My Antonia

In the spring, Jim and the Harling children help Mrs. Harling and Ántonia plant in the garden and work in the orchard: The boys and girls are growing up, and the summer that will “change everything” (193) is drawing nearer. In June, several travelling Italian dance teachers come from Kansas City and set up a dancing pavilion on a vacant lot. Mrs. Vanni, who wears lavender with black lace, teaches the little children, and her husband, a harpist, teaches the older ones. Popcorn and lemonade are sold by vendors outside and the “vacant lot soon became the most cheerful place in town” (195). The Progressive Euchre Club arranges for the exclusive use of the pavilion twice a week. However, anyone who pays and is orderly can dance at other times. Jim never misses a Saturday night dance when the tent remains open until midnight. Country boys come from distant farms and all the country girls, the Danish laundry girls, and the other friends dance. Jim thinks these dances with the immigrant girls are more fun than the others, but young men from the Progressive Euchre Club sometimes risk societal disapproval and come in late to waltz with “the hired girls.