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diff --git a/old/19810-8.txt b/old/19810-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7ff2bca..0000000 --- a/old/19810-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8576 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of My 聲tonia by Willa Sibert Cather - - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no -restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under -the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or -online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license - - - -Title: My 聲tonia - -Author: Willa Sibert Cather - -Release Date: November 14, 2006 [Ebook #19810] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY 篾TONIA*** - - - - - -My 聲tonia - -By Willa Sibert Cather - - - Optima dies {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} prima fugit - Virgil - - -with illustrations by -W. T. Benda - - [Illustration: The Riverside Press] -Boston and New York -Houghton Mifflin Companys -The Riverside Press Cambridge - -1918 - - - - - - To - Carrie and Irene Miner - - _In memory of affections old and true_ - - - - - -CONTENTS - - -Introduction -Book I-- The Shimerdas - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI - XII - XIII - XIV - XV - XVI - XVII - XVIII - XIX -Book II--The Hired Girls - I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI - XII - XIII - XIV - XV -Book III--Lena Lingard - I - II - III - IV -Book IV--The Pioneer Woman's Story - I - II - III - IV -Book V--Cuzak's Boys - I - II - III - - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - -Illustration: Immigrant family huddled together on the train platform -Illustration: Mr. Shimerda walking on the upland prairie with a gun over -his shoulder -Illustration: Mrs. Shimerda gathering mushrooms in a Bohemian forest -Illustration: Jake bringing home a Christmas tree -Illustration: 聲tonia ploughing in the field -Illustration: Jim and 聲tonia in the garden -Illustration: Lena Lingard knitting stockings -Illustration: 聲tonia driving her cattle home - - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -LAST summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of -intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion -James Quayle Burden--Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West. He and I -are old friends--we grew up together in the same Nebraska town--and we had -much to say to each other. While the train flashed through never-ending -miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak -groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the -woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The -dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were -talking about what it is like to spend one's childhood in little towns -like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of -climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a -brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and -smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little -snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We -agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could -know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said. - -Although Jim Burden and I both live in New York, and are old friends, I do -not see much of him there. He is legal counsel for one of the great -Western railways, and is sometimes away from his New York office for weeks -together. That is one reason why we do not often meet. Another is that I -do not like his wife. - -When Jim was still an obscure young lawyer, struggling to make his way in -New York, his career was suddenly advanced by a brilliant marriage. -Genevieve Whitney was the only daughter of a distinguished man. Her -marriage with young Burden was the subject of sharp comment at the time. -It was said she had been brutally jilted by her cousin, Rutland Whitney, -and that she married this unknown man from the West out of bravado. She -was a restless, headstrong girl, even then, who liked to astonish her -friends. Later, when I knew her, she was always doing something -unexpected. She gave one of her town houses for a Suffrage headquarters, -produced one of her own plays at the Princess Theater, was arrested for -picketing during a garment-makers' strike, etc. I am never able to believe -that she has much feeling for the causes to which she lends her name and -her fleeting interest. She is handsome, energetic, executive, but to me -she seems unimpressionable and temperamentally incapable of enthusiasm. -Her husband's quiet tastes irritate her, I think, and she finds it worth -while to play the patroness to a group of young poets and painters of -advanced ideas and mediocre ability. She has her own fortune and lives her -own life. For some reason, she wishes to remain Mrs. James Burden. - -As for Jim, no disappointments have been severe enough to chill his -naturally romantic and ardent disposition. This disposition, though it -often made him seem very funny when he was a boy, has been one of the -strongest elements in his success. He loves with a personal passion the -great country through which his railway runs and branches. His faith in it -and his knowledge of it have played an important part in its development. -He is always able to raise capital for new enterprises in Wyoming or -Montana, and has helped young men out there to do remarkable things in -mines and timber and oil. If a young man with an idea can once get Jim -Burden's attention, can manage to accompany him when he goes off into the -wilds hunting for lost parks or exploring new canyons, then the money -which means action is usually forthcoming. Jim is still able to lose -himself in those big Western dreams. Though he is over forty now, he meets -new people and new enterprises with the impulsiveness by which his boyhood -friends remember him. He never seems to me to grow older. His fresh color -and sandy hair and quick-changing blue eyes are those of a young man, and -his sympathetic, solicitous interest in women is as youthful as it is -Western and American. - -During that burning day when we were crossing Iowa, our talk kept -returning to a central figure, a Bohemian girl whom we had known long ago -and whom both of us admired. More than any other person we remembered, -this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole -adventure of our childhood. To speak her name was to call up pictures of -people and places, to set a quiet drama going in one's brain. I had lost -sight of her altogether, but Jim had found her again after long years, had -renewed a friendship that meant a great deal to him, and out of his busy -life had set apart time enough to enjoy that friendship. His mind was full -of her that day. He made me see her again, feel her presence, revived all -my old affection for her. - -"I can't see," he said impetuously, "why you have never written anything -about 聲tonia." - -I told him I had always felt that other people--he himself, for one--knew -her much better than I. I was ready, however, to make an agreement with -him; I would set down on paper all that I remembered of 聲tonia if he -would do the same. We might, in this way, get a picture of her. - -He rumpled his hair with a quick, excited gesture, which with him often -announces a new determination, and I could see that my suggestion took -hold of him. "Maybe I will, maybe I will!" he declared. He stared out of -the window for a few moments, and when he turned to me again his eyes had -the sudden clearness that comes from something the mind itself sees. "Of -course," he said, "I should have to do it in a direct way, and say a great -deal about myself. It's through myself that I knew and felt her, and I've -had no practice in any other form of presentation." - -I told him that how he knew her and felt her was exactly what I most -wanted to know about 聲tonia. He had had opportunities that I, as a little -girl who watched her come and go, had not. - - - -Months afterward Jim Burden arrived at my apartment one stormy winter -afternoon, with a bulging legal portfolio sheltered under his fur -overcoat. He brought it into the sitting-room with him and tapped it with -some pride as he stood warming his hands. - -"I finished it last night--the thing about 聲tonia," he said. "Now, what -about yours?" - -I had to confess that mine had not gone beyond a few straggling notes. - -"Notes? I did n't make any." He drank his tea all at once and put down the -cup. "I did n't arrange or rearrange. I simply wrote down what of herself -and myself and other people 聲tonia's name recalls to me. I suppose it has -n't any form. It has n't any title, either." He went into the next room, -sat down at my desk and wrote on the pinkish face of the portfolio the -word, "聲tonia." He frowned at this a moment, then prefixed another word, -making it "My 聲tonia." That seemed to satisfy him. - -"Read it as soon as you can," he said, rising, "but don't let it influence -your own story." - -My own story was never written, but the following narrative is Jim's -manuscript, substantially as he brought it to me. - - - - - - -BOOK I-- THE SHIMERDAS - - - - -I - - -I FIRST heard of 聲tonia(1) on what seemed to me an interminable journey -across the great midland plain of North America. I was ten years old then; -I had lost both my father and mother within a year, and my Virginia -relatives were sending me out to my grandparents, who lived in Nebraska. I -traveled in the care of a mountain boy, Jake Marpole, one of the "hands" -on my father's old farm under the Blue Ridge, who was now going West to -work for my grandfather. Jake's experience of the world was not much wider -than mine. He had never been in a railway train until the morning when we -set out together to try our fortunes in a new world. - -We went all the way in day-coaches, becoming more sticky and grimy with -each stage of the journey. Jake bought everything the newsboys offered -him: candy, oranges, brass collar buttons, a watch-charm, and for me a -"Life of Jesse James," which I remember as one of the most satisfactory -books I have ever read. Beyond Chicago we were under the protection of a -friendly passenger conductor, who knew all about the country to which we -were going and gave us a great deal of advice in exchange for our -confidence. He seemed to us an experienced and worldly man who had been -almost everywhere; in his conversation he threw out lightly the names of -distant States and cities. He wore the rings and pins and badges of -different fraternal orders to which he belonged. Even his cuff-buttons -were engraved with hieroglyphics, and he was more inscribed than an -Egyptian obelisk. Once when he sat down to chat, he told us that in the -immigrant car ahead there was a family from "across the water" whose -destination was the same as ours. - -"They can't any of them speak English, except one little girl, and all she -can say is 'We go Black Hawk, Nebraska.' She's not much older than you, -twelve or thirteen, maybe, and she's as bright as a new dollar. Don't you -want to go ahead and see her, Jimmy? She's got the pretty brown eyes, -too!" - -This last remark made me bashful, and I shook my head and settled down to -"Jesse James." Jake nodded at me approvingly and said you were likely to -get diseases from foreigners. - -I do not remember crossing the Missouri River, or anything about the long -day's journey through Nebraska. Probably by that time I had crossed so -many rivers that I was dull to them. The only thing very noticeable about -Nebraska was that it was still, all day long, Nebraska. - -I had been sleeping, curled up in a red plush seat, for a long while when -we reached Black Hawk. Jake roused me and took me by the hand. We stumbled -down from the train to a wooden siding, where men were running about with -lanterns. I could n't see any town, or even distant lights; we were -surrounded by utter darkness. The engine was panting heavily after its -long run. In the red glow from the fire-box, a group of people stood -huddled together on the platform, encumbered by bundles and boxes. I knew -this must be the immigrant family the conductor had told us about. The -woman wore a fringed shawl tied over her head, and she carried a little -tin trunk in her arms, hugging it as if it were a baby. There was an old -man, tall and stooped. Two half-grown boys and a girl stood holding -oil-cloth bundles, and a little girl clung to her mother's skirts. -Presently a man with a lantern approached them and began to talk, shouting -and exclaiming. I pricked up my ears, for it was positively the first time -I had ever heard a foreign tongue. - -Another lantern came along. A bantering voice called out: "Hello, are you -Mr. Burden's folks? If you are, it's me you're looking for. I'm Otto -Fuchs. I'm Mr. Burden's hired man, and I'm to drive you out. Hello, Jimmy, -ain't you scared to come so far west?" - - [Illustration: Immigrant family huddled together on the train platform] - -I looked up with interest at the new face in the lantern light. He might -have stepped out of the pages of "Jesse James." He wore a sombrero hat, -with a wide leather band and a bright buckle, and the ends of his mustache -were twisted up stiffly, like little horns. He looked lively and -ferocious, I thought, and as if he had a history. A long scar ran across -one cheek and drew the corner of his mouth up in a sinister curl. The top -of his left ear was gone, and his skin was brown as an Indian's. Surely -this was the face of a desperado. As he walked about the platform in his -high-heeled boots, looking for our trunks, I saw that he was a rather -slight man, quick and wiry, and light on his feet. He told us we had a -long night drive ahead of us, and had better be on the hike. He led us to -a hitching-bar where two farm wagons were tied, and I saw the foreign -family crowding into one of them. The other was for us. Jake got on the -front seat with Otto Fuchs, and I rode on the straw in the bottom of the -wagon-box, covered up with a buffalo hide. The immigrants rumbled off into -the empty darkness, and we followed them. - -I tried to go to sleep, but the jolting made me bite my tongue, and I soon -began to ache all over. When the straw settled down I had a hard bed. -Cautiously I slipped from under the buffalo hide, got up on my knees and -peered over the side of the wagon. There seemed to be nothing to see; no -fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I -could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: -not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. -No, there was nothing but land--slightly undulating, I knew, because often -our wheels ground against the brake as we went down into a hollow and -lurched up again on the other side. I had the feeling that the world was -left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's -jurisdiction. I had never before looked up at the sky when there was not a -familiar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of -heaven, all there was of it. I did not believe that my dead father and -mother were watching me from up there; they would still be looking for me -at the sheep-fold down by the creek, or along the white road that led to -the mountain pastures. I had left even their spirits behind me. The wagon -jolted on, carrying me I knew not whither. I don't think I was homesick. -If we never arrived anywhere, it did not matter. Between that earth and -that sky I felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers that night: -here, I felt, what would be would be. - - - - -II - - -I DO not remember our arrival at my grandfather's farm sometime before -daybreak, after a drive of nearly twenty miles with heavy work-horses. -When I awoke, it was afternoon. I was lying in a little room, scarcely -larger than the bed that held me, and the window-shade at my head was -flapping softly in a warm wind. A tall woman, with wrinkled brown skin and -black hair, stood looking down at me; I knew that she must be my -grandmother. She had been crying, I could see, but when I opened my eyes -she smiled, peered at me anxiously, and sat down on the foot of my bed. - -"Had a good sleep, Jimmy?" she asked briskly. Then in a very different -tone she said, as if to herself, "My, how you do look like your father!" I -remembered that my father had been her little boy; she must often have -come to wake him like this when he overslept. "Here are your clean -clothes," she went on, stroking my coverlid with her brown hand as she -talked. "But first you come down to the kitchen with me, and have a nice -warm bath behind the stove. Bring your things; there's nobody about." - -"Down to the kitchen" struck me as curious; it was always "out in the -kitchen" at home. I picked up my shoes and stockings and followed her -through the living-room and down a flight of stairs into a basement. This -basement was divided into a dining-room at the right of the stairs and a -kitchen at the left. Both rooms were plastered and whitewashed--the plaster -laid directly upon the earth walls, as it used to be in dugouts. The floor -was of hard cement. Up under the wooden ceiling there were little -half-windows with white curtains, and pots of geraniums and wandering Jew -in the deep sills. As I entered the kitchen I sniffed a pleasant smell of -gingerbread baking. The stove was very large, with bright nickel -trimmings, and behind it there was a long wooden bench against the wall, -and a tin washtub, into which grandmother poured hot and cold water. When -she brought the soap and towels, I told her that I was used to taking my -bath without help. - -"Can you do your ears, Jimmy? Are you sure? Well, now, I call you a right -smart little boy." - -It was pleasant there in the kitchen. The sun shone into my bath-water -through the west half-window, and a big Maltese cat came up and rubbed -himself against the tub, watching me curiously. While I scrubbed, my -grandmother busied herself in the dining-room until I called anxiously, -"Grandmother, I'm afraid the cakes are burning!" Then she came laughing, -waving her apron before her as if she were shooing chickens. - -She was a spare, tall woman, a little stooped, and she was apt to carry -her head thrust forward in an attitude of attention, as if she were -looking at something, or listening to something, far away. As I grew -older, I came to believe that it was only because she was so often -thinking of things that were far away. She was quick-footed and energetic -in all her movements. Her voice was high and rather shrill, and she often -spoke with an anxious inflection, for she was exceedingly desirous that -everything should go with due order and decorum. Her laugh, too, was high, -and perhaps a little strident, but there was a lively intelligence in it. -She was then fifty-five years old, a strong woman, of unusual endurance. - -After I was dressed I explored the long cellar next the kitchen. It was -dug out under the wing of the house, was plastered and cemented, with a -stairway and an outside door by which the men came and went. Under one of -the windows there was a place for them to wash when they came in from -work. - -While my grandmother was busy about supper I settled myself on the wooden -bench behind the stove and got acquainted with the cat--he caught not only -rats and mice, but gophers, I was told. The patch of yellow sunlight on -the floor traveled back toward the stairway, and grandmother and I talked -about my journey, and about the arrival of the new Bohemian family; she -said they were to be our nearest neighbors. We did not talk about the farm -in Virginia, which had been her home for so many years. But after the men -came in from the fields, and we were all seated at the supper-table, then -she asked Jake about the old place and about our friends and neighbors -there. - -My grandfather said little. When he first came in he kissed me and spoke -kindly to me, but he was not demonstrative. I felt at once his -deliberateness and personal dignity, and was a little in awe of him. The -thing one immediately noticed about him was his beautiful, crinkly, -snow-white beard. I once heard a missionary say it was like the beard of -an Arabian sheik. His bald crown only made it more impressive. - -Grandfather's eyes were not at all like those of an old man; they were -bright blue, and had a fresh, frosty sparkle. His teeth were white and -regular--so sound that he had never been to a dentist in his life. He had a -delicate skin, easily roughened by sun and wind. When he was a young man -his hair and beard were red; his eyebrows were still coppery. - -As we sat at the table Otto Fuchs and I kept stealing covert glances at -each other. Grandmother had told me while she was getting supper that he -was an Austrian who came to this country a young boy and had led an -adventurous life in the Far West among mining-camps and cow outfits. His -iron constitution was somewhat broken by mountain pneumonia, and he had -drifted back to live in a milder country for a while. He had relatives in -Bismarck, a German settlement to the north of us, but for a year now he -had been working for grandfather. - -The minute supper was over, Otto took me into the kitchen to whisper to me -about a pony down in the barn that had been bought for me at a sale; he -had been riding him to find out whether he had any bad tricks, but he was -a "perfect gentleman," and his name was Dude. Fuchs told me everything I -wanted to know: how he had lost his ear in a Wyoming blizzard when he was -a stage-driver, and how to throw a lasso. He promised to rope a steer for -me before sundown next day. He got out his "chaps" and silver spurs to -show them to Jake and me, and his best cowboy boots, with tops stitched in -bold design--roses, and true-lover's knots, and undraped female figures. -These, he solemnly explained, were angels. - -Before we went to bed Jake and Otto were called up to the living-room for -prayers. Grandfather put on silver-rimmed spectacles and read several -Psalms. His voice was so sympathetic and he read so interestingly that I -wished he had chosen one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Kings. I -was awed by his intonation of the word "Selah." "_He shall choose our -inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah._" I had -no idea what the word meant; perhaps he had not. But, as he uttered it, it -became oracular, the most sacred of words. - -Early the next morning I ran out of doors to look about me. I had been -told that ours was the only wooden house west of Black Hawk--until you came -to the Norwegian settlement, where there were several. Our neighbors lived -in sod houses and dugouts--comfortable, but not very roomy. Our white frame -house, with a story and half-story above the basement, stood at the east -end of what I might call the farmyard, with the windmill close by the -kitchen door. From the windmill the ground sloped westward, down to the -barns and granaries and pig-yards. This slope was trampled hard and bare, -and washed out in winding gullies by the rain. Beyond the corncribs, at -the bottom of the shallow draw, was a muddy little pond, with rusty willow -bushes growing about it. The road from the post-office came directly by -our door, crossed the farmyard, and curved round this little pond, beyond -which it began to climb the gentle swell of unbroken prairie to the west. -There, along the western sky-line, it skirted a great cornfield, much -larger than any field I had ever seen. This cornfield, and the sorghum -patch behind the barn, were the only broken land in sight. Everywhere, as -far as the eye could reach, there was nothing but rough, shaggy, red -grass, most of it as tall as I. - -North of the house, inside the ploughed fire-breaks, grew a thick-set -strip of box-elder trees, low and bushy, their leaves already turning -yellow. This hedge was nearly a quarter of a mile long, but I had to look -very hard to see it at all. The little trees were insignificant against -the grass. It seemed as if the grass were about to run over them, and over -the plum-patch behind the sod chicken-house. - -As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water -is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the color of -wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And -there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be -running. - -I had almost forgotten that I had a grandmother, when she came out, her -sunbonnet on her head, a grain-sack in her hand, and asked me if I did not -want to go to the garden with her to dig potatoes for dinner. The garden, -curiously enough, was a quarter of a mile from the house, and the way to -it led up a shallow draw past the cattle corral. Grandmother called my -attention to a stout hickory cane, tipped with copper, which hung by a -leather thong from her belt. This, she said, was her rattlesnake cane. I -must never go to the garden without a heavy stick or a corn-knife; she had -killed a good many rattlers on her way back and forth. A little girl who -lived on the Black Hawk road was bitten on the ankle and had been sick all -summer. - -I can remember exactly how the country looked to me as I walked beside my -grandmother along the faint wagon-tracks on that early September morning. -Perhaps the glide of long railway travel was still with me, for more than -anything else I felt motion in the landscape; in the fresh, easy-blowing -morning wind, and in the earth itself, as if the shaggy grass were a sort -of loose hide, and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping, -galloping {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} - -Alone, I should never have found the garden--except, perhaps, for the big -yellow pumpkins that lay about unprotected by their withering vines--and I -felt very little interest in it when I got there. I wanted to walk -straight on through the red grass and over the edge of the world, which -could not be very far away. The light air about me told me that the world -ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left, and if one went a -little farther there would be only sun and sky, and one would float off -into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over our heads making slow -shadows on the grass. While grandmother took the pitchfork we found -standing in one of the rows and dug potatoes, while I picked them up out -of the soft brown earth and put them into the bag, I kept looking up at -the hawks that were doing what I might so easily do. - -When grandmother was ready to go, I said I would like to stay up there in -the garden awhile. - -She peered down at me from under her sunbonnet. "Are n't you afraid of -snakes?" - -"A little," I admitted, "but I'd like to stay anyhow." - -"Well, if you see one, don't have anything to do with him. The big yellow -and brown ones won't hurt you; they're bull-snakes and help to keep the -gophers down. Don't be scared if you see anything look out of that hole in -the bank over there. That's a badger hole. He's about as big as a big -'possum, and his face is striped, black and white. He takes a chicken once -in a while, but I won't let the men harm him. In a new country a body -feels friendly to the animals. I like to have him come out and watch me -when I'm at work." - -Grandmother swung the bag of potatoes over her shoulder and went down the -path, leaning forward a little. The road followed the windings of the -draw; when she came to the first bend she waved at me and disappeared. I -was left alone with this new feeling of lightness and content. - -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 giant grasshoppers, twice as big as any I had ever -seen, were doing acrobatic feats among the dried vines. The gophers -scurried up and down the ploughed ground. There in the sheltered -draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing -its humming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. -The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. -Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. -Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as -I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was -something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did -not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like -that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun -and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be -dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it -comes as naturally as sleep. - - - - -III - - -ON Sunday morning Otto Fuchs was to drive us over to make the acquaintance -of our new Bohemian neighbors. We were taking them some provisions, as -they had come to live on a wild place where there was no garden or -chicken-house, and very little broken land. Fuchs brought up a sack of -potatoes and a piece of cured pork from the cellar, and grandmother packed -some loaves of Saturday's bread, a jar of butter, and several pumpkin pies -in the straw of the wagon-box. We clambered up to the front seat and -jolted off past the little pond and along the road that climbed to the big -cornfield. - -I could hardly wait to see what lay beyond that cornfield; but there was -only red grass like ours, and nothing else, though from the high -wagon-seat one could look off a long way. The road ran about like a wild -thing, avoiding the deep draws, crossing them where they were wide and -shallow. And all along it, wherever it looped or ran, the sunflowers grew; -some of them were as big as little trees, with great rough leaves and many -branches which bore dozens of blossoms. They made a gold ribbon across the -prairie. Occasionally one of the horses would tear off with his teeth a -plant full of blossoms, and walk along munching it, the flowers nodding in -time to his bites as he ate down toward them. - -The Bohemian family, grandmother told me as we drove along, had bought the -homestead of a fellow-countryman, Peter Krajiek, and had paid him more -than it was worth. Their agreement with him was made before they left the -old country, through a cousin of his, who was also a relative of Mrs. -Shimerda. The Shimerdas were the first Bohemian family to come to this -part of the county. Krajiek was their only interpreter, and could tell -them anything he chose. They could not speak enough English to ask for -advice, or even to make their most pressing wants known. One son, Fuchs -said, was well-grown, and strong enough to work the land; but the father -was old and frail and knew nothing about farming. He was a weaver by -trade; had been a skilled workman on tapestries and upholstery materials. -He had brought his fiddle with him, which would n't be of much use here, -though he used to pick up money by it at home. - -"If they're nice people, I hate to think of them spending the winter in -that cave of Krajiek's," said grandmother. "It's no better than a badger -hole; no proper dugout at all. And I hear he's made them pay twenty -dollars for his old cookstove that ain't worth ten." - -"Yes'm," said Otto; "and he's sold 'em his oxen and his two bony old -horses for the price of good work-teams. I'd have interfered about the -horses--the old man can understand some German--if I'd 'a' thought it would -do any good. But Bohemians has a natural distrust of Austrians." - -Grandmother looked interested. "Now, why is that, Otto?" - -Fuchs wrinkled his brow and nose. "Well, ma'm, it's politics. It would -take me a long while to explain." - -The land was growing rougher; I was told that we were approaching Squaw -Creek, which cut up the west half of the Shimerdas' place and made the -land of little value for farming. Soon we could see the broken, grassy -clay cliffs which indicated the windings of the stream, and the glittering -tops of the cottonwoods and ash trees that grew down in the ravine. Some -of the cottonwoods had already turned, and the yellow leaves and shining -white bark made them look like the gold and silver trees in fairy tales. - -As we approached the Shimerdas' dwelling, I could still see nothing but -rough red hillocks, and draws with shelving banks and long roots hanging -out where the earth had crumbled away. Presently, against one of those -banks, I saw a sort of shed, thatched with the same wine-colored grass -that grew everywhere. Near it tilted a shattered windmill-frame, that had -no wheel. We drove up to this skeleton to tie our horses, and then I saw a -door and window sunk deep in the draw-bank. The door stood open, and a -woman and a girl of fourteen ran out and looked up at us hopefully. A -little girl trailed along behind them. The woman had on her head the same -embroidered shawl with silk fringes that she wore when she had alighted -from the train at Black Hawk. She was not old, but she was certainly not -young. Her face was alert and lively, with a sharp chin and shrewd little -eyes. She shook grandmother's hand energetically. - -"Very glad, very glad!" she ejaculated. Immediately she pointed to the -bank out of which she had emerged and said, "House no good, house no -good!" - -Grandmother nodded consolingly. "You'll get fixed up comfortable after -while, Mrs. Shimerda; make good house." - -My grandmother always spoke in a very loud tone to foreigners, as if they -were deaf. She made Mrs. Shimerda understand the friendly intention of our -visit, and the Bohemian woman handled the loaves of bread and even smelled -them, and examined the pies with lively curiosity, exclaiming, "Much good, -much thank!"