My Ántonia

by Willa Cather

and I buttoned up my jacket and raced my shadow home.

At supper the men ate like vikings, and the chocolate cake, which I had hoped would linger on until tomorrow in a mutilated condition, disappeared on the second round.

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.

And I guess everybody thinks about old times, even the happiest people.”

I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man’s experience is.