virgil. He memorizes long passages from the Aeneid. Sometimes he goes over to listen to Mrs. Harling play the piano. She likes having a boy around since her son Charley isn't at home anymore. One day in July Jim takes a break from studying and goes down to the river with Antonia, Tiny, and Lena. The girls are going to pick elder berries to make wine with. Jim looks at the flowers and trees and grass on his way to meet them. He sees some orange milkweed that is rare. The country looks very empty to him. Jim crosses the bridge and goes upstream to a secluded spot of dogwood. He takes off his clothes so he can go swimming. He realizes how homesick he is for the country. He looks at the sandbars in the middle of the river. He remembers hunting there with Charley when they were younger. Jim goes swimming and plays in the water. Then the girls come along in a horse-drawn carriage. They look very lovely to Jim. He tells them that they look pretty, and they reply that he does as well. Jim gets out of the water and dries himself off. He gets dressed and goes over to the bridge. On the way he has to pull piece of water gullies off himself. Jim explains that the elder bushes are down by the water, rather than in the ravines. The blossoms are especially nice this summer. He goes down a cattle path to get down to the water's edge. He feels happy and drowsy. He looks over a bank and sees Antonia sitting alone. He can tell that she's been crying. He goes down to her and asks what's wrong. Antonia explains that the smell of the flowers makes her homesick for Bohemia. It used to grow in their yard and her father used to sit by them and play the trombone. She always liked to go listen to him sitting out there with his friends and talking. Jim asks what they used to talk about. She says they talked about the woods and God and what they used to do when they were young. Antonia asks Jim if he thinks her father's spirit made it back home. He tells her all about that feeling he had back when her father died. Antonia wishes Jim had told her that before. She explains that her father was very different from her mother. She implies that her father got her mother pregnant and that's why he had to marry her. Antonia's mother was a poor hired girl who used to work for her father's family. Her father's family was angry that he married her instead of just paying her money. Her grandmother would never let her back in the house after that. Jim lies on the grass and looks up the sky. He listens to the bees and looks at the flowers. He thinks that Antonia is just like she was when she was a little girl. He tells her that some day he's going to go to Bohemia and find the town she used to live in. Antonia explains that she would still know her way around her hometown. She's never forgotten it. Lena comes over and joins them. She looks flushed as she was in Jim's dreams. He finds her to be very energetic. They all have lunch together at the top of a hill. They look at the trees and the river and the town in the distance. Everyone points out where her own family farm is and says how big it is. Tony says that her family has twenty acres of rye. Lena talks about how difficult it must have been for their mothers to come to a new county. Anna talks about her grandmother, who is senile and forgets what country she's in. She always brings her grandmother fish when she goes to visit. Lena tries to get the sand off of Jim. Antonia doesn't like her flirting so she pushes her away and tries to get the sand off herself. Antonia tells Lena that her feet are too big for her shoes so she asks for them to give to Yulka. Lena complies. Lena notices how Antonia gets things for her little sister and says that she should try to do the same for her sister Mary. Tiny says she has six younger siblings, but likes to buy them playthings instead of necessities. Anna thinks that's because they didn't have toys when they were little. Lena vows to get her mother out of the farmhouse, since the men in her family probably won't be able to. She's thinking about moving to another town and starting up her own business soon. Maybe she'll marry a rich gambler... Anna wishes she could teach school. They all discuss Selma Kronn, a very studious girl who is going to be the first Scandinavian immigrant to get a position teaching at the high school. Tiny points out that Selma's father is responsible for making her so studious. Lena admits that her grandmother was a Lapp, or indigenous person of Northern Scandinavia. That afternoon they play a game called "Pussy Wants a Corner." Lena is Pussy most of the time. They all lay down on the grass. Antonia tells Jim to tell the others about how the Spanish first came to America. The girls lean against a tree while Jim tells them about Coronado, who came to America as an explorer. We learn that a farmer in the country gave swords to Mr. Harling that had Spanish inscriptions on them. The girls wonder what the country was like back then. Jim says the schoolbooks say that Coronado died in the wilderness of a broken heart. They al look around at the landscape. The grass and tress are colored red because the sun is setting. The river looks gold and the breeze dies. They listen to the birds and watch the setting sun. As they watch the sun they see a black figure sitting against it. They jump up to see what it is. It turns out to be a Giant Obvious Symbol, a plough that some farmer left in the field. It looks big and heroic and symbolic. As the sun sets the plough stops looking majestic. It just looks small and symbolic.


prompt:
Chapter: LATE in August the Cutters went to Omaha for a few days, leaving Antonia
in charge of the house. Since the scandal about the Swedish girl, Wick
Cutter could never get his wife to stir out of Black Hawk without him.

The day after the Cutters left, Antonia came over to see us. Grandmother
noticed that she seemed troubled and distracted. "You've got something on
your mind, Antonia," she said anxiously.