--and again she wrung grandmother's hand. - -The oldest son, Ambroz,--they called it Ambrosch,--came out of the cave and -stood beside his mother. He was nineteen years old, short and -broad-backed, with a close-cropped, flat head, and a wide, flat face. His -hazel eyes were little and shrewd, like his mother's, but more sly and -suspicious; they fairly snapped at the food. The family had been living on -corncakes and sorghum molasses for three days. - -The little girl was pretty, but 聲-tonia-- they accented the name thus, -strongly, when they spoke to her--was still prettier. I remembered what the -conductor had said about her eyes. They were big and warm and full of -light, like the sun shining on brown pools in the wood. Her skin was -brown, too, and in her cheeks she had a glow of rich, dark color. Her -brown hair was curly and wild-looking. The little sister, whom they called -Yulka (Julka), was fair, and seemed mild and obedient. While I stood -awkwardly confronting the two girls, Krajiek came up from the barn to see -what was going on. With him was another Shimerda son. Even from a distance -one could see that there was something strange about this boy. As he -approached us, he began to make uncouth noises, and held up his hands to -show us his fingers, which were webbed to the first knuckle, like a duck's -foot. When he saw me draw back, he began to crow delightedly, "Hoo, -hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo!" like a rooster. His mother scowled and said sternly, -"Marek!" then spoke rapidly to Krajiek in Bohemian. - -"She wants me to tell you he won't hurt nobody, Mrs. Burden. He was born -like that. The others are smart. Ambrosch, he make good farmer." He struck -Ambrosch on the back, and the boy smiled knowingly. - -At that moment the father came out of the hole in the bank. He wore no -hat, and his thick, iron-gray hair was brushed straight back from his -forehead. It was so long that it bushed out behind his ears, and made him -look like the old portraits I remembered in Virginia. He was tall and -slender, and his thin shoulders stooped. He looked at us understandingly, -then took grandmother's hand and bent over it. I noticed how white and -well-shaped his own hands were. They looked calm, somehow, and skilled. -His eyes were melancholy, and were set back deep under his brow. His face -was ruggedly formed, but it looked like ashes--like something from which -all the warmth and light had died out. Everything about this old man was -in keeping with his dignified manner. He was neatly dressed. Under his -coat he wore a knitted gray vest, and, instead of a collar, a silk scarf -of a dark bronze-green, carefully crossed and held together by a red coral -pin. While Krajiek was translating for Mr. Shimerda, 聲tonia came up to me -and held out her hand coaxingly. In a moment we were running up the steep -drawside together, Yulka trotting after us. - -When we reached the level and could see the gold tree-tops, I pointed -toward them, and 聲tonia laughed and squeezed my hand as if to tell me how -glad she was I had come. We raced off toward Squaw Creek and did not stop -until the ground itself stopped--fell away before us so abruptly that the -next step would have been out into the tree-tops. We stood panting on the -edge of the ravine, looking down at the trees and bushes that grew below -us. The wind was so strong that I had to hold my hat on, and the girls' -skirts were blown out before them. 聲tonia seemed to like it; she held her -little sister by the hand and chattered away in that language which seemed -to me spoken so much more rapidly than mine. She looked at me, her eyes -fairly blazing with things she could not say. - -"Name? What name?" she asked, touching me on the shoulder. I told her my -name, and she repeated it after me and made Yulka say it. She pointed into -the gold cottonwood tree behind whose top we stood and said again, "What -name?" - -We sat down and made a nest in the long red grass. Yulka curled up like a -baby rabbit and played with a grasshopper. 聲tonia pointed up to the sky -and questioned me with her glance. I gave her the word, but she was not -satisfied and pointed to my eyes. I told her, and she repeated the word, -making it sound like "ice." She pointed up to the sky, then to my eyes, -then back to the sky, with movements so quick and impulsive that she -distracted me, and I had no idea what she wanted. She got up on her knees -and wrung her hands. She pointed to her own eyes and shook her head, then -to mine and to the sky, nodding violently. - -"Oh," I exclaimed, "blue; blue sky." - -She clapped her hands and murmured, "Blue sky, blue eyes," as if it amused -her. While we snuggled down there out of the wind she learned a score of -words. She was quick, and very eager. We were so deep in the grass that we -could see nothing but the blue sky over us and the gold tree in front of -us. It was wonderfully pleasant. After 聲tonia had said the new words over -and over, she wanted to give me a little chased silver ring she wore on -her middle finger. When she coaxed and insisted, I repulsed her quite -sternly. I did n't want her ring, and I felt there was something reckless -and extravagant about her wishing to give it away to a boy she had never -seen before. No wonder Krajiek got the better of these people, if this was -how they behaved. - -While we were disputing about the ring, I heard a mournful voice calling, -"聲-tonia, 聲-tonia!" She sprang up like a hare. "Tatinek, Tatinek!" she -shouted, and we ran to meet the old man who was coming toward us. 聲tonia -reached him first, took his hand and kissed it. When I came up, he touched -my shoulder and looked searchingly down into my face for several seconds. -I became somewhat embarrassed, for I was used to being taken for granted -by my elders. - -We went with Mr. Shimerda back to the dugout, where grandmother was -waiting for me. Before I got into the wagon, he took a book out of his -pocket, opened it, and showed me a page with two alphabets, one English -and the other Bohemian. He placed this book in my grandmother's hands, -looked at her entreatingly, and said with an earnestness which I shall -never forget, "Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my 聲-tonia!" - - - - -IV - - -ON the afternoon of that same Sunday I took my first long ride on my pony, -under Otto's direction. After that Dude and I went twice a week to the -post-office, six miles east of us, and I saved the men a good deal of time -by riding on errands to our neighbors. When we had to borrow anything, or -to send about word that there would be preaching at the sod schoolhouse, I -was always the messenger. Formerly Fuchs attended to such things after -working hours. - -All the years that have passed have not dimmed my memory of that first -glorious autumn. The new country lay open before me: there were no fences -in those days, and I could choose my own way over the grass uplands, -trusting the pony to get me home again. Sometimes I followed the -sunflower-bordered roads. Fuchs told me that the sunflowers were -introduced into that country by the Mormons; that at the time of the -persecution, when they left Missouri and struck out into the wilderness to -find a place where they could worship God in their own way, the members of -the first exploring party, crossing the plains to Utah, scattered -sunflower seed as they went. The next summer, when the long trains of -wagons came through with all the women and children, they had the -sunflower trail to follow. I believe that botanists do not confirm Jake's -story, but insist that the sunflower was native to those plains. -Nevertheless, that legend has stuck in my mind, and sunflower-bordered -roads always seem to me the roads to freedom. - -I used to love to drift along the pale yellow cornfields, looking for the -damp spots one sometimes found at their edges, where the smartweed soon -turned a rich copper color and the narrow brown leaves hung curled like -cocoons about the swollen joints of the stem. Sometimes I went south to -visit our German neighbors and to admire their catalpa grove, or to see -the big elm tree that grew up out of a deep crack in the earth and had a -hawk's nest in its branches. Trees were so rare in that country, and they -had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about -them, and visit them as if they were persons. It must have been the -scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious. - -Sometimes I rode north to the big prairie-dog town to watch the brown, -earth-owls fly home in the late afternoon and go down to their nests -underground with the dogs. 聲tonia Shimerda liked to go with me, and we -used to wonder a great deal about these birds of subterranean habit. We -had to be on our guard there, for rattlesnakes were always lurking about. -They came to pick up an easy living among the dogs and owls, which were -quite defenseless against them; took possession of their comfortable -houses and ate the eggs and puppies. We felt sorry for the owls. It was -always mournful to see them come flying home at sunset and disappear under -the earth. But, after all, we felt, winged things who would live like that -must be rather degraded creatures. The dog-town was a long way from any -pond or creek. Otto Fuchs said he had seen populous dog-towns in the -desert where there was no surface water for fifty miles; he insisted that -some of the holes must go down to water--nearly two hundred feet, -hereabouts. 聲tonia said she did n't believe it; that the dogs probably -lapped up the dew in the early morning, like the rabbits. - -聲tonia had opinions about everything, and she was soon able to make them -known. Almost every day she came running across the prairie to have her -reading lesson with me. Mrs. Shimerda grumbled, but realized it was -important that one member of the family should learn English. When the -lesson was over, we used to go up to the watermelon patch behind the -garden. I split the melons with an old corn-knife, and we lifted out the -hearts and ate them with the juice trickling through our fingers. The -white Christmas melons we did not touch, but we watched them with -curiosity. They were to be picked late, when the hard frosts had set in, -and put away for winter use. After weeks on the ocean, the Shimerdas were -famished for fruit. The two girls would wander for miles along the edge of -the cornfields, hunting for ground-cherries. - -聲tonia loved to help grandmother in the kitchen and to learn about -cooking and housekeeping. She would stand beside her, watching her every -movement. We were willing to believe that Mrs. Shimerda was a good -housewife in her own country, but she managed poorly under new conditions: -the conditions were bad enough, certainly! - -I remember how horrified we were at the sour, ashy-gray bread she gave her -family to eat. She mixed her dough, we discovered, in an old tin -peck-measure that Krajiek had used about the barn. When she took the paste -out to bake it, she left smears of dough sticking to the sides of the -measure, put the measure on the shelf behind the stove, and let this -residue ferment. The next time she made bread, she scraped this sour stuff -down into the fresh dough to serve as yeast. - -During those first months the Shimerdas never went to town. Krajiek -encouraged them in the belief that in Black Hawk they would somehow be -mysteriously separated from their money. They hated Krajiek, but they -clung to him because he was the only human being with whom they could talk -or from whom they could get information. He slept with the old man and the -two boys in the dugout barn, along with the oxen. They kept him in their -hole and fed him for the same reason that the prairie dogs and the brown -owls housed the rattlesnakes--because they did not know how to get rid of -him. - - - - -V - - -WE knew that things were hard for our Bohemian neighbors, but the two -girls were light-hearted and never complained. They were always ready to -forget their troubles at home, and to run away with me over the prairie, -scaring rabbits or starting up flocks of quail. - -I remember 聲tonia's excitement when she came into our kitchen one -afternoon and announced: "My papa find friends up north, with Russian -mans. Last night he take me for see, and I can understand very much talk. -Nice mans, Mrs. Burden. One is fat and all the time laugh. Everybody -laugh. The first time I see my papa laugh in this kawn-tree. Oh, very -nice!" - -I asked her if she meant the two Russians who lived up by the big -dog-town. I had often been tempted to go to see them when I was riding in -that direction, but one of them was a wild-looking fellow and I was a -little afraid of him. Russia seemed to me more remote than any other -country--farther away than China, almost as far as the North Pole. Of all -the strange, uprooted people among the first settlers, those two men were -the strangest and the most aloof. Their last names were unpronounceable, -so they were called Pavel and Peter. They went about making signs to -people, and until the Shimerdas came they had no friends. Krajiek could -understand them a little, but he had cheated them in a trade, so they -avoided him. Pavel, the tall one, was said to be an anarchist; since he -had no means of imparting his opinions, probably his wild gesticulations -and his generally excited and rebellious manner gave rise to this -supposition. He must once have been a very strong man, but now his great -frame, with big, knotty joints, had a wasted look, and the skin was drawn -tight over his high cheek-bones. His breathing was hoarse, and he always -had a cough. - -Peter, his companion, was a very different sort of fellow; short, -bow-legged, and as fat as butter. He always seemed pleased when he met -people on the road, smiled and took off his cap to every one, men as well -as women. At a distance, on his wagon, he looked like an old man; his hair -and beard were of such a pale flaxen color that they seemed white in the -sun. They were as thick and curly as carded wool. His rosy face, with its -snub nose, set in this fleece, was like a melon among its leaves. He was -usually called "Curly Peter," or "Rooshian Peter." - -The two Russians made good farmhands, and in summer they worked out -together. I had heard our neighbors laughing when they told how Peter -always had to go home at night to milk his cow. Other bachelor -homesteaders used canned milk, to save trouble. Sometimes Peter came to -church at the sod schoolhouse. It was there I first saw him, sitting on a -low bench by the door, his plush cap in his hands, his bare feet tucked -apologetically under the seat. - -After Mr. Shimerda discovered the Russians, he went to see them almost -every evening, and sometimes took 聲tonia with him. She said they came -from a part of Russia where the language was not very different from -Bohemian, and if I wanted to go to their place, she could talk to them for -me. One afternoon, before the heavy frosts began, we rode up there -together on my pony. - -The Russians had a neat log house built on a grassy slope, with a windlass -well beside the door. As we rode up the draw we skirted a big melon patch, -and a garden where squashes and yellow cucumbers lay about on the sod. We -found Peter out behind his kitchen, bending over a washtub. He was working -so hard that he did not hear us coming. His whole body moved up and down -as he rubbed, and he was a funny sight from the rear, with his shaggy head -and bandy legs. When he straightened himself up to greet us, drops of -perspiration were rolling from his thick nose down on to his curly beard. -Peter dried his hands and seemed glad to leave his washing. He took us -down to see his chickens, and his cow that was grazing on the hillside. He -told 聲tonia that in his country only rich people had cows, but here any -man could have one who would take care of her. The milk was good for -Pavel, who was often sick, and he could make butter by beating sour cream -with a wooden spoon. Peter was very fond of his cow. He patted her flanks -and talked to her in Russian while he pulled up her lariat pin and set it -in a new place. - -After he had shown us his garden, Peter trundled a load of watermelons up -the hill in his wheelbarrow. Pavel was not at home. He was off somewhere -helping to dig a well. The house I thought very comfortable for two men -who were "batching." Besides the kitchen, there was a living-room, with a -wide double bed built against the wall, properly made up with blue gingham -sheets and pillows. There was a little storeroom, too, with a window, -where they kept guns and saddles and tools, and old coats and boots. That -day the floor was covered with garden things, drying for winter; corn and -beans and fat yellow cucumbers. There were no screens or window-blinds in -the house, and all the doors and windows stood wide open, letting in flies -and sunshine alike. - -Peter put the melons in a row on the oilcloth-covered table and stood over -them, brandishing a butcher knife. Before the blade got fairly into them, -they split of their own ripeness, with a delicious sound. He gave us -knives, but no plates, and the top of the table was soon swimming with -juice and seeds. I had never seen any one eat so many melons as Peter ate. -He assured us that they were good for one--better than medicine; in his -country people lived on them at this time of year. He was very hospitable -and jolly. Once, while he was looking at 聲tonia, he sighed and told us -that if he had stayed at home in Russia perhaps by this time he would have -had a pretty daughter of his own to cook and keep house for him. He said -he had left his country because of a "great trouble." - -When we got up to go, Peter looked about in perplexity for something that -would entertain us. He ran into the storeroom and brought out a gaudily -painted harmonica, sat down on a bench, and spreading his fat legs apart -began to play like a whole band. The tunes were either very lively or very -doleful, and he sang words to some of them. - -Before we left, Peter put ripe cucumbers into a sack for Mrs. Shimerda and -gave us a lard-pail full of milk to cook them in. I had never heard of -cooking cucumbers, but 聲tonia assured me they were very good. We had to -walk the pony all the way home to keep from spilling the milk. - - - - -VI - - -ONE afternoon we were having our reading lesson on the warm, grassy bank -where the badger lived. It was a day of amber sunlight, but there was a -shiver of coming winter in the air. I had seen ice on the little -horse-pond that morning, and as we went through the garden we found the -tall asparagus, with its red berries, lying on the ground, a mass of slimy -green. - -Tony was barefooted, and she shivered in her cotton dress and was -comfortable only when we were tucked down on the baked earth, in the full -blaze of the sun. She could talk to me about almost anything by this time. -That afternoon she was telling me how highly esteemed our friend the -badger was in her part of the world, and how men kept a special kind of -dog, with very short legs, to hunt him. Those dogs, she said, went down -into the hole after the badger and killed him there in a terrific struggle -underground; you could hear the barks and yelps outside. Then the dog -dragged himself back, covered with bites and scratches, to be rewarded and -petted by his master. She knew a dog who had a star on his collar for -every badger he had killed. - -The rabbits were unusually spry that afternoon. They kept starting up all -about us, and dashing off down the draw as if they were playing a game of -some kind. But the little buzzing things that lived in the grass were all -dead--all but one. While we were lying there against the warm bank, a -little insect of the palest, frailest green hopped painfully out of the -buffalo grass and tried to leap into a bunch of bluestem. He missed it, -fell back, and sat with his head sunk between his long legs, his antenn -quivering, as if he were waiting for something to come and finish him. -Tony made a warm nest for him in her hands; talked to him gayly and -indulgently in Bohemian. Presently he began to sing for us--a thin, rusty -little chirp. She held him close to her ear and laughed, but a moment -afterward I saw there were tears in her eyes. She told me that in her -village at home there was an old beggar woman who went about selling herbs -and roots she had dug up in the forest. If you took her in and gave her a -warm place by the fire, she sang old songs to the children in a cracked -voice, like this. Old Hata, she was called, and the children loved to see -her coming and saved their cakes and sweets for her. - -When the bank on the other side of the draw began to throw a narrow shelf -of shadow, we knew we ought to be starting homeward; the chill came on -quickly when the sun got low, and 聲tonia's dress was thin. What were we -to do with the frail little creature we had lured back to life by false -pretenses? I offered my pockets, but Tony shook her head and carefully put -the green insect in her hair, tying her big handkerchief down loosely over -her curls. I said I would go with her until we could see Squaw Creek, and -then turn and run home. We drifted along lazily, very happy, through the -magical light of the late afternoon. - -All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them. As -far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in -sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the day. -The blond cornfields were red gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw -long shadows. The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire -and was not consumed. That hour always had the exultation of victory, of -triumphant ending, like a hero's death--heroes who died young and -gloriously. It was a sudden transfiguration, a lifting-up of day. - -How many an afternoon 聲tonia and I have trailed along the prairie under -that magnificence! And always two long black shadows flitted before us or -followed after, dark spots on the ruddy grass. - -We had been silent a long time, and the edge of the sun sank nearer and -nearer the prairie floor, when we saw a figure moving on the edge of the -upland, a gun over his shoulder. He was walking slowly, dragging his feet -along as if he had no purpose. We broke into a run to overtake him. - -"My papa sick all the time," Tony panted as we flew. "He not look good, -Jim." - -As we neared Mr. Shimerda she shouted, and he lifted his head and peered -about. Tony ran up to him, caught his hand and pressed it against her -cheek. She was the only one of his family who could rouse the old man from -the torpor in which he seemed to live. He took the bag from his belt and -showed us three rabbits he had shot, looked at 聲tonia with a wintry -flicker of a smile and began to tell her something. She turned to me. - -"My tatinek make me little hat with the skins, little hat for win-ter!" -she exclaimed joyfully. "Meat for eat, skin for hat,"--she told off these -benefits on her fingers. - -Her father put his hand on her hair, but she caught his wrist and lifted -it carefully away, talking to him rapidly. I heard the name of old Hata. -He untied the handkerchief, separated her hair with his fingers, and stood -looking down at the green insect. When it began to chirp faintly, he -listened as if it were a beautiful sound. - -I picked up the gun he had dropped; a queer piece from the old country, -short and heavy, with a stag's head on the cock. When he saw me examining -it, he turned to me with his far-away look that always made me feel as if -I were down at the bottom of a well. He spoke kindly and gravely, and -聲tonia translated:-- - -"My tatinek say when you are big boy, he give you his gun. Very fine, from -Bohemie. It was belong to a great man, very rich, like what you not got -here; many fields, many forests, many big house. My papa play for his -wedding, and he give my papa fine gun, and my papa give you." - -[Illustration: Mr. Shimerda walking on the upland prairie with a gun over - his shoulder] - -I was glad that this project was one of futurity. There never were such -people as the Shimerdas for wanting to give away everything they had. Even -the mother was always offering me things, though I knew she expected -substantial presents in return. We stood there in friendly silence, while -the feeble minstrel sheltered in 聲tonia's hair went on with its scratchy -chirp. The old man's smile, as he listened, was so full of sadness, of -pity for things, that I never afterward forgot it. As the sun sank there -came a sudden coolness and the strong smell of earth and drying grass. -聲tonia and her father went off hand in hand, and I buttoned up my jacket -and raced my shadow home. - - - - -VII - - -MUCH as I liked 聲tonia, I hated a superior tone that she sometimes took -with me. She was four years older than I, to be sure, and had seen more of -the world; but I was a boy and she was a girl, and I resented her -protecting manner. Before the autumn was over she began to treat me more -like an equal and to defer to me in other things than reading lessons. -This change came about from an adventure we had together. - -One day when I rode over to the Shimerdas' I found 聲tonia starting off on -foot for Russian Peter's house, to borrow a spade Ambrosch needed. I -offered to take her on the pony, and she got up behind me. There had been -another black frost the night before, and the air was clear and heady as -wine. Within a week all the blooming roads had been despoiled--hundreds of -miles of yellow sunflowers had been transformed into brown, rattling, -burry stalks. - -We found Russian Peter digging his potatoes. We were glad to go in and get -warm by his kitchen stove and to see his squashes and Christmas melons, -heaped in the storeroom for winter. As we rode away with the spade, -聲tonia suggested that we stop at the prairie-dog town and dig into one of -the holes. We could find out whether they ran straight down, or were -horizontal, like mole-holes; whether they had underground connections; -whether the owls had nests down there, lined with feathers. We might get -some puppies, or owl eggs, or snake-skins. - -The dog-town was spread out over perhaps ten acres. The grass had been -nibbled short and even, so this stretch was not shaggy and red like the -surrounding country, but gray and velvety. The holes were several yards -apart, and were disposed with a good deal of regularity, almost as if the -town had been laid out in streets and avenues. One always felt that an -orderly and very sociable kind of life was going on there. I picketed Dude -down in a draw, and we went wandering about, looking for a hole that would -be easy to dig. The dogs were out, as usual, dozens of them, sitting up on -their hind legs over the doors of their houses. As we approached, they -barked, shook their tails at us, and scurried underground. Before the -mouths of the holes were little patches of sand and gravel, scratched up, -we supposed, from a long way below the surface. Here and there, in the -town, we came on larger gravel patches, several yards away from any hole. -If the dogs had scratched the sand up in excavating, how had they carried -it so far? It was on one of these gravel beds that I met my adventure. - -We were examining a big hole with two entrances. The burrow sloped into -the ground at a gentle angle, so that we could see where the two corridors -united, and the floor was dusty from use, like a little highway over which -much travel went. I was walking backward, in a crouching position, when I -heard 聲tonia scream. She was standing opposite me, pointing behind me and -shouting something in Bohemian. I whirled round, and there, on one of -those dry gravel beds, was the biggest snake I had ever seen. He was -sunning himself, after the cold night, and he must have been asleep when -聲tonia screamed. When I turned he was lying in long loose waves, like a -letter "W." He twitched and began to coil slowly. He was not merely a big -snake, I thought--he was a circus monstrosity. His abominable muscularity, -his loathsome, fluid motion, somehow made me sick. He was as thick as my -leg, and looked as if millstones could n't crush the disgusting vitality -out of him. He lifted his hideous little head, and rattled. I did n't run -because I did n't think of it--if my back had been against a stone wall I -could n't have felt more cornered. I saw his coils tighten--now he would -spring, spring his length, I remembered. I ran up and drove at his head -with my spade, struck him fairly across the neck, and in a minute he was -all about my feet in wavy loops. I struck now from hate. 聲tonia, -barefooted as she was, ran up behind me. Even after I had pounded his ugly -head flat, his body kept on coiling and winding, doubling and falling back -on itself. I walked away and turned my back. I felt seasick. 聲tonia came -after me, crying, "O Jimmy, he not bite you? You sure? Why you not run -when I say?" - -"What did you jabber Bohunk for? You might have told me there was a snake -behind me!" I said petulantly. - -"I know I am just awful, Jim, I was so scared." She took my handkerchief -from my pocket and tried to wipe my face with it, but I snatched it away -from her. I suppose I looked as sick as I felt. - -"I never know you was so brave, Jim," she went on comfortingly. "You is -just like big mans; you wait for him lift his head and then you go for -him. Ain't you feel scared a bit? Now we take that snake home and show -everybody. Nobody ain't seen in this kawn-tree so big snake like you -kill." - -She went on in this strain until I began to think that I had longed for -this opportunity, and had hailed it with joy. Cautiously we went back to -the snake; he was still groping with his tail, turning up his ugly belly -in the light. A faint, fetid smell came from him, and a thread of green -liquid oozed from his crushed head. - -"Look, Tony, that's his poison," I said. - -I took a long piece of string from my pocket, and she lifted his head with -the spade while I tied a noose around it. We pulled him out straight and -measured him by my riding-quirt; he was about five and a half feet long. -He had twelve rattles, but they were broken off before they began to -taper, so I insisted that he must once have had twenty-four. I explained -to 聲tonia how this meant that he was twenty-four years old, that he must -have been there when white men first came, left on from buffalo and Indian -times. As I turned him over I began to feel proud of him, to have a kind -of respect for his age and size. He seemed like the ancient, eldest Evil. -Certainly his kind have left horrible unconscious memories in all -warm-blooded life. When we dragged him down into the draw, Dude sprang off -to the end of his tether and shivered all over--would n't let us come near -him. - -We decided that 聲tonia should ride Dude home, and I would walk. As she -rode along slowly, her bare legs swinging against the pony's sides, she -kept shouting back to me about how astonished everybody would be. I -followed with the spade over my shoulder, dragging my snake. Her -exultation was contagious. The great land had never looked to me so big -and free. If the red grass were full of rattlers, I was equal to them all. -Nevertheless, I stole furtive glances behind me now and then to see that -no avenging mate, older and bigger than my quarry, was racing up from the -rear. - -The sun had set when we reached our garden and went down the draw toward -the house. Otto Fuchs was the first one we met. He was sitting on the edge -of the cattle-pond, having a quiet pipe before supper. 