Read the passage. from My Antonia
I sat down in the middle of the garden, where snakes could scarcely approach
unseen, and leaned my back against a warm yellow pumpkin. There were some
ground-cherry bushes growing along the furrows, full of fruit. I turned back the
papery triangular sheaths that protected the berries and ate a few. All about me glant
rasshoppers, twice as big as any I had ever seen, were doing acrobatic feats among
he dried vines. The gophers scurried up and down the ploughed ground. There in the
heltered draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing its
umming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was
arm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs
ame out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were polished
ermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not
Epect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the
impkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy.
m My Antonia by Willa Cather)