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.

 Jim and the Harlings are thrilled with the spring. They are outside every day helping Mrs. Harling and Antonia plant the garden and maintain it. Jim writes that the summer that was to come would change everything, but that no one knew it the day the Vannis pull into town with their traveling dance company. They set up their tent in a vacant lot by the Danish laundry and children come for dance lessons during the day. They keep very good order with time and decorum. Every Saturday night they have a dance. The country boys come from the surrounding farms as do the country girls, including Antonia. The young men of the Progressive Euchre Club also come to the dances so they can dance with "the hired girls" despite the fact their girlfriends will be angry with them.