聲tonia called him -to come quick and look. He did not say anything for a minute, but -scratched his head and turned the snake over with his boot. - -"Where did you run onto that beauty, Jim?" - -"Up at the dog-town," I answered laconically. - -"Kill him yourself? How come you to have a weepon?" - -"We'd been up to Russian Peter's, to borrow a spade for Ambrosch." - -Otto shook the ashes out of his pipe and squatted down to count the -rattles. "It was just luck you had a tool," he said cautiously. "Gosh! I -would n't want to do any business with that fellow myself, unless I had a -fence-post along. Your grandmother's snake-cane would n't more than tickle -him. He could stand right up and talk to you, he could. Did he fight -hard?" - -聲tonia broke in: "He fight something awful! He is all over Jimmy's boots. -I scream for him to run, but he just hit and hit that snake like he was -crazy." - -Otto winked at me. After 聲tonia rode on he said: "Got him in the head -first crack, did n't you? That was just as well." - -We hung him up to the windmill, and when I went down to the kitchen I -found 聲tonia standing in the middle of the floor, telling the story with -a great deal of color. - -Subsequent experiences with rattlesnakes taught me that my first encounter -was fortunate in circumstance. My big rattler was old, and had led too -easy a life; there was not much fight in him. He had probably lived there -for years, with a fat prairie dog for breakfast whenever he felt like it, -a sheltered home, even an owl-feather bed, perhaps, and he had forgot that -the world does n't owe rattlers a living. A snake of his size, in fighting -trim, would be more than any boy could handle. So in reality it was a mock -adventure; the game was fixed for me by chance, as it probably was for -many a dragon-slayer. I had been adequately armed by Russian Peter; the -snake was old and lazy; and I had 聲tonia beside me, to appreciate and -admire. - -That snake hung on our corral fence for several days; some of the -neighbors came to see it and agreed that it was the biggest rattler ever -killed in those parts. This was enough for 聲tonia. She liked me better -from that time on, and she never took a supercilious air with me again. I -had killed a big snake--I was now a big fellow. - - - - -VIII - - -WHILE the autumn color was growing pale on the grass and cornfields, -things went badly with our friends the Russians. Peter told his troubles -to Mr. Shimerda: he was unable to meet a note which fell due on the first -of November; had to pay an exorbitant bonus on renewing it, and to give a -mortgage on his pigs and horses and even his milk cow. His creditor was -Wick Cutter, the merciless Black Hawk money-lender, a man of evil name -throughout the county, of whom I shall have more to say later. Peter could -give no very clear account of his transactions with Cutter. He only knew -that he had first borrowed two hundred dollars, then another hundred, then -fifty--that each time a bonus was added to the principal, and the debt grew -faster than any crop he planted. Now everything was plastered with -mortgages. - -Soon after Peter renewed his note, Pavel strained himself lifting timbers -for a new barn, and fell over among the shavings with such a gush of blood -from the lungs that his fellow-workmen thought he would die on the spot. -They hauled him home and put him into his bed, and there he lay, very ill -indeed. Misfortune seemed to settle like an evil bird on the roof of the -log house, and to flap its wings there, warning human beings away. The -Russians had such bad luck that people were afraid of them and liked to -put them out of mind. - -One afternoon 聲tonia and her father came over to our house to get -buttermilk, and lingered, as they usually did, until the sun was low. Just -as they were leaving, Russian Peter drove up. Pavel was very bad, he said, -and wanted to talk to Mr. Shimerda and his daughter; he had come to fetch -them. When 聲tonia and her father got into the wagon, I entreated -grandmother to let me go with them: I would gladly go without my supper, I -would sleep in the Shimerdas' barn and run home in the morning. My plan -must have seemed very foolish to her, but she was often large-minded about -humoring the desires of other people. She asked Peter to wait a moment, -and when she came back from the kitchen she brought a bag of sandwiches -and doughnuts for us. - -Mr. Shimerda and Peter were on the front seat; 聲tonia and I sat in the -straw behind and ate our lunch as we bumped along. After the sun sank, a -cold wind sprang up and moaned over the prairie. If this turn in the -weather had come sooner, I should not have got away. We burrowed down in -the straw and curled up close together, watching the angry red die out of -the west and the stars begin to shine in the clear, windy sky. Peter kept -sighing and groaning. Tony whispered to me that he was afraid Pavel would -never get well. We lay still and did not talk. Up there the stars grew -magnificently bright. Though we had come from such different parts of the -world, in both of us there was some dusky superstition that those shining -groups have their influence upon what is and what is not to be. Perhaps -Russian Peter, come from farther away than any of us, had brought from his -land, too, some such belief. - -The little house on the hillside was so much the color of the night that -we could not see it as we came up the draw. The ruddy windows guided -us--the light from the kitchen stove, for there was no lamp burning. - -We entered softly. The man in the wide bed seemed to be asleep. Tony and I -sat down on the bench by the wall and leaned our arms on the table in -front of us. The firelight flickered on the hewn logs that supported the -thatch overhead. Pavel made a rasping sound when he breathed, and he kept -moaning. We waited. The wind shook the doors and windows impatiently, then -swept on again, singing through the big spaces. Each gust, as it bore -down, rattled the panes, and swelled off like the others. They made me -think of defeated armies, retreating; or of ghosts who were trying -desperately to get in for shelter, and then went moaning on. Presently, in -one of those sobbing intervals between the blasts, the coyotes tuned up -with their whining howl; one, two, three, then all together--to tell us -that winter was coming. This sound brought an answer from the bed,--a long -complaining cry,--as if Pavel were having bad dreams or were waking to some -old misery. Peter listened, but did not stir. He was sitting on the floor -by the kitchen stove. The coyotes broke out again; yap, yap, yap--then the -high whine. Pavel called for something and struggled up on his elbow. - -"He is scared of the wolves," 聲tonia whispered to me. "In his country -there are very many, and they eat men and women." We slid closer together -along the bench. - -I could not take my eyes off the man in the bed. His shirt was hanging -open, and his emaciated chest, covered with yellow bristle, rose and fell -horribly. He began to cough. Peter shuffled to his feet, caught up the -tea-kettle and mixed him some hot water and whiskey. The sharp smell of -spirits went through the room. - -Pavel snatched the cup and drank, then made Peter give him the bottle and -slipped it under his pillow, grinning disagreeably, as if he had outwitted -some one. His eyes followed Peter about the room with a contemptuous, -unfriendly expression. It seemed to me that he despised him for being so -simple and docile. - -Presently Pavel began to talk to Mr. Shimerda, scarcely above a whisper. -He was telling a long story, and as he went on, 聲tonia took my hand under -the table and held it tight. She leaned forward and strained her ears to -hear him. He grew more and more excited, and kept pointing all around his -bed, as if there were things there and he wanted Mr. Shimerda to see them. - -"It's wolves, Jimmy," 聲tonia whispered. "It's awful, what he says!" - -The sick man raged and shook his fist. He seemed to be cursing people who -had wronged him. Mr. Shimerda caught him by the shoulders, but could -hardly hold him in bed. At last he was shut off by a coughing fit which -fairly choked him. He pulled a cloth from under his pillow and held it to -his mouth. Quickly it was covered with bright red spots--I thought I had -never seen any blood so bright. When he lay down and turned his face to -the wall, all the rage had gone out of him. He lay patiently fighting for -breath, like a child with croup. 聲tonia's father uncovered one of his -long bony legs and rubbed it rhythmically. From our bench we could see -what a hollow case his body was. His spine and shoulder-blades stood out -like the bones under the hide of a dead steer left in the fields. That -sharp backbone must have hurt him when he lay on it. - -Gradually, relief came to all of us. Whatever it was, the worst was over. -Mr. Shimerda signed to us that Pavel was asleep. Without a word Peter got -up and lit his lantern. He was going out to get his team to drive us home. -Mr. Shimerda went with him. We sat and watched the long bowed back under -the blue sheet, scarcely daring to breathe. - -On the way home, when we were lying in the straw, under the jolting and -rattling 聲tonia told me as much of the story as she could. What she did -not tell me then, she told later; we talked of nothing else for days -afterward. - - - -When Pavel and Peter were young men, living at home in Russia, they were -asked to be groomsmen for a friend who was to marry the belle of another -village. It was in the dead of winter and the groom's party went over to -the wedding in sledges. Peter and Pavel drove in the groom's sledge, and -six sledges followed with all his relatives and friends. - -After the ceremony at the church, the party went to a dinner given by the -parents of the bride. The dinner lasted all afternoon; then it became a -supper and continued far into the night. There was much dancing and -drinking. At midnight the parents of the bride said good-bye to her and -blessed her. The groom took her up in his arms and carried her out to his -sledge and tucked her under the blankets. He sprang in beside her, and -Pavel and Peter (our Pavel and Peter!) took the front seat. Pavel drove. -The party set out with singing and the jingle of sleigh-bells, the groom's -sledge going first. All the drivers were more or less the worse for -merry-making, and the groom was absorbed in his bride. - -The wolves were bad that winter, and every one knew it, yet when they -heard the first wolf-cry, the drivers were not much alarmed. They had too -much good food and drink inside them. The first howls were taken up and -echoed and with quickening repetitions. The wolves were coming together. -There was no moon, but the starlight was clear on the snow. A black drove -came up over the hill behind the wedding party. The wolves ran like -streaks of shadow; they looked no bigger than dogs, but there were -hundreds of them. - -Something happened to the hindmost sledge: the driver lost control,--he was -probably very drunk,--the horses left the road, the sledge was caught in a -clump of trees, and overturned. The occupants rolled out over the snow, -and the fleetest of the wolves sprang upon them. The shrieks that followed -made everybody sober. The drivers stood up and lashed their horses. The -groom had the best team and his sledge was lightest--all the others carried -from six to a dozen people. - -Another driver lost control. The screams of the horses were more terrible -to hear than the cries of the men and women. Nothing seemed to check the -wolves. It was hard to tell what was happening in the rear; the people who -were falling behind shrieked as piteously as those who were already lost. -The little bride hid her face on the groom's shoulder and sobbed. Pavel -sat still and watched his horses. The road was clear and white, and the -groom's three blacks went like the wind. It was only necessary to be calm -and to guide them carefully. - -At length, as they breasted a long hill, Peter rose cautiously and looked -back. "There are only three sledges left," he whispered. - -"And the wolves?" Pavel asked. - -"Enough! Enough for all of us." - -Pavel reached the brow of the hill, but only two sledges followed him down -the other side. In that moment on the hilltop, they saw behind them a -whirling black group on the snow. Presently the groom screamed. He saw his -father's sledge overturned, with his mother and sisters. He sprang up as -if he meant to jump, but the girl shrieked and held him back. It was even -then too late. The black ground-shadows were already crowding over the -heap in the road, and one horse ran out across the fields, his harness -hanging to him, wolves at his heels. But the groom's movement had given -Pavel an idea. - -They were within a few miles of their village now. The only sledge left -out of six was not very far behind them, and Pavel's middle horse was -failing. Beside a frozen pond something happened to the other sledge; -Peter saw it plainly. Three big wolves got abreast of the horses, and the -horses went crazy. They tried to jump over each other, got tangled up in -the harness, and overturned the sledge. - -When the shrieking behind them died away, Pavel realized that he was alone -upon the familiar road. "They still come?" he asked Peter. - -"Yes." - -"How many?" - -"Twenty, thirty--enough." - -Now his middle horse was being almost dragged by the other two. Pavel gave -Peter the reins and stepped carefully into the back of the sledge. He -called to the groom that they must lighten--and pointed to the bride. The -young man cursed him and held her tighter. Pavel tried to drag her away. -In the struggle, the groom rose. Pavel knocked him over the side of the -sledge and threw the girl after him. He said he never remembered exactly -how he did it, or what happened afterward. Peter, crouching in the front -seat, saw nothing. The first thing either of them noticed was a new sound -that broke into the clear air, louder than they had ever heard it -before--the bell of the monastery of their own village, ringing for early -prayers. - -Pavel and Peter drove into the village alone, and they had been alone ever -since. They were run out of their village. Pavel's own mother would not -look at him. They went away to strange towns, but when people learned -where they came from, they were always asked if they knew the two men who -had fed the bride to the wolves. Wherever they went, the story followed -them. It took them five years to save money enough to come to America. -They worked in Chicago, Des Moines, Fort Wayne, but they were always -unfortunate. When Pavel's health grew so bad, they decided to try farming. - -Pavel died a few days after he unburdened his mind to Mr. Shimerda, and -was buried in the Norwegian graveyard. Peter sold off everything, and left -the country--went to be cook in a railway construction camp where gangs of -Russians were employed. - -At his sale we bought Peter's wheelbarrow and some of his harness. During -the auction he went about with his head down, and never lifted his eyes. -He seemed not to care about anything. The Black Hawk money-lender who held -mortgages on Peter's live-stock was there, and he bought in the sale notes -at about fifty cents on the dollar. Every one said Peter kissed the cow -before she was led away by her new owner. I did not see him do it, but -this I know: after all his furniture and his cook-stove and pots and pans -had been hauled off by the purchasers, when his house was stripped and -bare, he sat down on the floor with his clasp-knife and ate all the melons -that he had put away for winter. When Mr. Shimerda and Krajiek drove up in -their wagon to take Peter to the train, they found him with a dripping -beard, surrounded by heaps of melon rinds. - -The loss of his two friends had a depressing effect upon old Mr. Shimerda. -When he was out hunting, he used to go into the empty log house and sit -there, brooding. This cabin was his hermitage until the winter snows -penned him in his cave. For 聲tonia and me, the story of the wedding party -was never at an end. We did not tell Pavel's secret to any one, but -guarded it jealously--as if the wolves of the Ukraine had gathered that -night long ago, and the wedding party been sacrificed, to give us a -painful and peculiar pleasure. At night, before I went to sleep, I often -found myself in a sledge drawn by three horses, dashing through a country -that looked something like Nebraska and something like Virginia. - - - - -IX - - -THE first snowfall came early in December. I remember how the world looked -from our sitting-room window as I dressed behind the stove that morning: -the low sky was like a sheet of metal; the blond cornfields had faded out -into ghostliness at last; the little pond was frozen under its stiff -willow bushes. Big white flakes were whirling over everything and -disappearing in the red grass. - -Beyond the pond, on the slope that climbed to the cornfield, there was, -faintly marked in the grass, a great circle where the Indians used to -ride. Jake and Otto were sure that when they galloped round that ring the -Indians tortured prisoners, bound to a stake in the center; but -grandfather thought they merely ran races or trained horses there. -Whenever one looked at this slope against the setting sun, the circle -showed like a pattern in the grass; and this morning, when the first light -spray of snow lay over it, it came out with wonderful distinctness, like -strokes of Chinese white on canvas. The old figure stirred me as it had -never done before and seemed a good omen for the winter. - -As soon as the snow had packed hard I began to drive about the country in -a clumsy sleigh that Otto Fuchs made for me by fastening a wooden -goods-box on bobs. Fuchs had been apprenticed to a cabinet-maker in the -old country and was very handy with tools. He would have done a better job -if I had n't hurried him. My first trip was to the post-office, and the -next day I went over to take Yulka and 聲tonia for a sleigh-ride. - -It was a bright, cold day. I piled straw and buffalo robes into the box, -and took two hot bricks wrapped in old blankets. When I got to the -Shimerdas' I did not go up to the house, but sat in my sleigh at the -bottom of the draw and called. 聲tonia and Yulka came running out, wearing -little rabbit-skin hats their father had made for them. They had heard -about my sledge from Ambrosch and knew why I had come. They tumbled in -beside me and we set off toward the north, along a road that happened to -be broken. - -The sky was brilliantly blue, and the sunlight on the glittering white -stretches of prairie was almost blinding. As 聲tonia said, the whole world -was changed by the snow; we kept looking in vain for familiar landmarks. -The deep arroyo through which Squaw Creek wound was now only a cleft -between snow-drifts--very blue when one looked down into it. The tree-tops -that had been gold all the autumn were dwarfed and twisted, as if they -would never have any life in them again. The few little cedars, which were -so dull and dingy before, now stood out a strong, dusky green. The wind -had the burning taste of fresh snow; my throat and nostrils smarted as if -some one had opened a hartshorn bottle. The cold stung, and at the same -time delighted one. My horse's breath rose like steam, and whenever we -stopped he smoked all over. The cornfields got back a little of their -color under the dazzling light, and stood the palest possible gold in the -sun and snow. All about us the snow was crusted in shallow terraces, with -tracings like ripple-marks at the edges, curly waves that were the actual -impression of the stinging lash in the wind. - -The girls had on cotton dresses under their shawls; they kept shivering -beneath the buffalo robes and hugging each other for warmth. But they were -so glad to get away from their ugly cave and their mother's scolding that -they begged me to go on and on, as far as Russian Peter's house. The great -fresh open, after the stupefying warmth indoors, made them behave like -wild things. They laughed and shouted, and said they never wanted to go -home again. Could n't we settle down and live in Russian Peter's house, -Yulka asked, and could n't I go to town and buy things for us to keep -house with? - -All the way to Russian Peter's we were extravagantly happy, but when we -turned back,--it must have been about four o'clock,--the east wind grew -stronger and began to howl; the sun lost its heartening power and the sky -became gray and somber. I took off my long woolen comforter and wound it -around Yulka's throat. She got so cold that we made her hide her head -under the buffalo robe. 聲tonia and I sat erect, but I held the reins -clumsily, and my eyes were blinded by the wind a good deal of the time. It -was growing dark when we got to their house, but I refused to go in with -them and get warm. I knew my hands would ache terribly if I went near a -fire. Yulka forgot to give me back my comforter, and I had to drive home -directly against the wind. The next day I came down with an attack of -quinsy, which kept me in the house for nearly two weeks. - -The basement kitchen seemed heavenly safe and warm in those days--like a -tight little boat in a winter sea. The men were out in the fields all day, -husking corn, and when they came in at noon, with long caps pulled down -over their ears and their feet in red-lined overshoes, I used to think -they were like Arctic explorers. - -In the afternoons, when grandmother sat upstairs darning, or making -husking-gloves, I read "The Swiss Family Robinson" aloud to her, and I -felt that the Swiss family had no advantages over us in the way of an -adventurous life. I was convinced that man's strongest antagonist is the -cold. I admired the cheerful zest with which grandmother went about -keeping us warm and comfortable and well-fed. She often reminded me, when -she was preparing for the return of the hungry men, that this country was -not like Virginia, and that here a cook had, as she said, "very little to -do with." On Sundays she gave us as much chicken as we could eat, and on -other days we had ham or bacon or sausage meat. She baked either pies or -cake for us every day, unless, for a change, she made my favorite pudding, -striped with currants and boiled in a bag. - -Next to getting warm and keeping warm, dinner and supper were the most -interesting things we had to think about. Our lives centered around warmth -and food and the return of the men at nightfall. I used to wonder, when -they came in tired from the fields, their feet numb and their hands -cracked and sore, how they could do all the chores so conscientiously: -feed and water and bed the horses, milk the cows, and look after the pigs. -When supper was over, it took them a long while to get the cold out of -their bones. While grandmother and I washed the dishes and grandfather -read his paper upstairs, Jake and Otto sat on the long bench behind the -stove, "easing" their inside boots, or rubbing mutton tallow into their -cracked hands. - -Every Saturday night we popped corn or made taffy, and Otto Fuchs used to -sing, "For I Am a Cowboy and Know I've Done Wrong," or, "Bury Me Not on -the Lone Prairee." He had a good baritone voice and always led the singing -when we went to church services at the sod schoolhouse. - -I can still see those two men sitting on the bench; Otto's close-clipped -head and Jake's shaggy hair slicked flat in front by a wet comb. I can see -the sag of their tired shoulders against the whitewashed wall. What good -fellows they were, how much they knew, and how many things they had kept -faith with! - -Fuchs had been a cowboy, a stage-driver, a bar-tender, a miner; had -wandered all over that great Western country and done hard work -everywhere, though, as grandmother said, he had nothing to show for it. -Jake was duller than Otto. He could scarcely read, wrote even his name -with difficulty, and he had a violent temper which sometimes made him -behave like a crazy man--tore him all to pieces and actually made him ill. -But he was so soft-hearted that any one could impose upon him. If he, as -he said, "forgot himself" and swore before grandmother, he went about -depressed and shamefaced all day. They were both of them jovial about the -cold in winter and the heat in summer, always ready to work overtime and -to meet emergencies. It was a matter of pride with them not to spare -themselves. Yet they were the sort of men who never get on, somehow, or do -anything but work hard for a dollar or two a day. - -On those bitter, starlit nights, as we sat around the old stove that fed -us and warmed us and kept us cheerful, we could hear the coyotes howling -down by the corrals, and their hungry, wintry cry used to remind the boys -of wonderful animal stories; about gray wolves and bears in the Rockies, -wildcats and panthers in the Virginia mountains. Sometimes Fuchs could be -persuaded to talk about the outlaws and desperate characters he had known. -I remember one funny story about himself that made grandmother, who was -working her bread on the bread-board, laugh until she wiped her eyes with -her bare arm, her hands being floury. It was like this:-- - -When Otto left Austria to come to America, he was asked by one of his -relatives to look after a woman who was crossing on the same boat, to join -her husband in Chicago. The woman started off with two children, but it -was clear that her family might grow larger on the journey. Fuchs said he -"got on fine with the kids," and liked the mother, though she played a -sorry trick on him. In mid-ocean she proceeded to have not one baby, but -three! This event made Fuchs the object of undeserved notoriety, since he -was traveling with her. The steerage stewardess was indignant with him, -the doctor regarded him with suspicion. The first-cabin passengers, who -made up a purse for the woman, took an embarrassing interest in Otto, and -often inquired of him about his charge. When the triplets were taken -ashore at New York, he had, as he said, "to carry some of them." The trip -to Chicago was even worse than the ocean voyage. On the train it was very -difficult to get milk for the babies and to keep their bottles clean. The -mother did her best, but no woman, out of her natural resources, could -feed three babies. The husband, in Chicago, was working in a furniture -factory for modest wages, and when he met his family at the station he was -rather crushed by the size of it. He, too, seemed to consider Fuchs in -some fashion to blame. "I was sure glad," Otto concluded, "that he did n't -take his hard feeling out on that poor woman; but he had a sullen eye for -me, all right! Now, did you ever hear of a young feller's having such hard -luck, Mrs. Burden?" - -Grandmother told him she was sure the Lord had remembered these things to -his credit, and had helped him out of many a scrape when he did n't -realize that he was being protected by Providence. - - - - -X - - -FOR several weeks after my sleigh-ride, we heard nothing from the -Shimerdas. My sore throat kept me indoors, and grandmother had a cold -which made the housework heavy for her. When Sunday came she was glad to -have a day of rest. One night at supper Fuchs told us he had seen Mr. -Shimerda out hunting. - -"He's made himself a rabbit-skin cap, Jim, and a rabbit-skin collar that -he buttons on outside his coat. They ain't got but one overcoat among 'em -over there, and they take turns wearing it. They seem awful scared of -cold, and stick in that hole in the bank like badgers." - -"All but the crazy boy," Jake put in. "He never wears the coat. Krajiek -says he's turrible strong and can stand anything. I guess rabbits must be -getting scarce in this locality. Ambrosch come along by the cornfield -yesterday where I was at work and showed me three prairie dogs he'd shot. -He asked me if they was good to eat. I spit and made a face and took on, -to scare him, but he just looked like he was smarter'n me and put 'em back -in his sack and walked off." - -Grandmother looked up in alarm and spoke to grandfather. "Josiah, you -don't suppose Krajiek would let them poor creatures eat prairie dogs, do -you?" - -"You had better go over and see our neighbors to-morrow, Emmaline," he -replied gravely. - -Fuchs put in a cheerful word and said prairie dogs were clean beasts and -ought to be good for food, but their family connections were against them. -I asked what he meant, and he grinned and said they belonged to the rat -family. - -When I went downstairs in the morning, I found grandmother and Jake -packing a hamper basket in the kitchen. - -"Now, Jake," grandmother was saying, "if you can find that old rooster -that got his comb froze, just give his neck a twist, and we'll take him -along. There's no good reason why Mrs. Shimerda could n't have got hens -from her neighbors last fall and had a henhouse going by now. I reckon she -was confused and did n't know where to begin. I've come strange to a new -country myself, but I never forgot hens are a good thing to have, no -matter what you don't have." - -"Just as you say, mam," said Jake, "but I hate to think of Krajiek getting -a leg of that old rooster." He tramped out through the long cellar and -dropped the heavy door behind him. - -After breakfast grandmother and Jake and I bundled ourselves up and -climbed into the cold front wagon-seat. As we approached the Shimerdas' we -heard the frosty whine of the pump and saw 聲tonia, her head tied up and -her cotton dress blown about her, throwing all her weight on the -pump-handle as it went up and down. She heard our wagon, looked back over -her shoulder, and catching up her pail of water, started at a run for the -hole in the bank. - -Jake helped grandmother to the ground, saying he would bring the -provisions after he had blanketed his horses. We went slowly up the icy -path toward the door sunk in the drawside. Blue puffs of smoke came from -the stovepipe that stuck out through the grass and snow, but the wind -whisked them roughly away. - -Mrs. Shimerda opened the door before we knocked and seized grandmother's -hand. She did not say "How do!" as usual, but at once began to cry, -talking very fast in her own language, pointing to her feet which were -tied up in rags, and looking about accusingly at every one. - -The old man was sitting on a stump behind the stove, crouching over as if -he were trying to hide from us. Yulka was on the floor at his feet, her -kitten in her lap. She peeped out at me and smiled, but, glancing up at -her mother, hid again. 