"Yes, Mrs. Burden. I could n't sleep much last night." She hesitated, and
then told us how strangely Mr. Cutter had behaved before he went away. He
put all the silver in a basket and placed it under her bed, and with it a
box of papers which he told her were valuable. He made her promise that
she would not sleep away from the house, or be out late in the evening,
while he was gone. He strictly forbade her to ask any of the girls she
knew to stay with her at night. She would be perfectly safe, he said, as
he had just put a new Yale lock on the front door.

Cutter had been so insistent in regard to these details that now she felt
uncomfortable about staying there alone. She had n't liked the way he kept
coming into the kitchen to instruct her, or the way he looked at her. "I
feel as if he is up to some of his tricks again, and is going to try to
scare me, somehow."

Grandmother was apprehensive at once. "I don't think it's right for you to
stay there, feeling that way. I suppose it would n't be right for you to
leave the place alone, either, after giving your word. Maybe Jim would be
willing to go over there and sleep, and you could come here nights. I'd
feel safer, knowing you were under my own roof. I guess Jim could take
care of their silver and old usury notes as well as you could."

Antonia turned to me eagerly. "Oh, would you, Jim? I'd make up my bed nice
and fresh for you. It's a real cool room, and the bed's right next the
window. I was afraid to leave the window open last night."

I liked my own room, and I did n't like the Cutters' house under any
circumstances; but Tony looked so troubled that I consented to try this
arrangement. I found that I slept there as well as anywhere, and when I
got home in the morning, Tony had a good breakfast waiting for me. After
prayers she sat down at the table with us, and it was like old times in
the country.

The third night I spent at the Cutters', I awoke suddenly with the
impression that I had heard a door open and shut. Everything was still,
however, and I must have gone to sleep again immediately.

The next thing I knew, I felt some one sit down on the edge of the bed. I
was only half awake, but I decided that he might take the Cutters' silver,
whoever he was. Perhaps if I did not move, he would find it and get out
without troubling me. I held my breath and lay absolutely still. A hand
closed softly on my shoulder, and at the same moment I felt something
hairy and cologne-scented brushing my face. If the room had suddenly been
flooded with electric light, I could n't have seen more clearly the
detestable bearded countenance that I knew was bending over me. I caught a
handful of whiskers and pulled, shouting something. The hand that held my
shoulder was instantly at my throat. The man became insane; he stood over
me, choking me with one fist and beating me in the face with the other,
hissing and chuckling and letting out a flood of abuse.

"So this is what she's up to when I'm away, is it? Where is she, you nasty
whelp, where is she? Under the bed, are you, hussy? I know your tricks!
Wait till I get at you! I'll fix this rat you've got in here. He's caught,
all right!"

So long as Cutter had me by the throat, there was no chance for me at all.
I got hold of his thumb and bent it back, until he let go with a yell. In
a bound, I was on my feet, and easily sent him sprawling to the floor.
Then I made a dive for the open window, struck the wire screen, knocked it
out, and tumbled after it into the yard.

Suddenly I found myself running across the north end of Black Hawk in my
nightshirt, just as one sometimes finds one's self behaving in bad dreams.
When I got home I climbed in at the kitchen window. I was covered with
blood from my nose and lip, but I was too sick to do anything about it. I
found a shawl and an overcoat on the hatrack, lay down on the parlor sofa,
and in spite of my hurts, went to sleep.

Grandmother found me there in the morning. Her cry of fright awakened me.
Truly, I was a battered object. As she helped me to my room, I caught a
glimpse of myself in the mirror. My lip was cut and stood out like a
snout. My nose looked like a big blue plum, and one eye was swollen shut
and hideously discolored. Grandmother said we must have the doctor at
once, but I implored her, as I had never begged for anything before, not
to send for him. I could stand anything, I told her, so long as nobody saw
me or knew what had happened to me. I entreated her not to let
grandfather, even, come into my room. She seemed to understand, though I
was too faint and miserable to go into explanations. When she took off my
nightshirt, she found such bruises on my chest and shoulders that she
began to cry. She spent the whole morning bathing and poulticing me, and
rubbing me with arnica. I heard Antonia sobbing outside my door, but I
asked grandmother to send her away. I felt that I never wanted to see her
again. I hated her almost as much as I hated Cutter. She had let me in for
all this disgustingness. Grandmother kept saying how thankful we ought to
be that I had been there instead of Antonia. But I lay with my disfigured
face to the wall and felt no particular gratitude. My one concern was that
grandmother should keep every one away from me. If the story once got
abroad, I would never hear the last of it. I could well imagine what the
old men down at the drug-store would do with such a theme.

While grandmother was trying to make me comfortable, grandfather went to
the depot and learned that Wick Cutter had come home on the night express
from the east, and had left again on the six o'clock train for Denver that
morning. The agent said his face was striped with court-plaster, and he
carried his left hand in a sling. He looked so used up, that the agent
asked him what had happened to him since ten o'clock the night before;
whereat Cutter began to swear at him and said he would have him discharged
for incivility.