聲tonia was washing pans and dishes in a dark -corner. The crazy boy lay under the only window, stretched on a gunnysack -stuffed with straw. As soon as we entered he threw a grainsack over the -crack at the bottom of the door. The air in the cave was stifling, and it -was very dark, too. A lighted lantern, hung over the stove, threw out a -feeble yellow glimmer. - -Mrs. Shimerda snatched off the covers of two barrels behind the door, and -made us look into them. In one there were some potatoes that had been -frozen and were rotting, in the other was a little pile of flour. -Grandmother murmured something in embarrassment, but the Bohemian woman -laughed scornfully, a kind of whinny-laugh, and catching up an empty -coffee-pot from the shelf, shook it at us with a look positively -vindictive. - -Grandmother went on talking in her polite Virginia way, not admitting -their stark need or her own remissness, until Jake arrived with the -hamper, as if in direct answer to Mrs. Shimerda's reproaches. Then the -poor woman broke down. She dropped on the floor beside her crazy son, hid -her face on her knees, and sat crying bitterly. Grandmother paid no heed -to her, but called 聲tonia to come and help empty the basket. Tony left -her corner reluctantly. I had never seen her crushed like this before. - -"You not mind my poor mamenka, Mrs. Burden. She is so sad," she whispered, -as she wiped her wet hands on her skirt and took the things grandmother -handed her. - -The crazy boy, seeing the food, began to make soft, gurgling noises and -stroked his stomach. Jake came in again, this time with a sack of -potatoes. Grandmother looked about in perplexity. - -"Have n't you got any sort of cave or cellar outside, 聲tonia? This is no -place to keep vegetables. How did your potatoes get frozen?" - -"We get from Mr. Bushy, at the post-office,--what he throw out. We got no -potatoes, Mrs. Burden," Tony admitted mournfully. - -When Jake went out, Marek crawled along the floor and stuffed up the -door-crack again. Then, quietly as a shadow, Mr. Shimerda came out from -behind the stove. He stood brushing his hand over his smooth gray hair, as -if he were trying to clear away a fog about his head. He was clean and -neat as usual, with his green neckcloth and his coral pin. He took -grandmother's arm and led her behind the stove, to the back of the room. -In the rear wall was another little cave; a round hole, not much bigger -than an oil barrel, scooped out in the black earth. When I got up on one -of the stools and peered into it, I saw some quilts and a pile of straw. -The old man held the lantern. "Yulka," he said in a low, despairing voice, -"Yulka; my 聲tonia!" - -Grandmother drew back. "You mean they sleep in there,--your girls?" He -bowed his head. - -Tony slipped under his arm. "It is very cold on the floor, and this is -warm like the badger hole. I like for sleep there," she insisted eagerly. -"My mamenka have nice bed, with pillows from our own geese in Bohemie. -See, Jim?" She pointed to the narrow bunk which Krajiek had built against -the wall for himself before the Shimerdas came. - -Grandmother sighed. "Sure enough, where _would_ you sleep, dear! I don't -doubt you're warm there. You'll have a better house after while, 聲tonia, -and then you'll forget these hard times." - -Mr. Shimerda made grandmother sit down on the only chair and pointed his -wife to a stool beside her. Standing before them with his hand on -聲tonia's shoulder, he talked in a low tone, and his daughter translated. -He wanted us to know that they were not beggars in the old country; he -made good wages, and his family were respected there. He left Bohemia with -more than a thousand dollars in savings, after their passage money was -paid. He had in some way lost on exchange in New York, and the railway -fare to Nebraska was more than they had expected. By the time they paid -Krajiek for the land, and bought his horses and oxen and some old farm -machinery, they had very little money left. He wished grandmother to know, -however, that he still had some money. If they could get through until -spring came, they would buy a cow and chickens and plant a garden, and -would then do very well. Ambrosch and 聲tonia were both old enough to work -in the fields, and they were willing to work. But the snow and the bitter -weather had disheartened them all. - -聲tonia explained that her father meant to build a new house for them in -the spring; he and Ambrosch had already split the logs for it, but the -logs were all buried in the snow, along the creek where they had been -felled. - -While grandmother encouraged and gave them advice, I sat down on the floor -with Yulka and let her show me her kitten. Marek slid cautiously toward us -and began to exhibit his webbed fingers. I knew he wanted to make his -queer noises for me--to bark like a dog or whinny like a horse,--but he did -not dare in the presence of his elders. Marek was always trying to be -agreeable, poor fellow, as if he had it on his mind that he must make up -for his deficiencies. - -Mrs. Shimerda grew more calm and reasonable before our visit was over, -and, while 聲tonia translated, put in a word now and then on her own -account. The woman had a quick ear, and caught up phrases whenever she -heard English spoken. As we rose to go, she opened her wooden chest and -brought out a bag made of bed-ticking, about as long as a flour sack and -half as wide, stuffed full of something. At sight of it, the crazy boy -began to smack his lips. When Mrs. Shimerda opened the bag and stirred the -contents with her hand, it gave out a salty, earthy smell, very pungent, -even among the other odors of that cave. She measured a teacup full, tied -it up in a bit of sacking, and presented it ceremoniously to grandmother. - -"For cook," she announced. "Little now; be very much when cook," spreading -out her hands as if to indicate that the pint would swell to a gallon. -"Very good. You no have in this country. All things for eat better in my -country." - -"Maybe so, Mrs. Shimerda," grandmother said drily. "I can't say but I -prefer our bread to yours, myself." - - [Illustration: Mrs. Shimerda gathering mushrooms in a Bohemian forest] - -聲tonia undertook to explain. "This very good, Mrs. Burden,"--she clasped -her hands as if she could not express how good,--"it make very much when -you cook, like what my mama say. Cook with rabbit, cook with chicken, in -the gravy,--oh, so good!" - -All the way home grandmother and Jake talked about how easily good -Christian people could forget they were their brothers' keepers. - -"I will say, Jake, some of our brothers and sisters are hard to keep. -Where's a body to begin, with these people? They're wanting in everything, -and most of all in horse-sense. Nobody can give 'em that, I guess. Jimmy, -here, is about as able to take over a homestead as they are. Do you reckon -that boy Ambrosch has any real push in him?" - -"He's a worker, all right, mam, and he's got some ketch-on about him; but -he's a mean one. Folks can be mean enough to get on in this world; and -then, ag'in, they can be too mean." - -That night, while grandmother was getting supper, we opened the package -Mrs. Shimerda had given her. It was full of little brown chips that looked -like the shavings of some root. They were as light as feathers, and the -most noticeable thing about them was their penetrating, earthy odor. We -could not determine whether they were animal or vegetable. - -"They might be dried meat from some queer beast, Jim. They ain't dried -fish, and they never grew on stalk or vine. I'm afraid of 'em. Anyhow, I -should n't want to eat anything that had been shut up for months with old -clothes and goose pillows." - -She threw the package into the stove, but I bit off a corner of one of the -chips I held in my hand, and chewed it tentatively. I never forgot the -strange taste; though it was many years before I knew that those little -brown shavings, which the Shimerdas had brought so far and treasured so -jealously, were dried mushrooms. They had been gathered, probably, in some -deep Bohemian forest {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} - - - - -XI - - -DURING the week before Christmas, Jake was the most important person of -our household, for he was to go to town and do all our Christmas shopping. -But on the 21st of December, the snow began to fall. The flakes came down -so thickly that from the sitting-room windows I could not see beyond the -windmill--its frame looked dim and gray, unsubstantial like a shadow. The -snow did not stop falling all day, or during the night that followed. The -cold was not severe, but the storm was quiet and resistless. The men could -not go farther than the barns and corral. They sat about the house most of -the day as if it were Sunday; greasing their boots, mending their -suspenders, plaiting whiplashes. - -On the morning of the 22d, grandfather announced at breakfast that it -would be impossible to go to Black Hawk for Christmas purchases. Jake was -sure he could get through on horseback, and bring home our things in -saddle-bags; but grandfather told him the roads would be obliterated, and -a newcomer in the country would be lost ten times over. Anyway, he would -never allow one of his horses to be put to such a strain. - -We decided to have a country Christmas, without any help from town. I had -wanted to get some picture-books for Yulka and 聲tonia; even Yulka was -able to read a little now. Grandmother took me into the ice-cold -storeroom, where she had some bolts of gingham and sheeting. She cut -squares of cotton cloth and we sewed them together into a book. We bound -it between pasteboards, which I covered with brilliant calico, -representing scenes from a circus. For two days I sat at the dining-room -table, pasting this book full of pictures for Yulka. We had files of those -good old family magazines which used to publish colored lithographs of -popular paintings, and I was allowed to use some of these. I took -"Napoleon Announcing the Divorce to Josephine" for my frontispiece. On the -white pages I grouped Sunday-School cards and advertising cards which I -had brought from my "old country." Fuchs got out the old candle-moulds and -made tallow candles. Grandmother hunted up her fancy cake-cutters and -baked gingerbread men and roosters, which we decorated with burnt sugar -and red cinnamon drops. - -On the day before Christmas, Jake packed the things we were sending to the -Shimerdas in his saddle-bags and set off on grandfather's gray gelding. -When he mounted his horse at the door, I saw that he had a hatchet slung -to his belt, and he gave grandmother a meaning look which told me he was -planning a surprise for me. That afternoon I watched long and eagerly from -the sitting-room window. At last I saw a dark spot moving on the west -hill, beside the half-buried cornfield, where the sky was taking on a -coppery flush from the sun that did not quite break through. I put on my -cap and ran out to meet Jake. When I got to the pond I could see that he -was bringing in a little cedar tree across his pommel. He used to help my -father cut Christmas trees for me in Virginia, and he had not forgotten -how much I liked them. - -By the time we had placed the cold, fresh-smelling little tree in a corner -of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve. After supper we all -gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his paper by the table, -looked up with friendly interest now and then. The cedar was about five -feet high and very shapely. We hung it with the gingerbread animals, -strings of popcorn, and bits of candle which Fuchs had fitted into -pasteboard sockets. Its real splendors, however, came from the most -unlikely place in the world--from Otto's cowboy trunk. I had never seen -anything in that trunk but old boots and spurs and pistols, and a -fascinating mixture of yellow leather thongs, cartridges, and shoemaker's -wax. From under the lining he now produced a collection of brilliantly -colored paper figures, several inches high and stiff enough to stand -alone. They had been sent to him year after year, by his old mother in -Austria. There was a bleeding heart, in tufts of paper lace; there were -the three kings, gorgeously appareled, and the ox and the ass and the -shepherds; there was the Baby in the manger, and a group of angels, -singing; there were camels and leopards, held by the black slaves of the -three kings. Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends -and stories nestled like birds in its branches. Grandmother said it -reminded her of the Tree of Knowledge. We put sheets of cotton wool under -it for a snow-field, and Jake's pocket-mirror for a frozen lake. - -I can see them now, exactly as they looked, working about the table in the -lamplight: Jake with his heavy features, so rudely moulded that his face -seemed, somehow, unfinished; Otto with his half-ear and the savage scar -that made his upper lip curl so ferociously under his twisted mustache. As -I remember them, what unprotected faces they were; their very roughness -and violence made them defenseless. These boys had no practiced manner -behind which they could retreat and hold people at a distance. They had -only their hard fists to batter at the world with. Otto was already one of -those drifting, case-hardened laborers who never marry or have children of -their own. Yet he was so fond of children! - - - - -XII - - -ON Christmas morning, when I got down to the kitchen, the men were just -coming in from their morning chores--the horses and pigs always had their -breakfast before we did. Jake and Otto shouted "Merry Christmas"! to me, -and winked at each other when they saw the waffle-irons on the stove. -Grandfather came down, wearing a white shirt and his Sunday coat. Morning -prayers were longer than usual. He read the chapters from St. Matthew -about the birth of Christ, and as we listened it all seemed like something -that had happened lately, and near at hand. In his prayer he thanked the -Lord for the first Christmas, and for all that it had meant to the world -ever since. He gave thanks for our food and comfort, and prayed for the -poor and destitute in great cities, where the struggle for life was harder -than it was here with us. Grandfather's prayers were often very -interesting. He had the gift of simple and moving expression. Because he -talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull -from constant use. His prayers reflected what he was thinking about at the -time, and it was chiefly through them that we got to know his feelings and -his views about things. - -After we sat down to our waffles and sausage, Jake told us how pleased the -Shimerdas had been with their presents; even Ambrosch was friendly and -went to the creek with him to cut the Christmas tree. It was a soft gray -day outside, with heavy clouds working across the sky, and occasional -squalls of snow. There were always odd jobs to be done about the barn on -holidays, and the men were busy until afternoon. Then Jake and I played -dominoes, while Otto wrote a long letter home to his mother. He always -wrote to her on Christmas Day, he said, no matter where he was, and no -matter how long it had been since his last letter. All afternoon he sat in -the dining-room. He would write for a while, then sit idle, his clenched -fist lying on the table, his eyes following the pattern of the oilcloth. -He spoke and wrote his own language so seldom that it came to him -awkwardly. His effort to remember entirely absorbed him. - -At about four o'clock a visitor appeared: Mr. Shimerda, wearing his -rabbit-skin cap and collar, and new mittens his wife had knitted. He had -come to thank us for the presents, and for all grandmother's kindness to -his family. Jake and Otto joined us from the basement and we sat about the -stove, enjoying the deepening gray of the winter afternoon and the -atmosphere of comfort and security in my grandfather's house. This feeling -seemed completely to take possession of Mr. Shimerda. I suppose, in the -crowded clutter of their cave, the old man had come to believe that peace -and order had vanished from the earth, or existed only in the old world he -had left so far behind. He sat still and passive, his head resting against -the back of the wooden rocking-chair, his hands relaxed upon the arms. His -face had a look of weariness and pleasure, like that of sick people when -they feel relief from pain. Grandmother insisted on his drinking a glass -of Virginia apple-brandy after his long walk in the cold, and when a faint -flush came up in his cheeks, his features might have been cut out of a -shell, they were so transparent. He said almost nothing, and smiled -rarely; but as he rested there we all had a sense of his utter content. - - [Illustration: Jake bringing home a Christmas tree] - -As it grew dark, I asked whether I might light the Christmas tree before -the lamp was brought. When the candle ends sent up their conical yellow -flames, all the colored figures from Austria stood out clear and full of -meaning against the green boughs. Mr. Shimerda rose, crossed himself, and -quietly knelt down before the tree, his head sunk forward. His long body -formed a letter "S." I saw grandmother look apprehensively at grandfather. -He was rather narrow in religious matters, and sometimes spoke out and -hurt people's feelings. There had been nothing strange about the tree -before, but now, with some one kneeling before it,--images, candles, {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} -Grandfather merely put his finger-tips to his brow and bowed his venerable -head, thus Protestantizing the atmosphere. - -We persuaded our guest to stay for supper with us. He needed little -urging. As we sat down to the table, it occurred to me that he liked to -look at us, and that our faces were open books to him. When his -deep-seeing eyes rested on me, I felt as if he were looking far ahead into -the future for me, down the road I would have to travel. - -At nine o'clock Mr. Shimerda lighted one of our lanterns and put on his -overcoat and fur collar. He stood in the little entry hall, the lantern -and his fur cap under his arm, shaking hands with us. When he took -grandmother's hand, he bent over it as he always did, and said slowly, -"Good wo-man!" He made the sign of the cross over me, put on his cap and -went off in the dark. As we turned back to the sitting-room, grandfather -looked at me searchingly. "The prayers of all good people are good," he -said quietly. - - - - -XIII - - -THE week following Christmas brought in a thaw, and by New Year's Day all -the world about us was a broth of gray slush, and the guttered slope -between the windmill and the barn was running black water. The soft black -earth stood out in patches along the roadsides. I resumed all my chores, -carried in the cobs and wood and water, and spent the afternoons at the -barn, watching Jake shell corn with a hand-sheller. - -One morning, during this interval of fine weather, 聲tonia and her mother -rode over on one of their shaggy old horses to pay us a visit. It was the -first time Mrs. Shimerda had been to our house, and she ran about -examining our carpets and curtains and furniture, all the while commenting -upon them to her daughter in an envious, complaining tone. In the kitchen -she caught up an iron pot that stood on the back of the stove and said: -"You got many, Shimerdas no got." I thought it weak-minded of grandmother -to give the pot to her. - -After dinner, when she was helping to wash the dishes, she said, tossing -her head: "You got many things for cook. If I got all things like you, I -make much better." - -She was a conceited, boastful old thing, and even misfortune could not -humble her. I was so annoyed that I felt coldly even toward 聲tonia and -listened unsympathetically when she told me her father was not well. - -"My papa sad for the old country. He not look good. He never make music -any more. At home he play violin all the time; for weddings and for dance. -Here never. When I beg him for play, he shake his head no. Some days he -take his violin out of his box and make with his fingers on the strings, -like this, but never he make the music. He don't like this kawn-tree." - -"People who don't like this country ought to stay at home," I said -severely. "We don't make them come here." - -"He not want to come, nev-er!" she burst out. "My mamenka make him come. -All the time she say: 'America big country; much money, much land for my -boys, much husband for my girls.' My papa, he cry for leave his old -friends what make music with him. He love very much the man what play the -long horn like this"--she indicated a slide trombone. "They go to school -together and are friends from boys. But my mama, she want Ambrosch for be -rich, with many cattle." - -"Your mama," I said angrily, "wants other people's things." - -"Your grandfather is rich," she retorted fiercely. "Why he not help my -papa? Ambrosch be rich, too, after while, and he pay back. He is very -smart boy. For Ambrosch my mama come here." - -Ambrosch was considered the important person in the family. Mrs. Shimerda -and 聲tonia always deferred to him, though he was often surly with them -and contemptuous toward his father. Ambrosch and his mother had everything -their own way. Though 聲tonia loved her father more than she did any one -else, she stood in awe of her elder brother. - -After I watched 聲tonia and her mother go over the hill on their miserable -horse, carrying our iron pot with them, I turned to grandmother, who had -taken up her darning, and said I hoped that snooping old woman would n't -come to see us any more. - -Grandmother chuckled and drove her bright needle across a hole in Otto's -sock. "She's not old, Jim, though I expect she seems old to you. No, I -would n't mourn if she never came again. But, you see, a body never knows -what traits poverty might bring out in 'em. It makes a woman grasping to -see her children want for things. Now read me a chapter in 'The Prince of -the House of David.' Let's forget the Bohemians." - -We had three weeks of this mild, open weather. The cattle in the corral -ate corn almost as fast as the men could shell it for them, and we hoped -they would be ready for an early market. One morning the two big bulls, -Gladstone and Brigham Young, thought spring had come, and they began to -tease and butt at each other across the barbed wire that separated them. -Soon they got angry. They bellowed and pawed up the soft earth with their -hoofs, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads. Each withdrew to a far -corner of his own corral, and then they made for each other at a gallop. -Thud, thud, we could hear the impact of their great heads, and their -bellowing shook the pans on the kitchen shelves. Had they not been -dehorned, they would have torn each other to pieces. Pretty soon the fat -steers took it up and began butting and horning each other. Clearly, the -affair had to be stopped. We all stood by and watched admiringly while -Fuchs rode into the corral with a pitchfork and prodded the bulls again -and again, finally driving them apart. - -The big storm of the winter began on my eleventh birthday, the 20th of -January. When I went down to breakfast that morning, Jake and Otto came in -white as snow-men, beating their hands and stamping their feet. They began -to laugh boisterously when they saw me, calling:-- - -"You've got a birthday present this time, Jim, and no mistake. They was a -full-grown blizzard ordered for you." - -All day the storm went on. The snow did not fall this time, it simply -spilled out of heaven, like thousands of feather-beds being emptied. That -afternoon the kitchen was a carpenter-shop; the men brought in their tools -and made two great wooden shovels with long handles. Neither grandmother -nor I could go out in the storm, so Jake fed the chickens and brought in a -pitiful contribution of eggs. - -Next day our men had to shovel until noon to reach the barn--and the snow -was still falling! There had not been such a storm in the ten years my -grandfather had lived in Nebraska. He said at dinner that we would not try -to reach the cattle--they were fat enough to go without their corn for a -day or two; but to-morrow we must feed them and thaw out their water-tap -so that they could drink. We could not so much as see the corrals, but we -knew the steers were over there, huddled together under the north bank. -Our ferocious bulls, subdued enough by this time, were probably warming -each other's backs. "This'll take the bile out of 'em!" Fuchs remarked -gleefully. - -At noon that day the hens had not been heard from. After dinner Jake and -Otto, their damp clothes now dried on them, stretched their stiff arms and -plunged again into the drifts. They made a tunnel under the snow to the -henhouse, with walls so solid that grandmother and I could walk back and -forth in it. We found the chickens asleep; perhaps they thought night had -come to stay. One old rooster was stirring about, pecking at the solid -lump of ice in their water-tin. When we flashed the lantern in their eyes, -the hens set up a great cackling and flew about clumsily, scattering -down-feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea-hens, always resentful of -captivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried to poke their -ugly, painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clock the chores -were done--just when it was time to begin them all over again! That was a -strange, unnatural sort of day. - - - - -XIV - - -ON the morning of the 22d I wakened with a start. Before I opened my eyes, -I seemed to know that something had happened. I heard excited voices in -the kitchen--grandmother's was so shrill that I knew she must be almost -beside herself. I looked forward to any new crisis with delight. What -could it be, I wondered, as I hurried into my clothes. Perhaps the barn -had burned; perhaps the cattle had frozen to death; perhaps a neighbor was -lost in the storm. - -Down in the kitchen grandfather was standing before the stove with his -hands behind him. Jake and Otto had taken off their boots and were rubbing -their woolen socks. Their clothes and boots were steaming, and they both -looked exhausted. On the bench behind the stove lay a man, covered up with -a blanket. Grandmother motioned me to the dining-room. I obeyed -reluctantly. I watched her as she came and went, carrying dishes. Her lips -were tightly compressed and she kept whispering to herself: "Oh, dear -Saviour!" "Lord, Thou knowest!" - -Presently grandfather came in and spoke to me: "Jimmy, we will not have -prayers this morning, because we have a great deal to do. Old Mr. Shimerda -is dead, and his family are in great distress. Ambrosch came over here in -the middle of the night, and Jake and Otto went back with him. The boys -have had a hard night, and you must not bother them with questions. That -is Ambrosch, asleep on the bench. Come in to breakfast, boys." - -After Jake and Otto had swallowed their first cup of coffee, they began to -talk excitedly, disregarding grandmother's warning glances. I held my -tongue, but I listened with all my ears. - -"No, sir," Fuchs said in answer to a question from grandfather, "nobody -heard the gun go off. Ambrosch was out with the ox team, trying to break a -road, and the women folks was shut up tight in their cave. When Ambrosch -come in it was dark and he did n't see nothing, but the oxen acted kind of -queer. One of 'em ripped around and got away from him--bolted clean out of -the stable. His hands is blistered where the rope run through. He got a -lantern and went back and found the old man, just as we seen him." - -"Poor soul, poor soul!" grandmother groaned. "I'd like to think he never -done it. He was always considerate and un-wishful to give trouble. How -could he forget himself and bring this on us!" - -"I don't think he was out of his head for a minute, Mrs. Burden," Fuchs -declared. "He done everything natural. You know he was always sort of -fixy, and fixy he was to the last. He shaved after dinner, and washed -hisself all over after the girls was done the dishes. 聲tonia heated the -water for him. Then he put on a clean shirt and clean socks, and after he -was dressed he kissed her and the little one and took his gun and said he -was going out to hunt rabbits. He must have gone right down to the barn -and done it then. He layed down on that bunk-bed, close to the ox stalls, -where he always slept. When we found him, everything was decent -except,"--Fuchs wrinkled his brow and hesitated,--"except what he could n't -nowise foresee. His coat was hung on a peg, and his boots was under the -bed. He'd took off that silk neckcloth he always wore, and folded it -smooth and stuck his pin through it. He turned back his shirt at the neck -and rolled up his sleeves." - -"I don't see how he could do it!" grandmother kept saying. - -Otto misunderstood her. "Why, mam, it was simple enough; he pulled the -trigger with his big toe. He layed over on his side and put the end of the -barrel in his mouth, then he drew up one foot and felt for the trigger. He -found it all right!" - -"Maybe he did," said Jake grimly. "There's something mighty queer about -it." - -"Now what do you mean, Jake?" grandmother asked sharply. - -"Well, mam, I found Krajiek's axe under the manger, and I picks it up and -carries it over to the corpse, and I take my oath it just fit the gash in -the front of the old man's face. That there Krajiek had been sneakin' -round, pale and quiet, and when he seen me examinin' the axe, he begun -whimperin', 'My God, man, don't do that!' 'I reckon I'm a-goin' to look -into this,' says I. Then he begun to squeal like a rat and run about -wringin' his hands. 'They'll hang me!' says he. 'My God, they'll hang me -sure!'" - -Fuchs spoke up impatiently. "Krajiek's gone silly, Jake, and so have you. -The old man would n't have made all them preparations for Krajiek to -murder him, would he? It don't hang together. The gun was right beside him -when Ambrosch found him." - -"Krajiek could 'a' put it there, could n't he?" Jake demanded. - -Grandmother broke in excitedly: "See here, Jake Marpole, don't you go -trying to add murder to suicide. We're deep enough in trouble. Otto reads -you too many of them detective stories." - -"It will be easy to decide all that, Emmaline," said grandfather quietly. -"If he shot himself in the way they think, the gash will be torn from the -inside outward." - -"Just so it is, Mr. Burden," Otto affirmed. "I seen bunches of hair and -stuff sticking to the poles and straw along the roof. They was blown up -there by gunshot, no question." - -Grandmother told grandfather she meant to go over to the Shimerdas with -him. - -"There is nothing you can do," he said doubtfully. "The body can't be -touched until we get the coroner here from Black Hawk, and that will be a -matter of several days, this weather." - -"Well, I can take them some victuals, anyway, and say a word of comfort to -them poor little girls. The oldest one was his darling, and was like a -right hand to him. He might have thought of her. He's left her alone in a -hard world." She glanced distrustfully at Ambrosch, who was now eating his -breakfast at the kitchen table. - -Fuchs, although he had been up in the cold nearly all night, was going to -make the long ride to Black Hawk to fetch the priest and the coroner. On -the gray gelding, our best horse, he would try to pick his way across the -country with no roads to guide him. - -"Don't you worry about me, Mrs. Burden," he said cheerfully, as he put on -a second pair of socks. "I've got a good nose for directions, and I never -did need much sleep. It's the gray I'm worried about. I'll save him what I -can, but it'll strain him, as sure as I'm telling you!" - -"This is no time to be over-considerate of animals, Otto; do the best you -can for yourself. Stop at the Widow Steavens's for dinner. She's a good -woman, and she'll do well by you." - -After Fuchs rode away, I was left with Ambrosch. I saw a side of him I had -not seen before. He was deeply, even slavishly, devout. He did not say a -word all morning, but sat with his rosary in his hands, praying, now -silently, now aloud. He never looked away from his beads, nor lifted his -hands except to cross himself. Several times the poor boy fell asleep -where he sat, wakened with a start, and began to pray again. - -No wagon could be got to the Shimerdas' until a road was broken, and that -would be a day's job. Grandfather came from the barn on one of our big -black horses, and Jake lifted grandmother up behind him. She wore her -black hood and was bundled up in shawls. Grandfather tucked his bushy -white beard inside his overcoat. They looked very Biblical as they set -off, I thought. Jake and Ambrosch followed them, riding the other black -and my pony, carrying bundles of clothes that we had got together for Mrs. -Shimerda. I watched them go past the pond and over the hill by the drifted -cornfield. Then, for the first time, I realized that I was alone in the -house. - -I felt a considerable extension of power and authority, and was anxious to -acquit myself creditably. I carried in cobs and wood from the long cellar, -and filled both the stoves. I remembered that in the hurry and excitement -of the morning nobody had thought of the chickens, and the eggs had not -been gathered. Going out through the tunnel, I gave the hens their corn, -emptied the ice from their drinking-pan, and filled it with water. After -the cat had had his milk, I could think of nothing else to do, and I sat -down to get warm. The quiet was delightful, and the ticking clock was the -most pleasant of companions. I got "Robinson Crusoe" and tried to read, -but his life on the island seemed dull compared with ours. Presently, as I -looked with satisfaction about our comfortable sitting-room, it flashed -upon me that if Mr. Shimerda's soul were lingering about in this world at -all, it would be here, in our house, which had been more to his liking -than any other in the neighborhood. I remembered his contented face when -he was with us on Christmas Day. If he could have lived with us, this -terrible thing would never have happened. - -I knew it was homesickness that had killed Mr. Shimerda, and I wondered -whether his released spirit would not eventually find its way back to his -own country. I thought of how far it was to Chicago, and then to Virginia, -to Baltimore,--and then the great wintry ocean. No, he would not at once -set out upon that long journey. Surely, his exhausted spirit, so tired of -cold and crowding and the struggle with the ever-falling snow, was resting -now in this quiet house. - -I was not frightened, but I made no noise. I did not wish to disturb him. -I went softly down to the kitchen which, tucked away so snugly -underground, always seemed to me the heart and center of the house. There, -on the bench behind the stove, I thought and thought about Mr. Shimerda. -Outside I could hear the wind singing over hundreds of miles of snow. It -was as if I had let the old man in out of the tormenting winter, and were -sitting there with him. I went over all that 聲tonia had ever told me -about his life before he came to this country; how he used to play the -fiddle at weddings and dances. I thought about the friends he had mourned -to leave, the trombone-player, the great forest full of game,--belonging, -as 聲tonia said, to the "nobles,"--from which she and her mother used to -steal wood on moonlight nights. There was a white hart that lived in that -forest, and if any one killed it, he would be hanged, she said. Such vivid -pictures came to me that they might have been Mr. Shimerda's memories, not -yet faded out from the air in which they had haunted him. - -It had begun to grow dark when my household returned, and grandmother was -so tired that she went at once to bed. Jake and I got supper, and while we -were washing the dishes he told me in loud whispers about the state of -things over at the Shimerdas'. Nobody could touch the body until the -coroner came. If any one did, something terrible would happen, apparently. -The dead man was frozen through, "just as stiff as a dressed turkey you -hang out to freeze," Jake said. The horses and oxen would not go into the -barn until he was frozen so hard that there was no longer any smell of -blood. They were stabled there now, with the dead man, because there was -no other place to keep them. A lighted lantern was kept hanging over Mr. -Shimerda's head. 聲tonia and Ambrosch and the mother took turns going down -to pray beside him. The crazy boy went with them, because he did not feel -the cold. I believed he felt cold as much as any one else, but he liked to -be thought insensible to it. He was always coveting distinction, poor -Marek! - -Ambrosch, Jake said, showed more human feeling than he would have supposed -him capable of; but he was chiefly concerned about getting a priest, and -about his father's soul, which he believed was in a place of torment and -would remain there until his family and the priest had prayed a great deal -for him. "As I understand it," Jake concluded, "it will be a matter of -years to pray his soul out of Purgatory, and right now he's in torment." - -"I don't believe it," I said stoutly. "I almost know it is n't true." I -did not, of course, say that I believed he had been in that very kitchen -all afternoon, on his way back to his own country. Nevertheless, after I -went to bed, this idea of punishment and Purgatory came back on me -crushingly. I remembered the account of Dives in torment, and shuddered. -But Mr. Shimerda had not been rich and selfish; he had only been so -unhappy that he could not live any longer. - - - - -XV - - -OTTO FUCHS got back from Black Hawk at noon the next day. He reported that -the coroner would reach the Shimerdas' sometime that afternoon, but the -missionary priest was at the other end of his parish, a hundred miles -away, and the trains were not running. Fuchs had got a few hours' sleep at -the livery barn in town, but he was afraid the gray gelding had strained -himself. Indeed, he was never the same horse afterward. That long trip -through the deep snow had taken all the endurance out of him. - -Fuchs brought home with him a stranger, a young Bohemian who had taken a -homestead near Black Hawk, and who came on his only horse to help his -fellow-countrymen in their trouble. That was the first time I ever saw -Anton Jelinek. He was a strapping young fellow in the early twenties then, -handsome, warm-hearted, and full of life, and he came to us like a miracle -in the midst of that grim business. I remember exactly how he strode into -our kitchen in his felt boots and long wolfskin coat, his eyes and cheeks -bright with the cold. At sight of grandmother, he snatched off his fur -cap, greeting her in a deep, rolling voice which seemed older than he. - -"I want to thank you very much, Mrs. Burden, for that you are so kind to -poor strangers from my kawn-tree." - -He did not hesitate like a farmer boy, but looked one eagerly in the eye -when he spoke. Everything about him was warm and spontaneous. He said he -would have come to see the Shimerdas before, but he had hired out to husk -corn all the fall, and since winter began he had been going to the school -by the mill, to learn English, along with the little children. He told me -he had a nice "lady-teacher" and that he liked to go to school. - -At dinner grandfather talked to Jelinek more than he usually did to -strangers. - -"Will they be much disappointed because we cannot get a priest?" he asked. - -Jelinek looked serious. "Yes, sir, that is very bad for them. Their father -has done a great sin," he looked straight at grandfather. "Our Lord has -said that." - -Grandfather seemed to like his frankness. "We believe that, too, Jelinek. -But we believe that Mr. Shimerda's soul will come to its Creator as well -off without a priest. We believe that Christ is our only intercessor." - -The young man shook his head. "I know how you think. My teacher at the -school has explain. But I have seen too much. I believe in prayer for the -dead. I have seen too much." - -We asked him what he meant. - -He glanced around the table. "You want I shall tell you? When I was a -little boy like this one, I begin to help the priest at the altar. I make -my first communion very young; what the Church teach seem plain to me. By -'n' by war-times come, when the Austrians fight us. We have very many -soldiers in camp near my village, and the cholera break out in that camp, -and the men die like flies. All day long our priest go about there to give -the Sacrament to dying men, and I go with him to carry the vessels with -the Holy Sacrament. Everybody that go near that camp catch the sickness -but me and the priest. But we have no sickness, we have no fear, because -we carry that blood and that body of Christ, and it preserve us." He -paused, looking at grandfather. "That I know, Mr. Burden, for it happened -to myself. All the soldiers know, too. When we walk along the road, the -old priest and me, we meet all the time soldiers marching and officers on -horse. All those officers, when they see what I carry under the cloth, -pull up their horses and kneel down on the ground in the road until we -pass. So I feel very bad for my kawntree-man to die without the Sacrament, -and to die in a bad way for his soul, and I feel sad for his family." - -We had listened attentively. It was impossible not to admire his frank, -manly faith. - -"I am always glad to meet a young man who thinks seriously about these -things," said grandfather, "and I would never be the one to say you were -not in God's care when you were among the soldiers." - -After dinner it was decided that young Jelinek should hook our two strong -black farmhorses to the scraper and break a road through to the -Shimerdas', so that a wagon could go when it was necessary. Fuchs, who was -the only cabinet-maker in the neighborhood, was set to work on a coffin. - -Jelinek put on his long wolfskin coat, and when we admired it, he told us -that he had shot and skinned the coyotes, and the young man who "batched" -with him, Jan Bouska, who had been a fur-worker in Vienna, made the coat. -From the windmill I watched Jelinek come out of the barn with the blacks, -and work his way up the hillside toward the cornfield. Sometimes he was -completely hidden by the clouds of snow that rose about him; then he and -the horses would emerge black and shining. - -Our heavy carpenter's bench had to be brought from the barn and carried -down into the kitchen. Fuchs selected boards from a pile of planks -grandfather had hauled out from town in the fall to make a new floor for -the oats bin. When at last the lumber and tools were assembled, and the -doors were closed again and the cold drafts shut out, grandfather rode -away to meet the coroner at the Shimerdas', and Fuchs took off his coat -and settled down to work. I sat on his work-table and watched him. He did -not touch his tools at first, but figured for a long while on a piece of -paper, and measured the planks and made marks on them. While he was thus -engaged, he whistled softly to himself, or teasingly pulled at his -half-ear. Grandmother moved about quietly, so as not to disturb him. At -last he folded his ruler and turned a cheerful face to us. - -"The hardest part of my job's done," he announced. "It's the head end of -it that comes hard with me, especially when I'm out of practice. The last -time I made one of these, Mrs. Burden," he continued, as he sorted and -tried his chisels, "was for a fellow in the Black Tiger mine, up above -Silverton, Colorado. The mouth of that mine goes right into the face of -the cliff, and they used to put us in a bucket and run us over on a -trolley and shoot us into the shaft. The bucket traveled across a box -ca隳n three hundred feet deep, and about a third full of water. Two Swedes -had fell out of that bucket once, and hit the water, feet down. If you'll -believe it, they went to work the next day. You can't kill a Swede. But in -my time a little Eyetalian tried the high dive, and it turned out -different with him. We was snowed in then, like we are now, and I happened -to be the only man in camp that could make a coffin for him. It's a handy -thing to know, when you knock about like I've done." - -"We'd be hard put to it now, if you did n't know, Otto," grandmother said. - -"Yes, 'm," Fuchs admitted with modest pride. "So few folks does know how -to make a good tight box that'll turn water. I sometimes wonder if -there'll be anybody about to do it for me. However, I'm not at all -particular that way." - -All afternoon, wherever one went in the house, one could hear the panting -wheeze of the saw or the pleasant purring of the plane. They were such -cheerful noises, seeming to promise new things for living people: it was a -pity that those freshly planed pine boards were to be put underground so -soon. The lumber was hard to work because it was full of frost, and the -boards gave off a sweet smell of pine woods, as the heap of yellow -shavings grew higher and higher. I wondered why Fuchs had not stuck to -cabinet-work, he settled down to it with such ease and content. He handled -the tools as if he liked the feel of them; and when he planed, his hands -went back and forth over the boards in an eager, beneficent way as if he -were blessing them. He broke out now and then into German hymns, as if -this occupation brought back old times to him. - -At four o'clock Mr. Bushy, the postmaster, with another neighbor who lived -east of us, stopped in to get warm. They were on their way to the -Shimerdas'. The news of what had happened over there had somehow got -abroad through the snow-blocked country. Grandmother gave the visitors -sugar-cakes and hot coffee. Before these callers were gone, the brother of -the Widow Steavens, who lived on the Black Hawk road, drew up at our door, -and after him came the father of the German family, our nearest neighbors -on the south. They dismounted and joined us in the dining-room. They were -all eager for any details about the suicide, and they were greatly -concerned as to where Mr. Shimerda would be buried. The nearest Catholic -cemetery was at Black Hawk, and it might be weeks before a wagon could get -so far. Besides, Mr. Bushy and grandmother were sure that a man who had -killed himself could not be buried in a Catholic graveyard. There was a -burying-ground over by the Norwegian church, west of Squaw Creek; perhaps -the Norwegians would take Mr. Shimerda in. - -After our visitors rode away in single file over the hill, we returned to -the kitchen. Grandmother began to make the icing for a chocolate cake, and -Otto again filled the house with the exciting, expectant song of the -plane. One pleasant thing about this time was that everybody talked more -than usual. I had never heard the postmaster say anything but "Only -papers, to-day," or, "I've got a sackful of mail for ye," until this -afternoon. Grandmother always talked, dear woman; to herself or to the -Lord, if there was no one else to listen; but grandfather was naturally -taciturn, and Jake and Otto were often so tired after supper that I used -to feel as if I were surrounded by a wall of silence. Now every one seemed -eager to talk. That afternoon Fuchs told me story after story; about the -Black Tiger mine, and about violent deaths and casual buryings, and the -queer fancies of dying men. You never really knew a man, he said, until -you saw him die. Most men were game, and went without a grudge. - -The postmaster, going home, stopped to say that grandfather would bring -the coroner back with him to spend the night. The officers of the -Norwegian church, he told us, had held a meeting and decided that the -Norwegian graveyard could not extend its hospitality to Mr. Shimerda. - -Grandmother was indignant. "If these foreigners are so clannish, Mr. -Bushy, we'll have to have an American graveyard that will be more -liberal-minded. I'll get right after Josiah to start one in the spring. If -anything was to happen to me, I don't want the Norwegians holding -inquisitions over me to see whether I'm good enough to be laid amongst -'em." - -Soon grandfather returned, bringing with him Anton Jelinek, and that -important person, the coroner. He was a mild, flurried old man, a Civil -War veteran, with one sleeve hanging empty. He seemed to find this case -very perplexing, and said if it had not been for grandfather he would have -sworn out a warrant against Krajiek. "The way he acted, and the way his -axe fit the wound, was enough to convict any man." - -Although it was perfectly clear that Mr. Shimerda had killed himself, Jake -and the coroner thought something ought to be done to Krajiek because he -behaved like a guilty man. He was badly frightened, certainly, and perhaps -he even felt some stirrings of remorse for his indifference to the old -man's misery and loneliness. - -At supper the men ate like vikings, and the chocolate cake, which I had -hoped would linger on until to-morrow in a mutilated condition, -disappeared on the second round. They talked excitedly about where they -should bury Mr. Shimerda; I gathered that the neighbors were all disturbed -and shocked about something. It developed that Mrs. Shimerda and Ambrosch -wanted the old man buried on the southwest corner of their own land; -indeed, under the very stake that marked the corner. Grandfather had -explained to Ambrosch that some day, when the country was put under fence -and the roads were confined to section lines, two roads would cross -exactly on that corner. But Ambrosch only said, "It makes no matter." - -Grandfather asked Jelinek whether in the old country there was some -superstition to the effect that a suicide must be buried at the -cross-roads. - -Jelinek said he did n't know; he seemed to remember hearing there had once -been such a custom in Bohemia. "Mrs. Shimerda is made up her mind," he -added. "I try to persuade her, and say it looks bad for her to all the -neighbors; but she say so it must be. 'There I will bury him, if I dig the -grave myself,' she say. I have to promise her I help Ambrosch make the -grave to-morrow." - -Grandfather smoothed his beard and looked judicial. "I don't know whose -wish should decide the matter, if not hers. But if she thinks she will -live to see the people of this country ride over that old man's head, she -is mistaken." - - - - -XVI - - -MR. SHIMERDA lay dead in the barn four days, and on the fifth they buried -him. All day Friday Jelinek was off with Ambrosch digging the grave, -chopping out the frozen earth with old axes. On Saturday we breakfasted -before daylight and got into the wagon with the coffin. Jake and Jelinek -went ahead on horseback to cut the body loose from the pool of blood in -which it was frozen fast to the ground. - -When grandmother and I went into the Shimerdas' house, we found the -women-folk alone; Ambrosch and Marek were at the barn. Mrs. Shimerda sat -crouching by the stove, 聲tonia was washing dishes. When she saw me she -ran out of her dark corner and threw her arms around me. "Oh, Jimmy," she -sobbed, "what you tink for my lovely papa!" It seemed to me that I could -feel her heart breaking as she clung to me. - -Mrs. Shimerda, sitting on the stump by the stove, kept looking over her -shoulder toward the door while the neighbors were arriving. They came on -horseback, all except the postmaster, who brought his family in a wagon -over the only broken wagon-trail. The Widow Steavens rode up from her farm -eight miles down the Black Hawk road. The cold drove the women into the -cave-house, and it was soon crowded. A fine, sleety snow was beginning to -fall, and every one was afraid of another storm and anxious to have the -burial over with. - -Grandfather and Jelinek came to tell Mrs. Shimerda that it was time to -start. After bundling her mother up in clothes the neighbors had brought, -聲tonia put on an old cape from our house and the rabbit-skin hat her -father had made for her. Four men carried Mr. Shimerda's box up the hill; -Krajiek slunk along behind them. The coffin was too wide for the door, so -it was put down on the slope outside. I slipped out from the cave and -looked at Mr. Shimerda. He was lying on his side, with his knees drawn up. -His body was draped in a black shawl, and his head was bandaged in white -muslin, like a mummy's; one of his long, shapely hands lay out on the -black cloth; that was all one could see of him. - -Mrs. Shimerda came out and placed an open prayer-book against the body, -making the sign of the cross on the bandaged head with her fingers. -Ambrosch knelt down and made the same gesture, and after him 聲tonia and -Marek. Yulka hung back. Her mother pushed her forward, and kept saying -something to her over and over. Yulka knelt down, shut her eyes, and put -out her hand a little way, but she drew it back and began to cry wildly. -She was afraid to touch the bandage. Mrs. Shimerda caught her by the -shoulders and pushed her toward the coffin, but grandmother interfered. - -"No, Mrs. Shimerda," she said firmly, "I won't stand by and see that child -frightened into spasms. She is too little to understand what you want of -her. Let her alone." - -At a look from grandfather, Fuchs and Jelinek placed the lid on the box, -and began to nail it down over Mr. Shimerda. I was afraid to look at -聲tonia. She put her arms round Yulka and held the little girl close to -her. - -The coffin was put into the wagon. We drove slowly away, against the fine, -icy snow which cut our faces like a sand-blast. When we reached the grave, -it looked a very little spot in that snow-covered waste. The men took the -coffin to the edge of the hole and lowered it with ropes. We stood about -watching them, and the powdery snow lay without melting on the caps and -shoulders of the men and the shawls of the women. Jelinek spoke in a -persuasive tone to Mrs. Shimerda, and then turned to grandfather. - -"She says, Mr. Burden, she is very glad if you can make some prayer for -him here in English, for the neighbors to understand." - -Grandmother looked anxiously at grandfather. He took off his hat, and the -other men did likewise. I thought his prayer remarkable. I still remember -it. He began, "Oh, great and just God, no man among us knows what the -sleeper knows, nor is it for us to judge what lies between him and Thee." -He prayed that if any man there had been remiss toward the stranger come -to a far country, God would forgive him and soften his heart. He recalled -the promises to the widow and the fatherless, and asked God to smooth the -way before this widow and her children, and to "incline the hearts of men -to deal justly with her." In closing, he said we were leaving Mr. Shimerda -at "Thy judgment seat, which is also Thy mercy seat." - -All the time he was praying, grandmother watched him through the black -fingers of her glove, and when he said "Amen," I thought she looked -satisfied with him. She turned to Otto and whispered, "Can't you start a -hymn, Fuchs? It would seem less heathenish." - -Fuchs glanced about to see if there was general approval of her -suggestion, then began, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," and all the men and -women took it up after him. Whenever I have heard the hymn since, it has -made me remember that white waste and the little group of people; and the -bluish air, full of fine, eddying snow, like long veils flying:-- - - "While the nearer waters roll, - While the tempest still is high." - - - -Years afterward, when the open-grazing days were over, and the red grass -had been ploughed under and under until it had almost disappeared from the -prairie; when all the fields were under fence, and the roads no longer ran -about like wild things, but followed the surveyed section-lines, Mr. -Shimerda's grave was still there, with a sagging wire fence around it, and -an unpainted wooden cross. As grandfather had predicted, Mrs. Shimerda -never saw the roads going over his head. The road from the north curved a -little to the east just there, and the road from the west swung out a -little to the south; so that the grave, with its tall red grass that was -never mowed, was like a little island; and at twilight, under a new moon -or the clear evening star, the dusty roads used to look like soft gray -rivers flowing past it. I never came upon the place without emotion, and -in all that country it was the spot most dear to me. I loved the dim -superstition, the propitiatory intent, that had put the grave there; and -still more I loved the spirit that could not carry out the sentence--the -error from the surveyed lines, the clemency of the soft earth roads along -which the home-coming wagons rattled after sunset. Never a tired driver -passed the wooden cross, I am sure, without wishing well to the sleeper. - - - - -XVII - - -WHEN spring came, after that hard winter, one could not get enough of the -nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter -was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch -in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only--spring -itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it -everywhere; in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in -the warm, high wind--rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and -playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If -I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known -that it was spring. - -Everywhere now there was the smell of burning grass. Our neighbors burned -off their pasture before the new grass made a start, so that the fresh -growth would not be mixed with the dead stand of last year. Those light, -swift fires, running about the country, seemed a part of the same kindling -that was in the air. - -The Shimerdas were in their new log house by then. The neighbors had -helped them to build it in March. It stood directly in front of their old -cave, which they used as a cellar. The family were now fairly equipped to -begin their struggle with the soil. They had four comfortable rooms to -live in, a new windmill,--bought on credit,--a chicken-house and poultry. -Mrs. Shimerda had paid grandfather ten dollars for a milk cow, and was to -give him fifteen more as soon as they harvested their first crop. - -When I rode up to the Shimerdas' one bright windy afternoon in April, -Yulka ran out to meet me. It was to her, now, that I gave reading lessons; -聲tonia was busy with other things. I tied my pony and went into the -kitchen where Mrs. Shimerda was baking bread, chewing poppy seeds as she -worked. By this time she could speak enough English to ask me a great many -questions about what our men were doing in the fields. She seemed to think -that my elders withheld helpful information, and that from me she might -get valuable secrets. On this occasion she asked me very craftily when -grandfather expected to begin planting corn. I told her, adding that he -thought we should have a dry spring and that the corn would not be held -back by too much rain, as it had been last year. - -She gave me a shrewd glance. "He not Jesus," she blustered; "he not know -about the wet and the dry." - -I did not answer her; what was the use? As I sat waiting for the hour when -Ambrosch and 聲tonia would return from the fields, I watched Mrs. Shimerda -at her work. She took from the oven a coffee-cake which she wanted to keep -warm for supper, and wrapped it in a quilt stuffed with feathers. I have -seen her put even a roast goose in this quilt to keep it hot. When the -neighbors were there building the new house they saw her do this, and the -story got abroad that the Shimerdas kept their food in their feather beds. - -When the sun was dropping low, 聲tonia came up the big south draw with her -team. How much older she had grown in eight months! She had come to us a -child, and now she was a tall, strong young girl, although her fifteenth -birthday had just slipped by. I ran out and met her as she brought her -horses up to the windmill to water them. She wore the boots her father had -so thoughtfully taken off before he shot himself, and his old fur cap. Her -outgrown cotton dress switched about her calves, over the boot-tops. She -kept her sleeves rolled up all day, and her arms and throat were burned as -brown as a sailor's. Her neck came up strongly out of her shoulders, like -the bole of a tree out of the turf. One sees that draft-horse neck among -the peasant women in all old countries. - -She greeted me gayly, and began at once to tell me how much ploughing she -had done that day. Ambrosch, she said, was on the north quarter, breaking -sod with the oxen. - -"Jim, you ask Jake how much he ploughed to-day. I don't want that Jake get -more done in one day than me. I want we have very much corn this fall." - -While the horses drew in the water, and nosed each other, and then drank -again, 聲tonia sat down on the windmill step and rested her head on her -hand. "You see the big prairie fire from your place last night? I hope -your grandpa ain't lose no stacks?" - -"No, we did n't. I came to ask you something, Tony. Grandmother wants to -know if you can't go to the term of school that begins next week over at -the sod schoolhouse. She says there's a good teacher, and you'd learn a -lot." - -聲tonia stood up, lifting and dropping her shoulders as if they were -stiff. "I ain't got time to learn. I can work like mans now. My mother -can't say no more how Ambrosch do all and nobody to help him. I can work -as much as him. School is all right for little boys. I help make this land -one good farm." - -She clucked to her team and started for the barn. I walked beside her, -feeling vexed. Was she going to grow up boastful like her mother, I -wondered? Before we reached the stable, I felt something tense in her -silence, and glancing up I saw that she was crying. She turned her face -from me and looked off at the red streak of dying light, over the dark -prairie. - -I climbed up into the loft and threw down the hay for her, while she -unharnessed her team. We walked slowly back toward the house. Ambrosch had -come in from the north quarter, and was watering his oxen at the tank. - -聲tonia took my hand. "Sometime you will tell me all those nice things you -learn at the school, won't you, Jimmy?" she asked with a sudden rush of -feeling in her voice. "My father, he went much to school. He know a great -deal; how to make the fine cloth like what you not got here. He play horn -and violin, and he read so many books that the priests in Bohemie come to -talk to him. You won't forget my father, Jim?" - -"No," I said, "I will never forget him." - -Mrs. Shimerda asked me to stay for supper. After Ambrosch and 聲tonia had -washed the field dust from their hands and faces at the wash-basin by the -kitchen door, we sat down at the oilcloth-covered table. Mrs. Shimerda -ladled meal mush out of an iron pot and poured milk on it. After the mush -we had fresh bread and sorghum molasses, and coffee with the cake that had -been kept warm in the feathers. 聲tonia and Ambrosch were talking in -Bohemian; disputing about which of them had done more ploughing that day. -Mrs. Shimerda egged them on, chuckling while she gobbled her food. - - [Illustration: 聲tonia ploughing in the field] - -Presently Ambrosch said sullenly in English: "You take them ox to-morrow -and try the sod plough. Then you not be so smart." - -His sister laughed. "Don't be mad. I know it's awful hard work for break -sod. I milk the cow for you to-morrow, if you want." - -Mrs. Shimerda turned quickly to me. "That cow not give so much milk like -what your grandpa say. If he make talk about fifteen dollars, I send him -back the cow." - -"He does n't talk about the fifteen dollars," I exclaimed indignantly. "He -does n't find fault with people." - -"He say I break his saw when we build, and I never," grumbled Ambrosch. - -I knew he had broken the saw, and then hid it and lied about it. I began -to wish I had not stayed for supper. Everything was disagreeable to me. -聲tonia ate so noisily now, like a man, and she yawned often at the table -and kept stretching her arms over her head, as if they ached. Grandmother -had said, "Heavy field work'll spoil that girl. She'll lose all her nice -ways and get rough ones." She had lost them already. - -After supper I rode home through the sad, soft spring twilight. Since -winter I had seen very little of 聲tonia. She was out in the fields from -sun-up until sun-down. If I rode over to see her where she was ploughing, -she stopped at the end of a row to chat for a moment, then gripped her -plough-handles, clucked to her team, and waded on down the furrow, making -me feel that she was now grown up and had no time for me. On Sundays she -helped her mother make garden or sewed all day. Grandfather was pleased -with 聲tonia. When we complained of her, he only smiled and said, "She -will help some fellow get ahead in the world." - -Nowadays Tony could talk of nothing but the prices of things, or how much -she could lift and endure. She was too proud of her strength. I knew, too, -that Ambrosch put upon her some chores a girl ought not to do, and that -the farmhands around the country joked in a nasty way about it. Whenever I -saw her come up the furrow, shouting to her beasts, sunburned, sweaty, her -dress open at the neck, and her throat and chest dust-plastered, I used to -think of the tone in which poor Mr. Shimerda, who could say so little, yet -managed to say so much when he exclaimed, "My 聲-tonia!" - - - - -XVIII - - -AFTER I began to go to the country school, I saw less of the Bohemians. We -were sixteen pupils at the sod schoolhouse, and we all came on horseback -and brought our dinner. My schoolmates were none of them very interesting, -but I somehow felt that by making comrades of them I was getting even with -聲tonia for her indifference. Since the father's death, Ambrosch was more -than ever the head of the house and he seemed to direct the feelings as -well as the fortunes of his women-folk. 