That afternoon, while I was asleep, Antonia took grandmother with her, and
went over to the Cutters' to pack her trunk. They found the place locked
up, and they had to break the window to get into Antonia's bedroom. There
everything was in shocking disorder. Her clothes had been taken out of her
closet, thrown into the middle of the room, and trampled and torn. My own
garments had been treated so badly that I never saw them again;
grandmother burned them in the Cutters' kitchen range.

While Antonia was packing her trunk and putting her room in order, to
leave it, the front-door bell rang violently. There stood Mrs.
Cutter,--locked out, for she had no key to the new lock--her head trembling
with rage. "I advised her to control herself, or she would have a stroke,"
grandmother said afterwards.

Grandmother would not let her see Antonia at all, but made her sit down in
the parlor while she related to her just what had occurred the night
before. Antonia was frightened, and was going home to stay for a while,
she told Mrs. Cutter; it would be useless to interrogate the girl, for she
knew nothing of what had happened.

Then Mrs. Cutter told her story. She and her husband had started home from
Omaha together the morning before. They had to stop over several hours at
Waymore Junction to catch the Black Hawk train. During the wait, Cutter
left her at the depot and went to the Waymore bank to attend to some
business. When he returned, he told her that he would have to stay
overnight there, but she could go on home. He bought her ticket and put
her on the train. She saw him slip a twenty-dollar bill into her handbag
with her ticket. That bill, she said, should have aroused her suspicions
at once--but did not.

The trains are never called at little junction towns; everybody knows when
they come in. Mr. Cutter showed his wife's ticket to the conductor, and
settled her in her seat before the train moved off. It was not until
nearly nightfall that she discovered she was on the express bound for
Kansas City, that her ticket was made out to that point, and that Cutter
must have planned it so. The conductor told her the Black Hawk train was
due at Waymore twelve minutes after the Kansas City train left. She saw at
once that her husband had played this trick in order to get back to Black
Hawk without her. She had no choice but to go on to Kansas City and take
the first fast train for home.

Cutter could have got home a day earlier than his wife by any one of a
dozen simpler devices; he could have left her in the Omaha hotel, and said
he was going on to Chicago for a few days. But apparently it was part of
his fun to outrage her feelings as much as possible.

"Mr. Cutter will pay for this, Mrs. Burden. He will pay!" Mrs. Cutter
avouched, nodding her horselike head and rolling her eyes.

Grandmother said she had n't a doubt of it.

Certainly Cutter liked to have his wife think him a devil. In some way he
depended upon the excitement he could arouse in her hysterical nature.
Perhaps he got the feeling of being a rake more from his wife's rage and
amazement than from any experiences of his own. His zest in debauchery
might wane, but never Mrs. Cutter's belief in it. The reckoning with his
wife at the end of an escapade was something he counted on--like the last
powerful liqueur after a long dinner. The one excitement he really could
n't do without was quarreling with Mrs. Cutter!

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: It's late August. The Cutters are going to Omaha for a few days. After they leave, Antonia comes over to see the Burdens. She tells them a story. Before Wick departed, he gave her all the valuables in the house in a basket and told her to keep them under her bed. He makes her promise that she won't leave the house or let any of her friends sleep over. He explains that he just put a new lock on the front door. Now Antonia feels uncomfortable staying alone in the house. They arrange for Jim to stay alone in the house in her place while she stays at the Burdens'. Jim doesn't like the idea but he agrees anyway. Everything is fine the first night. He comes home the next morning and Antonia has breakfast waiting for him. The second night also passes without trouble. The third night Jim wakes up in the middle of the night and hears a door close downstairs. He falls back asleep. He wakes back up because someone sits down on the edge of his bed. He lies still and doesn't move. He feels a hand on his shoulder and something hairy on his face. He knows it's Wick so he pulls at the man's whiskers. Wick goes crazy. He thinks Jim and Antonia are in bed together. He has Jim by the throat and starts punching. Jim manages to get free and jumps out the window. He runs home and gets into bed and goes to sleep. Grandmother finds him the next morning. He's covered in blood because Wick punched him in the face. Grandmother wants to call the doctor, but Jim won't let her. He asks her not to let anyone know what happened. So she takes care of his wounds herself. Jim also refuses to see Antonia. He hates her and never wants to see her again. Grandfather finds out what happened. It turned out Wick came home on a late train and left again early the next morning. He has a sling on his arm and won't tell anyone how it all happened. Antonia and Jim's grandmother go over to Cutter's to pack her stuff. Her room is all torn apart and disheveled. While they're packing up, Mrs. Cutter shows up at the door. Grandmother tells her what happened and says that Antonia is going to be with them for a while. Mrs. Cutter tells them what happened on her end. She and Cutter were on their way home from Omaha and had to stop at a junction. He told her he had to stay overnight there but that she should go on home alone. He puts her on a train. Later, she realized that she was headed to Kansas City. This way Cutter ended up going home alone. Narrator-Jim thinks that Cutter liked making his wife upset. He thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the one thing he couldn't do without.