聲tonia often quoted his opinions -to me, and she let me see that she admired him, while she thought of me -only as a little boy. Before the spring was over, there was a distinct -coldness between us and the Shimerdas. It came about in this way. - -One Sunday I rode over there with Jake to get a horse-collar which -Ambrosch had borrowed from him and had not returned. It was a beautiful -blue morning. The buffalo-peas were blooming in pink and purple masses -along the roadside, and the larks, perched on last year's dried sunflower -stalks, were singing straight at the sun, their heads thrown back and -their yellow breasts a-quiver. The wind blew about us in warm, sweet -gusts. We rode slowly, with a pleasant sense of Sunday indolence. - -We found the Shimerdas working just as if it were a week-day. Marek was -cleaning out the stable, and 聲tonia and her mother were making garden, -off across the pond in the draw-head. Ambrosch was up on the windmill -tower, oiling the wheel. He came down, not very cordially. When Jake asked -for the collar, he grunted and scratched his head. The collar belonged to -grandfather, of course, and Jake, feeling responsible for it, flared up. - -"Now, don't you say you have n't got it, Ambrosch, because I know you -have, and if you ain't a-going to look for it, I will." - -Ambrosch shrugged his shoulders and sauntered down the hill toward the -stable. I could see that it was one of his mean days. Presently he -returned, carrying a collar that had been badly used--trampled in the dirt -and gnawed by rats until the hair was sticking out of it. - -"This what you want?" he asked surlily. - -Jake jumped off his horse. I saw a wave of red come up under the rough -stubble on his face. "That ain't the piece of harness I loaned you, -Ambrosch; or if it is, you've used it shameful. I ain't a-going to carry -such a looking thing back to Mr. Burden." - -Ambrosch dropped the collar on the ground. "All right," he said coolly, -took up his oil-can, and began to climb the mill. Jake caught him by the -belt of his trousers and yanked him back. Ambrosch's feet had scarcely -touched the ground when he lunged out with a vicious kick at Jake's -stomach. Fortunately Jake was in such a position that he could dodge it. -This was not the sort of thing country boys did when they played at -fisticuffs, and Jake was furious. He landed Ambrosch a blow on the head--it -sounded like the crack of an axe on a cow-pumpkin. Ambrosch dropped over, -stunned. - -We heard squeals, and looking up saw 聲tonia and her mother coming on the -run. They did not take the path around the pond, but plunged through the -muddy water, without even lifting their skirts. They came on, screaming -and clawing the air. By this time Ambrosch had come to his senses and was -sputtering with nose-bleed. Jake sprang into his saddle. "Let's get out of -this, Jim," he called. - -Mrs. Shimerda threw her hands over her head and clutched as if she were -going to pull down lightning. "Law, law!" she shrieked after us. "Law for -knock my Ambrosch down!" - -"I never like you no more, Jake and Jim Burden," 聲tonia panted. "No -friends any more!" - -Jake stopped and turned his horse for a second. "Well, you're a damned -ungrateful lot, the whole pack of you," he shouted back. "I guess the -Burdens can get along without you. You've been a sight of trouble to them, -anyhow!" - -We rode away, feeling so outraged that the fine morning was spoiled for -us. I had n't a word to say, and poor Jake was white as paper and -trembling all over. It made him sick to get so angry. "They ain't the -same, Jimmy," he kept saying in a hurt tone. "These foreigners ain't the -same. You can't trust 'em to be fair. It's dirty to kick a feller. You -heard how the women turned on you--and after all we went through on account -of 'em last winter! They ain't to be trusted. I don't want to see you get -too thick with any of 'em." - -"I'll never be friends with them again, Jake," I declared hotly. "I -believe they are all like Krajiek and Ambrosch underneath." - -Grandfather heard our story with a twinkle in his eye. He advised Jake to -ride to town to-morrow, go to a justice of the peace, tell him he had -knocked young Shimerda down, and pay his fine. Then if Mrs. Shimerda was -inclined to make trouble--her son was still under age--she would be -forestalled. Jake said he might as well take the wagon and haul to market -the pig he had been fattening. On Monday, about an hour after Jake had -started, we saw Mrs. Shimerda and her Ambrosch proudly driving by, looking -neither to the right nor left. As they rattled out of sight down the Black -Hawk road, grandfather chuckled, saying he had rather expected she would -follow the matter up. - -Jake paid his fine with a ten-dollar bill grandfather had given him for -that purpose. But when the Shimerdas found that Jake sold his pig in town -that day, Ambrosch worked it out in his shrewd head that Jake had to sell -his pig to pay his fine. This theory afforded the Shimerdas great -satisfaction, apparently. For weeks afterward, whenever Jake and I met -聲tonia on her way to the post-office, or going along the road with her -work-team, she would clap her hands and call to us in a spiteful, crowing -voice:-- - -"Jake-y, Jake-y, sell the pig and pay the slap!" - -Otto pretended not to be surprised at 聲tonia's behavior. He only lifted -his brows and said, "You can't tell me anything new about a Czech; I'm an -Austrian." - -Grandfather was never a party to what Jake called our feud with the -Shimerdas. Ambrosch and 聲tonia always greeted him respectfully, and he -asked them about their affairs and gave them advice as usual. He thought -the future looked hopeful for them. Ambrosch was a far-seeing fellow; he -soon realized that his oxen were too heavy for any work except breaking -sod, and he succeeded in selling them to a newly arrived German. With the -money he bought another team of horses, which grandfather selected for -him. Marek was strong, and Ambrosch worked him hard; but he could never -teach him to cultivate corn, I remember. The one idea that had ever got -through poor Marek's thick head was that all exertion was meritorious. He -always bore down on the handles of the cultivator and drove the blades so -deep into the earth that the horses were soon exhausted. - -In June Ambrosch went to work at Mr. Bushy's for a week, and took Marek -with him at full wages. Mrs. Shimerda then drove the second cultivator; -she and 聲tonia worked in the fields all day and did the chores at night. -While the two women were running the place alone, one of the new horses -got colic and gave them a terrible fright. - -聲tonia had gone down to the barn one night to see that all was well -before she went to bed, and she noticed that one of the roans was swollen -about the middle and stood with its head hanging. She mounted another -horse, without waiting to saddle him, and hammered on our door just as we -were going to bed. Grandfather answered her knock. He did not send one of -his men, but rode back with her himself, taking a syringe and an old piece -of carpet he kept for hot applications when our horses were sick. He found -Mrs. Shimerda sitting by the horse with her lantern, groaning and wringing -her hands. It took but a few moments to release the gases pent up in the -poor beast, and the two women heard the rush of wind and saw the roan -visibly diminish in girth. - -"If I lose that horse, Mr. Burden," 聲tonia exclaimed, "I never stay here -till Ambrosch come home! I go drown myself in the pond before morning." - -When Ambrosch came back from Mr. Bushy's, we learned that he had given -Marek's wages to the priest at Black Hawk, for masses for their father's -soul. Grandmother thought 聲tonia needed shoes more than Mr. Shimerda -needed prayers, but grandfather said tolerantly, "If he can spare six -dollars, pinched as he is, it shows he believes what he professes." - -It was grandfather who brought about a reconciliation with the Shimerdas. -One morning he told us that the small grain was coming on so well, he -thought he would begin to cut his wheat on the first of July. He would -need more men, and if it were agreeable to every one he would engage -Ambrosch for the reaping and thrashing, as the Shimerdas had no small -grain of their own. - -"I think, Emmaline," he concluded, "I will ask 聲tonia to come over and -help you in the kitchen. She will be glad to earn something, and it will -be a good time to end misunderstandings. I may as well ride over this -morning and make arrangements. Do you want to go with me, Jim?" His tone -told me that he had already decided for me. - -After breakfast we set off together. When Mrs. Shimerda saw us coming, she -ran from her door down into the draw behind the stable, as if she did not -want to meet us. Grandfather smiled to himself while he tied his horse, -and we followed her. - -Behind the barn we came upon a funny sight. The cow had evidently been -grazing somewhere in the draw. Mrs. Shimerda had run to the animal, pulled -up the lariat pin, and, when we came upon her, she was trying to hide the -cow in an old cave in the bank. As the hole was narrow and dark, the cow -held back, and the old woman was slapping and pushing at her hind -quarters, trying to spank her into the draw-side. - -Grandfather ignored her singular occupation and greeted her politely. -"Good-morning, Mrs. Shimerda. Can you tell me where I will find Ambrosch? -Which field?" - -"He with the sod corn." She pointed toward the north, still standing in -front of the cow as if she hoped to conceal it. - -"His sod corn will be good for fodder this winter," said grandfather -encouragingly. "And where is 聲tonia?" - -"She go with." Mrs. Shimerda kept wiggling her bare feet about nervously -in the dust. - -"Very well. I will ride up there. I want them to come over and help me cut -my oats and wheat next month. I will pay them wages. Good-morning. By the -way, Mrs. Shimerda," he said as he turned up the path, "I think we may as -well call it square about the cow." - -She started and clutched the rope tighter. Seeing that she did not -understand, grandfather turned back. "You need not pay me anything more; -no more money. The cow is yours." - -"Pay no more, keep cow?" she asked in a bewildered tone, her narrow eyes -snapping at us in the sunlight. - -"Exactly. Pay no more, keep cow." He nodded. - -Mrs. Shimerda dropped the rope, ran after us, and crouching down beside -grandfather, she took his hand and kissed it. I doubt if he had ever been -so much embarrassed before. I was a little startled, too. Somehow, that -seemed to bring the Old World very close. - -We rode away laughing, and grandfather said: "I expect she thought we had -come to take the cow away for certain, Jim. I wonder if she would n't have -scratched a little if we'd laid hold of that lariat rope!" - -Our neighbors seemed glad to make peace with us. The next Sunday Mrs. -Shimerda came over and brought Jake a pair of socks she had knitted. She -presented them with an air of great magnanimity, saying, "Now you not come -any more for knock my Ambrosch down?" - -Jake laughed sheepishly. "I don't want to have no trouble with Ambrosch. -If he'll let me alone, I'll let him alone." - -"If he slap you, we ain't got no pig for pay the fine," she said -insinuatingly. - -Jake was not at all disconcerted. "Have the last word, mam," he said -cheerfully. "It's a lady's privilege." - - - - -XIX - - -JULY came on with that breathless, brilliant heat which makes the plains -of Kansas and Nebraska the best corn country in the world. It seemed as if -we could hear the corn growing in the night; under the stars one caught a -faint crackling in the dewy, heavy-odored cornfields where the feathered -stalks stood so juicy and green. If all the great plain from the Missouri -to the Rocky Mountains had been under glass, and the heat regulated by a -thermometer, it could not have been better for the yellow tassels that -were ripening and fertilizing each other day by day. The cornfields were -far apart in those times, with miles of wild grazing land between. It took -a clear, meditative eye like my grandfather's to foresee that they would -enlarge and multiply until they would be, not the Shimerdas' cornfields, -or Mr. Bushy's, but the world's cornfields; that their yield would be one -of the great economic facts, like the wheat crop of Russia, which underlie -all the activities of men, in peace or war. - -The burning sun of those few weeks, with occasional rains at night, -secured the corn. After the milky ears were once formed, we had little to -fear from dry weather. The men were working so hard in the wheatfields -that they did not notice the heat,--though I was kept busy carrying water -for them,--and grandmother and 聲tonia had so much to do in the kitchen -that they could not have told whether one day was hotter than another. -Each morning, while the dew was still on the grass, 聲tonia went with me -up to the garden to get early vegetables for dinner. Grandmother made her -wear a sunbonnet, but as soon as we reached the garden she threw it on the -grass and let her hair fly in the breeze. I remember how, as we bent over -the pea-vines, beads of perspiration used to gather on her upper lip like -a little mustache. - -"Oh, better I like to work out of doors than in a house!" she used to sing -joyfully. "I not care that your grandmother say it makes me like a man. I -like to be like a man." She would toss her head and ask me to feel the -muscles swell in her brown arm. - -We were glad to have her in the house. She was so gay and responsive that -one did not mind her heavy, running step, or her clattery way with pans. -Grandmother was in high spirits during the weeks that 聲tonia worked for -us. - - [Illustration: Jim and 聲tonia in the garden] - -All the nights were close and hot during that harvest season. The -harvesters slept in the hayloft because it was cooler there than in the -house. I used to lie in my bed by the open window, watching the heat -lightning play softly along the horizon, or looking up at the gaunt frame -of the windmill against the blue night sky. One night there was a -beautiful electric storm, though not enough rain fell to damage the cut -grain. The men went down to the barn immediately after supper, and when -the dishes were washed 聲tonia and I climbed up on the slanting roof of -the chicken-house to watch the clouds. The thunder was loud and metallic, -like the rattle of sheet iron, and the lightning broke in great zigzags -across the heavens, making everything stand out and come close to us for a -moment. Half the sky was checkered with black thunderheads, but all the -west was luminous and clear: in the lightning-flashes it looked like deep -blue water, with the sheen of moonlight on it; and the mottled part of the -sky was like marble pavement, like the quay of some splendid sea-coast -city, doomed to destruction. Great warm splashes of rain fell on our -upturned faces. One black cloud, no bigger than a little boat, drifted out -into the clear space unattended, and kept moving westward. All about us we -could hear the felty beat of the raindrops on the soft dust of the -farmyard. Grandmother came to the door and said it was late, and we would -get wet out there. - -"In a minute we come," 聲tonia called back to her. "I like your -grandmother, and all things here," she sighed. "I wish my papa live to see -this summer. I wish no winter ever come again." - -"It will be summer a long while yet," I reassured her. "Why are n't you -always nice like this, Tony?" - -"How nice?" - -"Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to be -like Ambrosch?" - -She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. "If I -live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But -they will be hard for us." - - - - - -BOOK II--THE HIRED GIRLS - - - - -I - - -I HAD been living with my grandfather for nearly three years when he -decided to move to Black Hawk. He and grandmother were getting old for the -heavy work of a farm, and as I was now thirteen they thought I ought to be -going to school. Accordingly our homestead was rented to "that good woman, -the Widow Steavens," and her bachelor brother, and we bought Preacher -White's house, at the north end of Black Hawk. This was the first town -house one passed driving in from the farm, a landmark which told country -people their long ride was over. - -We were to move to Black Hawk in March, and as soon as grandfather had -fixed the date he let Jake and Otto know of his intention. Otto said he -would not be likely to find another place that suited him so well; that he -was tired of farming and thought he would go back to what he called the -"wild West." Jake Marpole, lured by Otto's stories of adventure, decided -to go with him. We did our best to dissuade Jake. He was so handicapped by -illiteracy and by his trusting disposition that he would be an easy prey -to sharpers. Grandmother begged him to stay among kindly, Christian -people, where he was known; but there was no reasoning with him. He wanted -to be a prospector. He thought a silver mine was waiting for him in -Colorado. - -Jake and Otto served us to the last. They moved us into town, put down the -carpets in our new house, made shelves and cupboards for grandmother's -kitchen, and seemed loath to leave us. But at last they went, without -warning. Those two fellows had been faithful to us through sun and storm, -had given us things that cannot be bought in any market in the world. With -me they had been like older brothers; had restrained their speech and -manners out of care for me, and given me so much good comradeship. Now -they got on the west-bound train one morning, in their Sunday clothes, -with their oilcloth valises--and I never saw them again. Months afterward -we got a card from Otto, saying that Jake had been down with mountain -fever, but now they were both working in the Yankee Girl mine, and were -doing well. I wrote to them at that address, but my letter was returned to -me, "unclaimed." After that we never heard from them. - -Black Hawk, the new world in which we had come to live, was a clean, -well-planted little prairie town, with white fences and good green yards -about the dwellings, wide, dusty streets, and shapely little trees growing -along the wooden sidewalks. In the center of the town there were two rows -of new brick "store" buildings, a brick schoolhouse, the courthouse, and -four white churches. Our own house looked down over the town, and from our -upstairs windows we could see the winding line of the river bluffs, two -miles south of us. That river was to be my compensation for the lost -freedom of the farming country. - -We came to Black Hawk in March, and by the end of April we felt like town -people. Grandfather was a deacon in the new Baptist Church, grandmother -was busy with church suppers and missionary societies, and I was quite -another boy, or thought I was. Suddenly put down among boys of my own age, -I found I had a great deal to learn. Before the spring term of school was -over I could fight, play "keeps," tease the little girls, and use -forbidden words as well as any boy in my class. I was restrained from -utter savagery only by the fact that Mrs. Harling, our nearest neighbor, -kept an eye on me, and if my behavior went beyond certain bounds I was not -permitted to come into her yard or to play with her jolly children. - -We saw more of our country neighbors now than when we lived on the farm. -Our house was a convenient stopping-place for them. We had a big barn -where the farmers could put up their teams, and their women-folk more -often accompanied them, now that they could stay with us for dinner, and -rest and set their bonnets right before they went shopping. The more our -house was like a country hotel, the better I liked it. I was glad, when I -came home from school at noon, to see a farm wagon standing in the back -yard, and I was always ready to run downtown to get beefsteak or baker's -bread for unexpected company. All through that first spring and summer I -kept hoping that Ambrosch would bring 聲tonia and Yulka to see our new -house. I wanted to show them our red plush furniture, and the -trumpet-blowing cherubs the German paper-hanger had put on our parlor -ceiling. - -When Ambrosch came to town, however, he came alone, and though he put his -horses in our barn, he would never stay for dinner, or tell us anything -about his mother and sisters. If we ran out and questioned him as he was -slipping through the yard, he would merely work his shoulders about in his -coat and say, "They all right, I guess." - -Mrs. Steavens, who now lived on our farm, grew as fond of 聲tonia as we -had been, and always brought us news of her. All through the wheat season, -she told us, Ambrosch hired his sister out like a man, and she went from -farm to farm, binding sheaves or working with the thrashers. The farmers -liked her and were kind to her; said they would rather have her for a hand -than Ambrosch. When fall came she was to husk corn for the neighbors until -Christmas, as she had done the year before; but grandmother saved her from -this by getting her a place to work with our neighbors, the Harlings. - - - - -II - - -GRANDMOTHER often said that if she had to live in town, she thanked God -she lived next the Harlings. They had been farming people, like ourselves, -and their place was like a little farm, with a big barn and a garden, and -an orchard and grazing lots,--even a windmill. The Harlings were -Norwegians, and Mrs. Harling had lived in Christiania until she was ten -years old. Her husband was born in Minnesota. He was a grain merchant and -cattle buyer, and was generally considered the most enterprising business -man in our county. He controlled a line of grain elevators in the little -towns along the railroad to the west of us, and was away from home a great -deal. In his absence his wife was the head of the household. - -Mrs. Harling was short and square and sturdy-looking, like her house. -Every inch of her was charged with an energy that made itself felt the -moment she entered a room. Her face was rosy and solid, with bright, -twinkling eyes and a stubborn little chin. She was quick to anger, quick -to laughter, and jolly from the depths of her soul. How well I remember -her laugh; it had in it the same sudden recognition that flashed into her -eyes, was a burst of humor, short and intelligent. Her rapid footsteps -shook her own floors, and she routed lassitude and indifference wherever -she came. She could not be negative or perfunctory about anything. Her -enthusiasm, and her violent likes and dislikes, asserted themselves in all -the every-day occupations of life. Wash-day was interesting, never dreary, -at the Harlings'. Preserving-time was a prolonged festival, and -house-cleaning was like a revolution. When Mrs. Harling made garden that -spring, we could feel the stir of her undertaking through the willow hedge -that separated our place from hers. - -Three of the Harling children were near me in age. Charley, the only -son,--they had lost an older boy,--was sixteen; Julia, who was known as the -musical one, was fourteen when I was; and Sally, the tomboy with short -hair, was a year younger. She was nearly as strong as I, and uncannily -clever at all boys' sports. Sally was a wild thing, with sunburned yellow -hair, bobbed about her ears, and a brown skin, for she never wore a hat. -She raced all over town on one roller skate, often cheated at "keeps," but -was such a quick shot one could n't catch her at it. - -The grown-up daughter, Frances, was a very important person in our world. -She was her father's chief clerk, and virtually managed his Black Hawk -office during his frequent absences. Because of her unusual business -ability, he was stern and exacting with her. He paid her a good salary, -but she had few holidays and never got away from her responsibilities. -Even on Sundays she went to the office to open the mail and read the -markets. With Charley, who was not interested in business, but was already -preparing for Annapolis, Mr. Harling was very indulgent; bought him guns -and tools and electric batteries, and never asked what he did with them. - -Frances was dark, like her father, and quite as tall. In winter she wore a -sealskin coat and cap, and she and Mr. Harling used to walk home together -in the evening, talking about grain-cars and cattle, like two men. -Sometimes she came over to see grandfather after supper, and her visits -flattered him. More than once they put their wits together to rescue some -unfortunate farmer from the clutches of Wick Cutter, the Black Hawk -money-lender. Grandfather said Frances Harling was as good a judge of -credits as any banker in the county. The two or three men who had tried to -take advantage of her in a deal acquired celebrity by their defeat. She -knew every farmer for miles about; how much land he had under cultivation, -how many cattle he was feeding, what his liabilities were. Her interest in -these people was more than a business interest. She carried them all in -her mind as if they were characters in a book or a play. - -When Frances drove out into the country on business, she would go miles -out of her way to call on some of the old people, or to see the women who -seldom got to town. She was quick at understanding the grandmothers who -spoke no English, and the most reticent and distrustful of them would tell -her their story without realizing they were doing so. She went to country -funerals and weddings in all weathers. A farmer's daughter who was to be -married could count on a wedding present from Frances Harling. - -In August the Harlings' Danish cook had to leave them. Grandmother -entreated them to try 聲tonia. She cornered Ambrosch the next time he came -to town, and pointed out to him that any connection with Christian Harling -would strengthen his credit and be of advantage to him. One Sunday Mrs. -Harling took the long ride out to the Shimerdas' with Frances. She said -she wanted to see "what the girl came from" and to have a clear -understanding with her mother. I was in our yard when they came driving -home, just before sunset. They laughed and waved to me as they passed, and -I could see they were in great good humor. After supper, when grandfather -set off to church, grandmother and I took my short cut through the willow -hedge and went over to hear about the visit to the Shimerdas. - -We found Mrs. Harling with Charley and Sally on the front porch, resting -after her hard drive. Julia was in the hammock--she was fond of repose--and -Frances was at the piano, playing without a light and talking to her -mother through the open window. - -Mrs. Harling laughed when she saw us coming. "I expect you left your -dishes on the table to-night, Mrs. Burden," she called. Frances shut the -piano and came out to join us. - -They had liked 聲tonia from their first glimpse of her; felt they knew -exactly what kind of girl she was. As for Mrs. Shimerda, they found her -very amusing. Mrs. Harling chuckled whenever she spoke of her. "I expect I -am more at home with that sort of bird than you are, Mrs. Burden. They're -a pair, Ambrosch and that old woman!" - -They had had a long argument with Ambrosch about 聲tonia's allowance for -clothes and pocket-money. It was his plan that every cent of his sister's -wages should be paid over to him each month, and he would provide her with -such clothing as he thought necessary. When Mrs. Harling told him firmly -that she would keep fifty dollars a year for 聲tonia's own use, he -declared they wanted to take his sister to town and dress her up and make -a fool of her. Mrs. Harling gave us a lively account of Ambrosch's -behavior throughout the interview; how he kept jumping up and putting on -his cap as if he were through with the whole business, and how his mother -tweaked his coat-tail and prompted him in Bohemian. Mrs. Harling finally -agreed to pay three dollars a week for 聲tonia's services--good wages in -those days--and to keep her in shoes. There had been hot dispute about the -shoes, Mrs. Shimerda finally saying persuasively that she would send Mrs. -Harling three fat geese every year to "make even." Ambrosch was to bring -his sister to town next Saturday. - -"She'll be awkward and rough at first, like enough," grandmother said -anxiously, "but unless she's been spoiled by the hard life she's led, she -has it in her to be a real helpful girl." - -Mrs. Harling laughed her quick, decided laugh. "Oh, I'm not worrying, Mrs. -Burden! I can bring something out of that girl. She's barely seventeen, -not too old to learn new ways. She's good-looking, too!" she added warmly. - -Frances turned to grandmother. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Burden, you did n't tell us -that! She was working in the garden when we got there, barefoot and -ragged. But she has such fine brown legs and arms, and splendid color in -her cheeks--like those big dark red plums." - -We were pleased at this praise. Grandmother spoke feelingly. "When she -first came to this country, Frances, and had that genteel old man to watch -over her, she was as pretty a girl as ever I saw. But, dear me, what a -life she's led, out in the fields with those rough thrashers! Things would -have been very different with poor 聲tonia if her father had lived." - -The Harlings begged us to tell them about Mr. Shimerda's death and the big -snowstorm. By the time we saw grandfather coming home from church we had -told them pretty much all we knew of the Shimerdas. - -"The girl will be happy here, and she'll forget those things," said Mrs. -Harling confidently, as we rose to take our leave. - - - - -III - - -ON Saturday Ambrosch drove up to the back gate, and 聲tonia jumped down -from the wagon and ran into our kitchen just as she used to do. She was -wearing shoes and stockings, and was breathless and excited. She gave me a -playful shake by the shoulders. "You ain't forget about me, Jim?" - -Grandmother kissed her. "God bless you, child! Now you've come, you must -try to do right and be a credit to us." - -聲tonia looked eagerly about the house and admired everything. "Maybe I be -the kind of girl you like better, now I come to town," she suggested -hopefully. - -How good it was to have 聲tonia near us again; to see her every day and -almost every night! Her greatest fault, Mrs. Harling found, was that she -so often stopped her work and fell to playing with the children. She would -race about the orchard with us, or take sides in our hay-fights in the -barn, or be the old bear that came down from the mountain and carried off -Nina. Tony learned English so quickly that by the time school began she -could speak as well as any of us. - -I was jealous of Tony's admiration for Charley Harling. Because he was -always first in his classes at school, and could mend the water-pipes or -the door-bell and take the clock to pieces, she seemed to think him a sort -of prince. Nothing that Charley wanted was too much trouble for her. She -loved to put up lunches for him when he went hunting, to mend his -ball-gloves and sew buttons on his shooting-coat, baked the kind of -nut-cake he liked, and fed his setter dog when he was away on trips with -his father. 聲tonia had made herself cloth working-slippers out of Mr. -Harling's old coats, and in these she went padding about after Charley, -fairly panting with eagerness to please him. - -Next to Charley, I think she loved Nina best. Nina was only six, and she -was rather more complex than the other children. She was fanciful, had all -sorts of unspoken preferences, and was easily offended. At the slightest -disappointment or displeasure her velvety brown eyes filled with tears, -and she would lift her chin and walk silently away. If we ran after her -and tried to appease her, it did no good. She walked on unmollified. I -used to think that no eyes in the world could grow so large or hold so -many tears as Nina's. Mrs. Harling and 聲tonia invariably took her part. -We were never given a chance to explain. The charge was simply: "You have -made Nina cry. Now, Jimmy can go home, and Sally must get her arithmetic." -I liked Nina, too; she was so quaint and unexpected, and her eyes were -lovely; but I often wanted to shake her. - -We had jolly evenings at the Harlings when the father was away. If he was -at home, the children had to go to bed early, or they came over to my -house to play. Mr. Harling not only demanded a quiet house, he demanded -all his wife's attention. He used to take her away to their room in the -west ell, and talk over his business with her all evening. Though we did -not realize it then, Mrs. Harling was our audience when we played, and we -always looked to her for suggestions. Nothing flattered one like her quick -laugh. - -Mr. Harling had a desk in his bedroom, and his own easy-chair by the -window, in which no one else ever sat. On the nights when he was at home, -I could see his shadow on the blind, and it seemed to me an arrogant -shadow. Mrs. Harling paid no heed to any one else if he was there. Before -he went to bed she always got him a lunch of smoked salmon or anchovies -and beer. He kept an alcohol lamp in his room, and a French coffee-pot, -and his wife made coffee for him at any hour of the night he happened to -want it. - -Most Black Hawk fathers had no personal habits outside their domestic -ones; they paid the bills, pushed the baby carriage after office hours, -moved the sprinkler about over the lawn, and took the family driving on -Sunday. Mr. Harling, therefore, seemed to me autocratic and imperial in -his ways. He walked, talked, put on his gloves, shook hands, like a man -who felt that he had power. He was not tall, but he carried his head so -haughtily that he looked a commanding figure, and there was something -daring and challenging in his eyes. I used to imagine that the "nobles" of -whom 聲tonia was always talking probably looked very much like Christian -Harling, wore caped overcoats like his, and just such a glittering diamond -upon the little finger. - -Except when the father was at home, the Harling house was never quiet. -Mrs. Harling and Nina and 聲tonia made as much noise as a houseful of -children, and there was usually somebody at the piano. Julia was the only -one who was held down to regular hours of practicing, but they all played. -When Frances came home at noon, she played until dinner was ready. When -Sally got back from school, she sat down in her hat and coat and drummed -the plantation melodies that negro minstrel troupes brought to town. Even -Nina played the Swedish Wedding March. - -Mrs. Harling had studied the piano under a good teacher, and somehow she -managed to practice every day. I soon learned that if I were sent over on -an errand and found Mrs. Harling at the piano, I must sit down and wait -quietly until she turned to me. I can see her at this moment; her short, -square person planted firmly on the stool, her little fat hands moving -quickly and neatly over the keys, her eyes fixed on the music with -intelligent concentration. - - - - -IV - - - "I won't have none of your weevily wheat, and I won't have none of your - barley, - But I'll take a measure of fine white flour, to make a cake for - Charley." - -WE were singing rhymes to tease 聲tonia while she was beating up one of -Charley's favorite cakes in her big mixing-bowl. It was a crisp autumn -evening, just cold enough to make one glad to quit playing tag in the -yard, and retreat into the kitchen. We had begun to roll popcorn balls -with syrup when we heard a knock at the back door, and Tony dropped her -spoon and went to open it. A plump, fair-skinned girl was standing in the -doorway. She looked demure and pretty, and made a graceful picture in her -blue cashmere dress and little blue hat, with a plaid shawl drawn neatly -about her shoulders and a clumsy pocketbook in her hand. - -"Hello, Tony. Don't you know me?" she asked in a smooth, low voice, -looking in at us archly. - -聲tonia gasped and stepped back. "Why, it's Lena! Of course I did n't know -you, so dressed up!" - -Lena Lingard laughed, as if this pleased her. I had not recognized her for -a moment, either. I had never seen her before with a hat on her head--or -with shoes and stockings on her feet, for that matter. And here she was, -brushed and smoothed and dressed like a town girl, smiling at us with -perfect composure. - -"Hello, Jim," she said carelessly as she walked into the kitchen and -looked about her. "I've come to town to work, too, Tony." - -"Have you, now? Well, ain't that funny!" 聲tonia stood ill at ease, and -did n't seem to know just what to do with her visitor. - -The door was open into the dining-room, where Mrs. Harling sat crocheting -and Frances was reading. Frances asked Lena to come in and join them. - -"You are Lena Lingard, are n't you? I've been to see your mother, but you -were off herding cattle that day. Mama, this is Chris Lingard's oldest -girl." - -Mrs. Harling dropped her worsted and examined the visitor with quick, keen -eyes. Lena was not at all disconcerted. She sat down in the chair Frances -pointed out, carefully arranging her pocketbook and gray cotton gloves on -her lap. We followed with our popcorn, but 聲tonia hung back--said she had -to get her cake into the oven. - -"So you have come to town," said Mrs. Harling, her eyes still fixed on -Lena. "Where are you working?" - -"For Mrs. Thomas, the dressmaker. She is going to teach me to sew. She -says I have quite a knack. I'm through with the farm. There ain't any end -to the work on a farm, and always so much trouble happens. I'm going to be -a dressmaker." - -"Well, there have to be dressmakers. It's a good trade. But I would n't -run down the farm, if I were you," said Mrs. Harling rather severely. "How -is your mother?" - -"Oh, mother's never very well; she has too much to do. She'd get away from -the farm, too, if she could. She was willing for me to come. After I learn -to do sewing, I can make money and help her." - -"See that you don't forget to," said Mrs. Harling skeptically, as she took -up her crocheting again and sent the hook in and out with nimble fingers. - -"No, 'm, I won't," said Lena blandly. She took a few grains of the popcorn -we pressed upon her, eating them discreetly and taking care not to get her -fingers sticky. - -Frances drew her chair up nearer to the visitor. "I thought you were going -to be married, Lena," she said teasingly. "Did n't I hear that Nick -Svendsen was rushing you pretty hard?" - -Lena looked up with her curiously innocent smile. "He did go with me quite -a while. But his father made a fuss about it and said he would n't give -Nick any land if he married me, so he's going to marry Annie Iverson. I -would n't like to be her; Nick's awful sullen, and he'll take it out on -her. He ain't spoke to his father since he promised." - -Frances laughed. "And how do you feel about it?" - -"I don't want to marry Nick, or any other man," Lena murmured. "I've seen -a good deal of married life, and I don't care for it. I want to be so I -can help my mother and the children at home, and not have to ask lief of -anybody." - -"That's right," said Frances. "And Mrs. Thomas thinks you can learn -dressmaking?" - -"Yes, 'm. I've always liked to sew, but I never had much to do with. Mrs. -Thomas makes lovely things for all the town ladies. Did you know Mrs. -Gardener is having a purple velvet made? The velvet came from Omaha. My, -but it's lovely!" Lena sighed softly and stroked her cashmere folds. "Tony -knows I never did like out-of-door work," she added. - -Mrs. Harling glanced at her. "I expect you'll learn to sew all right, -Lena, if you'll only keep your head and not go gadding about to dances all -the time and neglect your work, the way some country girls do." - -"Yes, 'm. Tiny Soderball is coming to town, too. She's going to work at -the Boys' Home Hotel. She'll see lots of strangers," Lena added wistfully. - -"Too many, like enough," said Mrs. Harling. "I don't think a hotel is a -good place for a girl; though I guess Mrs. Gardener keeps an eye on her -waitresses." - -Lena's candid eyes, that always looked a little sleepy under their long -lashes, kept straying about the cheerful rooms with na鴳e admiration. -Presently she drew on her cotton gloves. "I guess I must be leaving," she -said irresolutely. - -Frances told her to come again, whenever she was lonesome or wanted advice -about anything. Lena replied that she did n't believe she would ever get -lonesome in Black Hawk. - -She lingered at the kitchen door and begged 聲tonia to come and see her -often. "I've got a room of my own at Mrs. Thomas's, with a carpet." - -Tony shuffled uneasily in her cloth slippers. "I'll come sometime, but -Mrs. Harling don't like to have me run much," she said evasively. - -"You can do what you please when you go out, can't you?" Lena asked in a -guarded whisper. "Ain't you crazy about town, Tony? I don't care what -anybody says, I'm done with the farm!" She glanced back over her shoulder -toward the dining-room, where Mrs. Harling sat. - -When Lena was gone, Frances asked 聲tonia why she had n't been a little -more cordial to her. - -"I did n't know if your mother would like her coming here," said 聲tonia, -looking troubled. "She was kind of talked about, out there." - -"Yes, I know. But mother won't hold it against her if she behaves well -here. You need n't say anything about that to the children. I guess Jim -has heard all that gossip?" - -When I nodded, she pulled my hair and told me I knew too much, anyhow. We -were good friends, Frances and I. - -I ran home to tell grandmother that Lena Lingard had come to town. We were -glad of it, for she had a hard life on the farm. - -Lena lived in the Norwegian settlement west of Squaw Creek, and she used -to herd her father's cattle in the open country between his place and the -Shimerdas'. Whenever we rode over in that direction we saw her out among -her cattle, bareheaded and barefooted, scantily dressed in tattered -clothing, always knitting as she watched her herd. Before I knew Lena, I -thought of her as something wild, that always lived on the prairie, -because I had never seen her under a roof. Her yellow hair was burned to a -ruddy thatch on her head; but her legs and arms, curiously enough, in -spite of constant exposure to the sun, kept a miraculous whiteness which -somehow made her seem more undressed than other girls who went scantily -clad. The first time I stopped to talk to her, I was astonished at her -soft voice and easy, gentle ways. The girls out there usually got rough -and mannish after they went to herding. But Lena asked Jake and me to get -off our horses and stay awhile, and behaved exactly as if she were in a -house and were accustomed to having visitors. She was not embarrassed by -her ragged clothes, and treated us as if we were old acquaintances. Even -then I noticed the unusual color of her eyes--a shade of deep violet--and -their soft, confiding expression. - -Chris Lingard was not a very successful farmer, and he had a large family. -Lena was always knitting stockings for little brothers and sisters, and -even the Norwegian women, who disapproved of her, admitted that she was a -good daughter to her mother. As Tony said, she had been talked about. She -was accused of making Ole Benson lose the little sense he had--and that at -an age when she should still have been in pinafores. - - [Illustration: Lena Lingard knitting stockings] - -Ole lived in a leaky dugout somewhere at the edge of the settlement. He -was fat and lazy and discouraged, and bad luck had become a habit with -him. After he had had every other kind of misfortune, his wife, "Crazy -Mary," tried to set a neighbor's barn on fire, and was sent to the asylum -at Lincoln. She was kept there for a few months, then escaped and walked -all the way home, nearly two hundred miles, traveling by night and hiding -in barns and haystacks by day. When she got back to the Norwegian -settlement, her poor feet were as hard as hoofs. She promised to be good, -and was allowed to stay at home--though every one realized she was as crazy -as ever, and she still ran about barefooted through the snow, telling her -domestic troubles to her neighbors. - -Not long after Mary came back from the asylum, I heard a young Dane, who -was helping us to thrash, tell Jake and Otto that Chris Lingard's oldest -girl had put Ole Benson out of his head, until he had no more sense than -his crazy wife. When Ole was cultivating his corn that summer, he used to -get discouraged in the field, tie up his team, and wander off to wherever -Lena Lingard was herding. There he would sit down on the draw-side and -help her watch her cattle. All the settlement was talking about it. The -Norwegian preacher's wife went to Lena and told her she ought not to allow -this; she begged Lena to come to church on Sundays. Lena said she had n't -a dress in the world any less ragged than the one on her back. Then the -minister's wife went through her old trunks and found some things she had -worn before her marriage. - -The next Sunday Lena appeared at church, a little late, with her hair done -up neatly on her head, like a young woman, wearing shoes and stockings, -and the new dress, which she had made over for herself very becomingly. -The congregation stared at her. Until that morning no one--unless it were -Ole--had realized how pretty she was, or that she was growing up. The -swelling lines of her figure had been hidden under the shapeless rags she -wore in the fields. After the last hymn had been sung, and the -congregation was dismissed, Ole slipped out to the hitch-bar and lifted -Lena on her horse. That, in itself, was shocking; a married man was not -expected to do such things. But it was nothing to the scene that followed. -Crazy Mary darted out from the group of women at the church door, and ran -down the road after Lena, shouting horrible threats. - -"Look out, you Lena Lingard, look out! I'll come over with a corn-knife -one day and trim some of that shape off you. Then you won't sail round so -fine, making eyes at the men! {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}" - -The Norwegian women did n't know where to look. They were formal -housewives, most of them, with a severe sense of decorum. But Lena Lingard -only laughed her lazy, good-natured laugh and rode on, gazing back over -her shoulder at Ole's infuriated wife. - -The time came, however, when Lena did n't laugh. More than once Crazy Mary -chased her across the prairie and round and round the Shimerdas' -cornfield. Lena never told her father; perhaps she was ashamed; perhaps -she was more afraid of his anger than of the corn-knife. I was at the -Shimerdas' one afternoon when Lena came bounding through the red grass as -fast as her white legs could carry her. She ran straight into the house -and hid in 聲tonia's feather-bed. Mary was not far behind; she came right -up to the door and made us feel how sharp her blade was, showing us very -graphically just what she meant to do to Lena. Mrs. Shimerda, leaning out -of the window, enjoyed the situation keenly, and was sorry when 聲tonia -sent Mary away, mollified by an apronful of bottle-tomatoes. Lena came out -from Tony's room behind the kitchen, very pink from the heat of the -feathers, but otherwise calm. She begged 聲tonia and me to go with her, -and help get her cattle together; they were scattered and might be gorging -themselves in somebody's cornfield. - -"Maybe you lose a steer and learn not to make somethings with your eyes at -married men," Mrs. Shimerda told her hectoringly. - -Lena only smiled her sleepy smile. "I never made anything to him with my -eyes. I can't help it if he hangs around, and I can't order him off. It -ain't my prairie." - - - - -V - - -AFTER Lena came to Black Hawk I often met her downtown, where she would be -matching sewing silk or buying "findings" for Mrs. Thomas. If I happened -to walk home with her, she told me all about the dresses she was helping -to make, or about what she saw and heard when she was with Tiny Soderball -at the hotel on Saturday nights. - -The Boys' Home was the best hotel on our branch of the Burlington, and all -the commercial travelers in that territory tried to get into Black Hawk -for Sunday. They used to assemble in the parlor after supper on Saturday -nights. Marshall Field's man, Anson Kirkpatrick, played the piano and sang -all the latest sentimental songs. After Tiny had helped the cook wash the -dishes, she and Lena sat on the other side of the double doors between the -parlor and the dining-room, listening to the music and giggling at the -jokes and stories. Lena often said she hoped I would be a traveling man -when I grew up. They had a gay life of it; nothing to do but ride about on -trains all day and go to theaters when they were in big cities. Behind the -hotel there was an old store building, where the salesmen opened their big -trunks and spread out their samples on the counters. The Black Hawk -merchants went to look at these things and order goods, and Mrs. Thomas, -though she was "retail trade," was permitted to see them and to "get -ideas." They were all generous, these traveling men; they gave Tiny -Soderball handkerchiefs and gloves and ribbons and striped stockings, and -so many bottles of perfume and cakes of scented soap that she bestowed -some of them on Lena. - -One afternoon in the week before Christmas I came upon Lena and her funny, -square-headed little brother Chris, standing before the drug-store, gazing -in at the wax dolls and blocks and Noah's arks arranged in the frosty show -window. The boy had come to town with a neighbor to do his Christmas -shopping, for he had money of his own this year. He was only twelve, but -that winter he had got the job of sweeping out the Norwegian church and -making the fire in it every Sunday morning. A cold job it must have been, -too! - -We went into Duckford's dry-goods store, and Chris unwrapped all his -presents and showed them to me--something for each of the six younger than -himself, even a rubber pig for the baby. Lena had given him one of Tiny -Soderball's bottles of perfume for his mother, and he thought he would get -some handkerchiefs to go with it. They were cheap, and he had n't much -money left. We found a tableful of handkerchiefs spread out for view at -Duckford's. Chris wanted those with initial letters in the corner, because -he had never seen any before. He studied them seriously, while Lena looked -over his shoulder, telling him she thought the red letters would hold -their color best. He seemed so perplexed that I thought perhaps he had n't -enough money, after all. Presently he said gravely,-- - -"Sister, you know mother's name is Berthe. I don't know if I ought to get -B for Berthe, or M for Mother." - -Lena patted his bristly head. "I'd get the B, Chrissy. It will please her -for you to think about her name. Nobody ever calls her by it now." - -That satisfied him. His face cleared at once, and he took three reds and -three blues. When the neighbor came in to say that it was time to start, -Lena wound Chris's comforter about his neck and turned up his jacket -collar--he had no overcoat--and we watched him climb into the wagon and -start on his long, cold drive. As we walked together up the windy street, -Lena wiped her eyes with the back of her woolen glove. "I get awful -homesick for them, all the same," she murmured, as if she were answering -some remembered reproach. - - - - -VI - - -WINTER comes down savagely over a little town on the prairie. The wind -that sweeps in from the open country strips away all the leafy screens -that hide one yard from another in summer, and the houses seem to draw -closer together. The roofs, that looked so far away across the green -tree-tops, now stare you in the face, and they are so much uglier than -when their angles were softened by vines and shrubs. - -In the morning, when I was fighting my way to school against the wind, I -could n't see anything but the road in front of me; but in the late -afternoon, when I was coming home, the town looked bleak and desolate to -me. The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify--it was like -the light of truth itself. When the smoky clouds hung low in the west and -the red sun went down behind them, leaving a pink flush on the snowy roofs -and the blue drifts, then the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter -song, as if it said: "This is reality, whether you like it or not. All -those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of -green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was -underneath. This is the truth." It was as if we were being punished for -loving the loveliness of summer. - -If I loitered on the playground after school, or went to the post-office -for the mail and lingered to hear the gossip about the cigar-stand, it -would be growing dark by the time I came home. The sun was gone; the -frozen streets stretched long and blue before me; the lights were shining -pale in kitchen windows, and I could smell the suppers cooking as I -passed. Few people were abroad, and each one of them was hurrying toward a -fire. The glowing stoves in the houses were like magnets. When one passed -an old man, one could see nothing of his face but a red nose sticking out -between a frosted beard and a long plush cap. The young men capered along -with their hands in their pockets, and sometimes tried a slide on the icy -sidewalk. The children, in their bright hoods and comforters, never -walked, but always ran from the moment they left their door, beating their -mittens against their sides. When I got as far as the Methodist Church, I -was about halfway home. I can remember how glad I was when there happened -to be a light in the church, and the painted glass window shone out at us -as we came along the frozen street. In the winter bleakness a hunger for -color came over people, like the Laplander's craving for fats and sugar. -Without knowing why, we used to linger on the sidewalk outside the church -when the lamps were lighted early for choir practice or prayer-meeting, -shivering and talking until our feet were like lumps of ice. The crude -reds and greens and blues of that colored glass held us there. - -On winter nights, the lights in the Harlings' windows drew me like the -painted glass. Inside that warm, roomy house there was color, too. After -supper I used to catch up my cap, stick my hands in my pockets, and dive -through the willow hedge as if witches were after me. Of course, if Mr. -Harling was at home, if his shadow stood out on the blind of the west -room, I did not go in, but turned and walked home by the long way, through -the street, wondering what book I should read as I sat down with the two -old people. - -Such disappointments only gave greater zest to the nights when we acted -charades, or had a costume ball in the back parlor, with Sally always -dressed like a boy. Frances taught us to dance that winter, and she said, -from the first lesson, that 聲tonia would make the best dancer among us. -On Saturday nights, Mrs. Harling used to play the old operas for -us,--"Martha," "Norma," "Rigoletto,"--telling us the story while she played. -Every Saturday night was like a party. The parlor, the back parlor, and -the dining-room were warm and brightly lighted, with comfortable chairs -and sofas, and gay pictures on the walls. One always felt at ease there. -聲tonia brought her sewing and sat with us--she was already beginning to -make pretty clothes for herself. After the long winter evenings on the -prairie, with Ambrosch's sullen silences and her mother's complaints, the -Harlings' house seemed, as she said, "like Heaven" to her. She was never -too tired to make taffy or chocolate cookies for us. If Sally whispered in -her ear, or Charley gave her three winks, Tony would rush into the kitchen -and build a fire in the range on which she had already cooked three meals -that day. - -While we sat in the kitchen waiting for the cookies to bake or the taffy -to cool, Nina used to coax 聲tonia to tell her stories--about the calf that -broke its leg, or how Yulka saved her little turkeys from drowning in the -freshet, or about old Christmases and weddings in Bohemia. Nina -interpreted the stories about the cr璚he fancifully, and in spite of our -derision she cherished a belief that Christ was born in Bohemia a short -time before the Shimerdas left that country. We all liked Tony's stories. -Her voice had a peculiarly engaging quality; it was deep, a little husky, -and one always heard the breath vibrating behind it. Everything she said -seemed to come right out of her heart. - -One evening when we were picking out kernels for walnut taffy, Tony told -us a new story. - -"Mrs. Harling, did you ever hear about what happened up in the Norwegian -settlement last summer, when I was thrashing there? We were at Iversons', -and I was driving one of the grain wagons." - -Mrs. Harling came out and sat down among us. "Could you throw the wheat -into the bin yourself, Tony?" She knew what heavy work it was. - -"Yes, mam, I did. I could shovel just as fast as that fat Andern boy that -drove the other wagon. One day it was just awful hot. When we got back to -the field from dinner, we took things kind of easy. The men put in the -horses and got the machine going, and Ole Iverson was up on the deck, -cutting bands. I was sitting against a straw stack, trying to get some -shade. My wagon was n't going out first, and somehow I felt the heat awful -that day. The sun was so hot like it was going to burn the world up. After -a while I see a man coming across the stubble, and when he got close I see -it was a tramp. His toes stuck out of his shoes, and he had n't shaved for -a long while, and his eyes was awful red and wild, like he had some -sickness. He comes right up and begins to talk like he knows me already. -He says: 'The ponds in this country is done got so low a man could n't -drownd himself in one of 'em.' - -"I told him nobody wanted to drownd themselves, but if we did n't have -rain soon we'd have to pump water for the cattle. - -"'Oh, cattle,' he says, 'you'll all take care of your cattle! Ain't you -got no beer here?' I told him he'd have to go to the Bohemians for beer; -the Norwegians did n't have none when they thrashed. 'My God!' he says, -'so it's Norwegians now, is it? I thought this was Americy.' - -"Then he goes up to the machine and yells out to Ole Iverson, 'Hello, -partner, let me up there. I can cut bands, and I'm tired of trampin'. I -won't go no farther.' - -"I tried to make signs to Ole, 'cause I thought that man was crazy and -might get the machine stopped up. But Ole, he was glad to get down out of -the sun and chaff--it gets down your neck and sticks to you something awful -when it's hot like that. So Ole jumped down and crawled under one of the -wagons for shade, and the tramp got on the machine. He cut bands all right -for a few minutes, and then, Mrs. Harling, he waved his hand to me and -jumped head-first right into the thrashing machine after the wheat. - -"I begun to scream, and the men run to stop the horses, but the belt had -sucked him down, and by the time they got her stopped he was all beat and -cut to pieces. He was wedged in so tight it was a hard job to get him out, -and the machine ain't never worked right since." - -"Was he clear dead, Tony?" we cried. - -"Was he dead? Well, I guess so! There, now, Nina's all upset. We won't -talk about it. Don't you cry, Nina. No old tramp won't get you while -Tony's here." - -Mrs. Harling spoke up sternly. "Stop crying, Nina, or I'll always send you -upstairs when 聲tonia tells us about the country. Did they never find out -where he came from, 聲tonia?" - -"Never, mam. He had n't been seen nowhere except in a little town they -call Conway. He tried to get beer there, but there was n't any saloon. -Maybe he came in on a freight, but the brakeman had n't seen him. They -could n't find no letters nor nothing on him; nothing but an old penknife -in his pocket and the wishbone of a chicken wrapped up in a piece of -paper, and some poetry." - -"Some poetry?" we exclaimed. - -"I remember," said Frances. "It was 'The Old Oaken Bucket,' cut out of a -newspaper and nearly worn out. Ole Iverson brought it into the office and -showed it to me." - -"Now, was n't that strange, Miss Frances?" Tony asked thoughtfully. "What -would anybody want to kill themselves in summer for? In thrashing time, -too! It's nice everywhere then." - -"So it is, 聲tonia," said Mrs. Harling heartily. "Maybe I'll go home and -help you thrash next summer. Is n't that taffy nearly ready to eat? I've -been smelling it a long while." - -There was a basic harmony between 聲tonia and her mistress. They had -strong, independent natures, both of them. They knew what they liked, and -were not always trying to imitate other people. They loved children and -animals and music, and rough play and digging in the earth. They liked to -prepare rich, hearty food and to see people eat it; to make up soft white -beds and to see youngsters asleep in them. They ridiculed conceited people -and were quick to help unfortunate ones. Deep down in each of them there -was a kind of hearty joviality, a relish of life, not over-delicate, but -very invigorating. I never tried to define it, but I was distinctly -conscious of it. I could not imagine 聲tonia's living for a week in any -other house in Black Hawk than the Harlings'. - - - - -VII - - -WINTER lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and -shabby, old and sullen. On the farm the weather was the great fact, and -men's affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice. -But in Black Hawk the scene of human life was spread out shrunken and -pinched, frozen down to the bare stalk. - -Through January and February I went to the river with the Harlings on -clear nights, and we skated up to the big island and made bonfires on the -frozen sand. But by March the ice was rough and choppy, and the snow on -the river bluffs was gray and mournful-looking. I was tired of school, -tired of winter clothes, of the rutted streets, of the dirty drifts and -the piles of cinders that had lain in the yards so long. There was only -one break in the dreary monotony of that month; when Blind d'Arnault, the -negro pianist, came to town. He gave a concert at the Opera House on -Monday night, and he and his manager spent Saturday and Sunday at our -comfortable hotel. Mrs. Harling had known d'Arnault for years. She told -聲tonia she had better go to see Tiny that Saturday evening, as there -would certainly be music at the Boys' Home. - -Saturday night after supper I ran downtown to the hotel and slipped -quietly into the parlor. The chairs and sofas were already occupied, and -the air smelled pleasantly of cigar smoke. The parlor had once been two -rooms, and the floor was sway-backed where the partition had been cut -away. The wind from without made waves in the long carpet. A coal stove -glowed at either end of the room, and the grand piano in the middle stood -open. - -There was an atmosphere of unusual freedom about the house that night, for -Mrs. Gardener had gone to Omaha for a week. Johnnie had been having drinks -with the guests until he was rather absent-minded. It was Mrs. Gardener -who ran the business and looked after everything. Her husband stood at the -desk and welcomed incoming travelers. He was a popular fellow, but no -manager. - -Mrs. Gardener was admittedly the best-dressed woman in Black Hawk, drove -the best horse, and had a smart trap and a little white-and-gold sleigh. -She seemed indifferent to her possessions, was not half so solicitous -about them as her friends were. She was tall, dark, severe, with something -Indian-like in the rigid immobility of her face. Her manner was cold, and -she talked little. Guests felt that they were receiving, not conferring, a -favor when they stayed at her house. Even the smartest traveling men were -flattered when Mrs. Gardener stopped to chat with them for a moment. The -patrons of the hotel were divided into two classes; those who had seen -Mrs. Gardener's diamonds, and those who had not. - -When I stole into the parlor Anson Kirkpatrick, Marshall Field's man, was -at the piano, playing airs from a musical comedy then running in Chicago. -He was a dapper little Irishman, very vain, homely as a monkey, with -friends everywhere, and a sweetheart in every port, like a sailor. I did -not know all the men who were sitting about, but I recognized a furniture -salesman from Kansas City, a drug man, and Willy O'Reilly, who traveled -for a jewelry house and sold musical instruments. The talk was all about -good and bad hotels, actors and actresses and musical prodigies. I learned -that Mrs. Gardener had gone to Omaha to hear Booth and Barrett, who were -to play there next week, and that Mary Anderson was having a great success -in "A Winter's Tale," in London. - -The door from the office opened, and Johnnie Gardener came in, directing -Blind d'Arnault,--he would never consent to be led. He was a heavy, bulky -mulatto, on short legs, and he came tapping the floor in front of him with -his gold-headed cane. His yellow face was lifted in the light, with a show -of white teeth, all grinning, and his shrunken, papery eyelids lay -motionless over his blind eyes. - -"Good evening, gentlemen. No ladies here? Good-evening, gentlemen. We -going to have a little music? Some of you gentlemen going to play for me -this evening?" It was the soft, amiable negro voice, like those I -remembered from early childhood, with the note of docile subservience in -it. He had the negro head, too; almost no head at all; nothing behind the -ears but folds of neck under close-clipped wool. He would have been -repulsive if his face had not been so kindly and happy. It was the -happiest face I had seen since I left Virginia. - -He felt his way directly to the piano. The moment he sat down, I noticed -the nervous infirmity of which Mrs. Harling had told me. When he was -sitting, or standing still, he swayed back and forth incessantly, like a -rocking toy. At the piano, he swayed in time to the music, and when he was -not playing, his body kept up this motion, like an empty mill grinding on. -He found the pedals and tried them, ran his yellow hands up and down the -keys a few times, tinkling off scales, then turned to the company. - -"She seems all right, gentlemen. Nothing happened to her since the last -time I was here. Mrs. Gardener, she always has this piano tuned up before -I come. Now, gentlemen, I expect you've all got grand voices. Seems like -we might have some good old plantation songs to-night." - -The men gathered round him, as he began to play "My Old Kentucky Home." -They sang one negro melody after another, while the mulatto sat rocking -himself, his head thrown back, his yellow face lifted, its shriveled -eyelids never fluttering. - -He was born in the Far South, on the d'Arnault plantation, where the -spirit if not the fact of slavery persisted. When he was three weeks old -he had an illness which left him totally blind. As soon as he was old -enough to sit up alone and toddle about, another affliction, the nervous -motion of his body, became apparent. His mother, a buxom young negro wench -who was laundress for the d'Arnaults, concluded that her blind baby was -"not right" in his head, and she was ashamed of him. She loved him -devotedly, but he was so ugly, with his sunken eyes and his "fidgets," -that she hid him away from people. All the dainties she brought down from -the "Big House" were for the blind child, and she beat and cuffed her -other children whenever she found them teasing him or trying to get his -chicken-bone away from him. He began to talk early, remembered everything -he heard, and his mammy said he "was n't all wrong." She named him Samson, -because he was blind, but on the plantation he was known as "yellow -Martha's simple child." He was docile and obedient, but when he was six -years old he began to run away from home, always taking the same -direction. He felt his way through the lilacs, along the boxwood hedge, up -to the south wing of the "Big House," where Miss Nellie d'Arnault -practiced the piano every morning. This angered his mother more than -anything else he could have done; she was so ashamed of his ugliness that -she could n't bear to have white folks see him. Whenever she caught him -slipping away from the cabin, she whipped him unmercifully, and told him -what dreadful things old Mr. d'Arnault would do to him if he ever found -him near the "Big House." But the next time Samson had a chance, he ran -away again. If Miss d'Arnault stopped practicing for a moment and went -toward the window, she saw this hideous little pickaninny, dressed in an -old piece of sacking, standing in the open space between the hollyhock -rows, his body rocking automatically, his blind face lifted to the sun and -wearing an expression of idiotic rapture. Often she was tempted to tell -Martha that the child must be kept at home, but somehow the memory of his -foolish, happy face deterred her. She remembered that his sense of hearing -was nearly all he had,--though it did not occur to her that he might have -more of it than other children. - -One day Samson was standing thus while Miss Nellie was playing her lesson -to her music-master. The windows were open. He heard them get up from the -piano, talk a little while, and then leave the room. He heard the door -close after them. He crept up to the front windows and stuck his head in: -there was no one there. He could always detect the presence of any one in -a room. He put one foot over the window sill and straddled it. His mother -had told him over and over how his master would give him to the big -mastiff if he ever found him "meddling." Samson had got too near the -mastiff's kennel once, and had felt his terrible breath in his face. He -thought about that, but he pulled in his other foot. - -Through the dark he found his way to the Thing, to its mouth. He touched -it softly, and it answered softly, kindly. He shivered and stood still. -Then he began to feel it all over, ran his finger tips along the slippery -sides, embraced the carved legs, tried to get some conception of its shape -and size, of the space it occupied in primeval night. It was cold and -hard, and like nothing else in his black universe. He went back to its -mouth, began at one end of the keyboard and felt his way down into the -mellow thunder, as far as he could go. He seemed to know that it must be -done with the fingers, not with the fists or the feet. He approached this -highly artificial instrument through a mere instinct, and coupled himself -to it, as if he knew it was to piece him out and make a whole creature of -him. After he had tried over all the sounds, he began to finger out -passages from things Miss Nellie had been practicing, passages that were -already his, that lay under the bones of his pinched, conical little -skull, definite as animal desires. The door opened; Miss Nellie and her -music-master stood behind it, but blind Samson, who was so sensitive to -presences, did not know they were there. He was feeling out the pattern -that lay all ready-made on the big and little keys. When he paused for a -moment, because the sound was wrong and he wanted another, Miss Nellie -spoke softly. He whirled about in a spasm of terror, leaped forward in the -dark, struck his head on the open window, and fell screaming and bleeding -to the floor. He had what his mother called a fit. The doctor came and -gave him opium. - -When Samson was well again, his young mistress led him back to the piano. -Several teachers experimented with him. They found he had absolute pitch, -and a remarkable memory. As a very young child he could repeat, after a -fashion, any composition that was played for him. No matter how many wrong -notes he struck, he never lost the intention of a passage, he brought the -substance of it across by irregular and astonishing means. He wore his -teachers out. He could never learn like other people, never acquired any -finish. He was always a negro prodigy who played barbarously and -wonderfully. As piano playing, it was perhaps abominable, but as music it -was something real, vitalized by a sense of rhythm that was stronger than -his other physical senses,--that not only filled his dark mind, but worried -his body incessantly. To hear him, to watch him, was to see a negro -enjoying himself as only a negro can. It was as if all the agreeable -sensations possible to creatures of flesh and blood were heaped up on -those black and white keys, and he were gloating over them and trickling -them through his yellow fingers. - -In the middle of a crashing waltz d'Arnault suddenly began to play softly, -and, turning to one of the men who stood behind him, whispered, "Somebody -dancing in there." He jerked his bullet head toward the dining-room. "I -hear little feet,--girls, I 'spect." - -Anson Kirkpatrick mounted a chair and peeped over the transom. Springing -down, he wrenched open the doors and ran out into the dining-room. Tiny -and Lena, 聲tonia and Mary Dusak, were waltzing in the middle of the -floor. They separated and fled toward the kitchen, giggling. - -Kirkpatrick caught Tiny by the elbows. "What's the matter with you girls? -Dancing out here by yourselves, when there's a roomful of lonesome men on -the other side of the partition! Introduce me to your friends, Tiny." - -The girls, still laughing, were trying to escape. Tiny looked alarmed. -"Mrs. Gardener would n't like it," she protested. "She'd be awful mad if -you was to come out here and dance with us." - -"Mrs. Gardener's in Omaha, girl. Now, you're Lena, are you?--and you're -Tony and you're Mary. Have I got you all straight?" - -O'Reilly and the others began to pile the chairs on the tables. Johnnie -Gardener ran in from the office. - -"Easy, boys, easy!" he entreated them. "You'll wake the cook, and there'll -be the devil to pay for me. She won't hear the music, but she'll be down -the minute anything's moved in the dining-room." - -"Oh, what do you care, Johnnie? Fire the cook and wire Molly to bring -another. Come along, nobody'll tell tales." - -Johnnie shook his head. "'S a fact, boys," he said confidentially. "If I -take a drink in Black Hawk, Molly knows it in Omaha!" - -His guests laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. "Oh, we'll make it all -right with Molly. Get your back up, Johnnie." - -Molly was Mrs. Gardener's name, of course. "Molly Bawn" was painted in -large blue letters on the glossy white side of the hotel bus, and "Molly" -was engraved inside Johnnie's ring and on his watch-case--doubtless on his -heart, too. He was an affectionate little man, and he thought his wife a -wonderful woman; he knew that without her he would hardly be more than a -clerk in some other man's hotel. - -At a word from Kirkpatrick, d'Arnault spread himself out over the piano, -and began to draw the dance music out of it, while the perspiration shone -on his short wool and on his uplifted face. He looked like some glistening -African god of pleasure, full of strong, savage blood. Whenever the -dancers paused to change partners or to catch breath, he would boom out -softly, "Who's that goin' back on me? One of these city gentlemen, I bet! -Now, you girls, you ain't goin' to let that floor get cold?" - -聲tonia seemed frightened at first, and kept looking questioningly at Lena -and Tiny over Willy O'Reilly's shoulder. Tiny Soderball was trim and -slender, with lively little feet and pretty ankles--she wore her dresses -very short. She was quicker in speech, lighter in movement and manner than -the other girls. Mary Dusak was broad and brown of countenance, slightly -marked by smallpox, but handsome for all that. She had beautiful chestnut -hair, coils of it; her forehead was low and smooth, and her commanding -dark eyes regarded the world indifferently and fearlessly. She looked bold -and resourceful and unscrupulous, and she was all of these. They were -handsome girls, had the fresh color of their country up-bringing, and in -their eyes that brilliancy which is called,--by no metaphor, alas!--"the -light of youth." - -D'Arnault played until his manager came and shut the piano. Before he left -us, he showed us his gold watch which struck the hours, and a topaz ring, -given him by some Russian nobleman who delighted in negro melodies, and -had heard d'Arnault play in New Orleans. At last he tapped his way -upstairs, after bowing to everybody, docile and happy. I walked home with -聲tonia. We were so excited that we dreaded to go to bed. We lingered a -long while at the Harlings' gate, whispering in the cold until the -restlessness was slowly chilled out of us. - - - - -VIII - - -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 聲tonia 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,--聲tonia 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." - - - - -IX - - -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 聲tonia, 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 聲tonia'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 聲tonia 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. - - - - -X - - -IT was at the Vannis' tent that 聲tonia 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 聲tonia 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." - -聲tonia 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. - -聲tonia'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. 聲tonia -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 聲tonia 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, 聲tonia. 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 -聲tonia, 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, 聲tonia," 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. "聲tonia, 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." 聲tonia 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 聲tonia. - - - - -XI - - -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. - - - - -XII - - -AFTER 聲tonia 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 聲tonia, 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?" - -聲tonia 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 聲tonia. 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 聲tonia's life might have been! - -聲tonia 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, 聲tonia 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 聲tonia! 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 聲tonia, but I -never did. - - - - -XIII - - -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 聲tonia, 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,"--聲tonia -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. - - - - -XIV - - -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 躪eid 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 聲tonia 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 聲tonia, 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. - -聲tonia 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. 聲tonia 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. - -聲tonia 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," 聲tonia 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," 聲tonia 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 聲tonia 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. - - - - -XV - - -LATE in August the Cutters went to Omaha for a few days, leaving 聲tonia -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, 聲tonia came over to see us. Grandmother -noticed that she seemed troubled and distracted. "You've got something on -your mind, 聲tonia," 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." - -聲tonia 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 聲tonia 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 聲tonia. 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, 聲tonia 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 聲tonia'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 聲tonia 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 聲tonia at all, but made her sit down in -the parlor while she related to her just what had occurred the night -before. 聲tonia 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! - - - - - -BOOK III--LENA LINGARD - - - - -I - - -AT the University I had the good fortune to come immediately under the -influence of a brilliant and inspiring young scholar. Gaston Cleric had -arrived in Lincoln only a few weeks earlier than I, to begin his work as -head of the Latin Department. He came West at the suggestion of his -physicians, his health having been enfeebled by a long illness in Italy. -When I took my entrance examinations he was my examiner, and my course was -arranged under his supervision. - -I did not go home for my first summer vacation, but stayed in Lincoln, -working off a year's Greek, which had been my only condition on entering -the Freshman class. Cleric's doctor advised against his going back to New -England, and except for a few weeks in Colorado, he, too, was in Lincoln -all that summer. We played tennis, read, and took long walks together. I -shall always look back on that time of mental awakening as one of the -happiest in my life. Gaston Cleric introduced me to the world of ideas; -when one first enters that world everything else fades for a time, and all -that went before is as if it had not been. Yet I found curious survivals; -some of the figures of my old life seemed to be waiting for me in the new. - -In those days there were many serious young men among the students who had -come up to the University from the farms and the little towns scattered -over the thinly settled State. Some of those boys came straight from the -cornfields with only a summer's wages in their pockets, hung on through -the four years, shabby and underfed, and completed the course by really -heroic self-sacrifice. Our instructors were oddly assorted; wandering -pioneer school-teachers, stranded ministers of the Gospel, a few -enthusiastic young men just out of graduate schools. There was an -atmosphere of endeavor, of expectancy and bright hopefulness about the -young college that had lifted its head from the prairie only a few years -before. - -Our personal life was as free as that of our instructors. There were no -college dormitories; we lived where we could and as we could. I took rooms -with an old couple, early settlers in Lincoln, who had married off their -children and now lived quietly in their house at the edge of town, near -the open country. The house was inconveniently situated for students, and -on that account I got two rooms for the price of one. My bedroom, -originally a linen closet, was unheated and was barely large enough to -contain my cot bed, but it enabled me to call the other room my study. The -dresser, and the great walnut wardrobe which held all my clothes, even my -hats and shoes, I had pushed out of the way, and I considered them -non-existent, as children eliminate incongruous objects when they are -playing house. I worked at a commodious green-topped table placed directly -in front of the west window which looked out over the prairie. In the -corner at my right were all my books, in shelves I had made and painted -myself. On the blank wall at my left the dark, old-fashioned wall-paper -was covered by a large map of ancient Rome, the work of some German -scholar. Cleric had ordered it for me when he was sending for books from -abroad. Over the bookcase hung a photograph of the Tragic Theater at -Pompeii, which he had given me from his collection. - -When I sat at work I half faced a deep, upholstered chair which stood at -the end of my table, its high back against the wall. I had bought it with -great care. My instructor sometimes looked in upon me when he was out for -an evening tramp, and I noticed that he was more likely to linger and -become talkative if I had a comfortable chair for him to sit in, and if he -found a bottle of B幯嶮ictine and plenty of the kind of cigarettes he -liked, at his elbow. He was, I had discovered, parsimonious about small -expenditures--a trait absolutely inconsistent with his general character. -Sometimes when he came he was silent and moody, and after a few sarcastic -remarks went away again, to tramp the streets of Lincoln, which were -almost as quiet and oppressively domestic as those of Black Hawk. Again, -he would sit until nearly midnight, talking about Latin and English -poetry, or telling me about his long stay in Italy. - -I can give no idea of the peculiar charm and vividness of his talk. In a -crowd he was nearly always silent. Even for his classroom he had no -platitudes, no stock of professorial anecdotes. When he was tired his -lectures were clouded, obscure, elliptical; but when he was interested -they were wonderful. I believe that Gaston Cleric narrowly missed being a -great poet, and I have sometimes thought that his bursts of imaginative -talk were fatal to his poetic gift. He squandered too much in the heat of -personal communication. How often I have seen him draw his dark brows -together, fix his eyes upon some object on the wall or a figure in the -carpet, and then flash into the lamplight the very image that was in his -brain. He could bring the drama of antique life before one out of the -shadows--white figures against blue backgrounds. I shall never forget his -face as it looked one night when he told me about the solitary day he -spent among the sea temples at Paestum: the soft wind blowing through the -roofless columns, the birds flying low over the flowering marsh grasses, -the changing lights on the silver, cloud-hung mountains. He had willfully -stayed the short summer night there, wrapped in his coat and rug, watching -the constellations on their path down the sky until "the bride of old -Tithonus" rose out of the sea, and the mountains stood sharp in the dawn. -It was there he caught the fever which held him back on the eve of his -departure for Greece and of which he lay ill so long in Naples. He was -still, indeed, doing penance for it. - -I remember vividly another evening, when something led us to talk of -Dante's veneration for Virgil. Cleric went through canto after canto of -the "Commedia," repeating the discourse between Dante and his "sweet -teacher," while his cigarette burned itself out unheeded between his long -fingers. I can hear him now, speaking the lines of the poet Statius, who -spoke for Dante: "_I was famous on earth with the name which endures -longest and honors most. The seeds of my ardor were the sparks from that -divine flame whereby more than a thousand have kindled; I speak of the -躪eid, mother to me and nurse to me in poetry._" - -Although I admired scholarship so much in Cleric, I was not deceived about -myself; I knew that I should never be a scholar. I could never lose myself -for long among impersonal things. Mental excitement was apt to send me -with a rush back to my own naked land and the figures scattered upon it. -While I was in the very act of yearning toward the new forms that Cleric -brought up before me, my mind plunged away from me, and I suddenly found -myself thinking of the places and people of my own infinitesimal past. -They stood out strengthened and simplified now, like the image of the -plough against the sun. They were all I had for an answer to the new -appeal. I begrudged the room that Jake and Otto and Russian Peter took up -in my memory, which I wanted to crowd with other things. But whenever my -consciousness was quickened, all those early friends were quickened within -it, and in some strange way they accompanied me through all my new -experiences. They were so much alive in me that I scarcely stopped to -wonder whether they were alive anywhere else, or how. - - - - -II - - -ONE March evening in my Sophomore year I was sitting alone in my room -after supper. There had been a warm thaw all day, with mushy yards and -little streams of dark water gurgling cheerfully into the streets out of -old snow-banks. My window was open, and the earthy wind blowing through -made me indolent. On the edge of the prairie, where the sun had gone down, -the sky was turquoise blue, like a lake, with gold light throbbing in it. -Higher up, in the utter clarity of the western slope, the evening star -hung like a lamp suspended by silver chains--like the lamp engraved upon -the title-page of old Latin texts, which is always appearing in new -heavens, and waking new desires in men. It reminded me, at any rate, to -shut my window and light my wick in answer. I did so regretfully, and the -dim objects in the room emerged from the shadows and took their place -about me with the helpfulness which custom breeds. - -I propped my book open and stared listlessly at the page of the Georgics -where to-morrow's lesson began. It opened with the melancholy reflection -that, in the lives of mortals, the best days are the first to flee. -"Optima dies {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} prima fugit." I turned back to the beginning of the third -book, which we had read in class that morning. "Primus ego in patriam -mecum {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} deducam Musas"; "for I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the -Muse into my country." Cleric had explained to us that "patria" here -meant, not a nation or even a province, but the little rural neighborhood -on the Mincio where the poet was born. This was not a boast, but a hope, -at once bold and devoutly humble, that he might bring the Muse (but lately -come to Italy from her cloudy Grecian mountains), not to the capital, the -palatia Romana, but to his own little "country"; to his father's fields, -"sloping down to the river and to the old beech trees with broken tops." - -Cleric said he thought Virgil, when he was dying at Brindisi, must have -remembered that passage. After he had faced the bitter fact that he was to -leave the 躪eid unfinished, and had decreed that the great canvas, crowded -with figures of gods and men, should be burned rather than survive him -unperfected, then his mind must have gone back to the perfect utterance of -the Georgics, where the pen was fitted to the matter as the plough is to -the furrow; and he must have said to himself with the thankfulness of a -good man, "I was the first to bring the Muse into my country." - -We left the classroom quietly, conscious that we had been brushed by the -wing of a great feeling, though perhaps I alone knew Cleric intimately -enough to guess what that feeling was. In the evening, as I sat staring at -my book, the fervor of his voice stirred through the quantities on the -page before me. I was wondering whether that particular rocky strip of New -England coast about which he had so often told me was Cleric's patria. -Before I had got far with my reading I was disturbed by a knock. I hurried -to the door and when I opened it saw a woman standing in the dark hall. - -"I expect you hardly know me, Jim." - -The voice seemed familiar, but I did not recognize her until she stepped -into the light of my doorway and I beheld--Lena Lingard! She was so quietly -conventionalized by city clothes that I might have passed her on the -street without seeing her. Her black suit fitted her figure smoothly, and -a black lace hat, with pale-blue forget-me-nots, sat demurely on her -yellow hair. - -I led her toward Cleric's chair, the only comfortable one I had, -questioning her confusedly. - -She was not disconcerted by my embarrassment. She looked about her with -the na鴳e curiosity I remembered so well. "You are quite comfortable here, -are n't you? I live in Lincoln now, too, Jim. I'm in business for myself. -I have a dressmaking shop in the Raleigh Block, out on O Street. I've made -a real good start." - -"But, Lena, when did you come?" - -"Oh, I've been here all winter. Did n't your grandmother ever write you? -I've thought about looking you up lots of times. But we've all heard what -a studious young man you've got to be, and I felt bashful. I did n't know -whether you'd be glad to see me." She laughed her mellow, easy laugh, that -was either very artless or very comprehending, one never quite knew which. -"You seem the same, though,--except you're a young man, now, of course. Do -you think I've changed?" - -"Maybe you're prettier--though you were always pretty enough. Perhaps it's -your clothes that make a difference." - -"You like my new suit? I have to dress pretty well in my business." She -took off her jacket and sat more at ease in her blouse, of some soft, -flimsy silk. She was already at home in my place, had slipped quietly into -it, as she did into everything. She told me her business was going well, -and she had saved a little money. - -"This summer I'm going to build the house for mother I've talked about so -long. I won't be able to pay up on it at first, but I want her to have it -before she is too old to enjoy it. Next summer I'll take her down new -furniture and carpets, so she'll have something to look forward to all -winter." - -I watched Lena sitting there so smooth and sunny and well cared-for, and -thought of how she used to run barefoot over the prairie until after the -snow began to fly, and how Crazy Mary chased her round and round the -cornfields. It seemed to me wonderful that she should have got on so well -in the world. Certainly she had no one but herself to thank for it. - -"You must feel proud of yourself, Lena," I said heartily. "Look at me; -I've never earned a dollar, and I don't know that I'll ever be able to." - -"Tony says you're going to be richer than Mr. Harling some day. She's -always bragging about you, you know." - -"Tell me, how _is_ Tony?" - -"She's fine. She works for Mrs. Gardener at the hotel now. She's -housekeeper. Mrs. Gardener's health is n't what it was, and she can't see -after everything like she used to. She has great confidence in Tony. -Tony's made it up with the Harlings, too. Little Nina is so fond of her -that Mrs. Harling kind of overlooked things." - -"Is she still going with Larry Donovan?" - -"Oh, that's on, worse than ever! I guess they're engaged. Tony talks about -him like he was president of the railroad. Everybody laughs about it, -because she was never a girl to be soft. She won't hear a word against -him. She's so sort of innocent." - -I said I did n't like Larry, and never would. - -Lena's face dimpled. "Some of us could tell her things, but it would n't -do any good. She'd always believe him. That's 聲tonia's failing, you know; -if she once likes people, she won't hear anything against them." - -"I think I'd better go home and look after 聲tonia," I said. - -"I think you had." Lena looked up at me in frank amusement. "It's a good -thing the Harlings are friendly with her again. Larry's afraid of them. -They ship so much grain, they have influence with the railroad people. -What are you studying?" She leaned her elbows on the table and drew my -book toward her. I caught a faint odor of violet sachet. "So that's Latin, -is it? It looks hard. You do go to the theater sometimes, though, for I've -seen you there. Don't you just love a good play, Jim? I can't stay at home -in the evening if there's one in town. I'd be willing to work like a -slave, it seems to me, to live in a place where there are theaters." - -"Let's go to a show together sometime. You are going to let me come to see -you, are n't you?" - -"Would you like to? I'd be ever so pleased. I'm never busy after six -o'clock, and I let my sewing girls go at half-past five. I board, to save -time, but sometimes I cook a chop for myself, and I'd be glad to cook one -for you. Well,"--she began to put on her white gloves,--"it's been awful -good to see you, Jim." - -"You need n't hurry, need you? You've hardly told me anything yet." - -"We can talk when you come to see me. I expect you don't often have lady -visitors. The old woman downstairs did n't want to let me come up very -much. I told her I was from your home town, and had promised your -grandmother to come and see you. How surprised Mrs. Burden would be!" Lena -laughed softly as she rose. - -When I caught up my hat she shook her head. "No, I don't want you to go -with me. I'm to meet some Swedes at the drug-store. You would n't care for -them. I wanted to see your room so I could write Tony all about it, but I -must tell her how I left you right here with your books. She's always so -afraid some one will run off with you!" Lena slipped her silk sleeves into -the jacket I held for her, smoothed it over her person, and buttoned it -slowly. I walked with her to the door. "Come and see me sometimes when -you're lonesome. But maybe you have all the friends you want. Have you?" -She turned her soft cheek to me. "Have you?" she whispered teasingly in my -ear. In a moment I watched her fade down the dusky stairway. - - - -When I turned back to my room the place seemed much pleasanter than -before. Lena had left something warm and friendly in the lamplight. How I -loved to hear her laugh again! It was so soft and unexcited and -appreciative--gave a favorable interpretation to everything. When I closed -my eyes I could hear them all laughing--the Danish laundry girls and the -three Bohemian Marys. Lena had brought them all back to me. It came over -me, as it had never done before, the relation between girls like those and -the poetry of Virgil. If there were no girls like them in the world, there -would be no poetry. I understood that clearly, for the first time. This -revelation seemed to me inestimably precious. I clung to it as if it might -suddenly vanish. - -As I sat down to my book at last, my old dream about Lena coming across -the harvest field in her short skirt seemed to me like the memory of an -actual experience. It floated before me on the page like a picture, and -underneath it stood the mournful line: Optima dies {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} prima fugit. - - - - -III - - -IN Lincoln the best part of the theatrical season came late, when the good -companies stopped off there for one-night stands, after their long runs in -New York and Chicago. That spring Lena went with me to see Joseph -Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle," and to a war play called "Shenandoah." She -was inflexible about paying for her own seat; said she was in business -now, and she would n't have a schoolboy spending his money on her. I liked -to watch a play with Lena; everything was wonderful to her, and everything -was true. It was like going to revival meetings with some one who was -always being converted. She handed her feelings over to the actors with a -kind of fatalistic resignation. Accessories of costume and scene meant -much more to her than to me. She sat entranced through "Robin Hood" and -hung upon the lips of the contralto who sang, "Oh, Promise Me!" - -Toward the end of April, the billboards, which I watched anxiously in -those days, bloomed out one morning with gleaming white posters on which -two names were impressively printed in blue Gothic letters: the name of an -actress of whom I had often heard, and the name "Camille." - -I called at the Raleigh Block for Lena on Saturday evening, and we walked -down to the theater. The weather was warm and sultry and put us both in a -holiday humor. We arrived early, because Lena liked to watch the people -come in. There was a note on the programme, saying that the "incidental -music" would be from the opera "Traviata," which was made from the same -story as the play. We had neither of us read the play, and we did not know -what it was about--though I seemed to remember having heard it was a piece -in which great actresses shone. "The Count of Monte Cristo," which I had -seen James O'Neill play that winter, was by the only Alexandre Dumas I -knew. This play, I saw, was by his son, and I expected a family -resemblance. A couple of jack-rabbits, run in off the prairie, could not -have been more innocent of what awaited them than were Lena and I. - -Our excitement began with the rise of the curtain, when the moody -Varville, seated before the fire, interrogated Nanine. Decidedly, there -was a new tang about this dialogue. I had never heard in the theater lines -that were alive, that presupposed and took for granted, like those which -passed between Varville and Marguerite in the brief encounter before her -friends entered. This introduced the most brilliant, worldly, the most -enchantingly gay scene I had ever looked upon. I had never seen champagne -bottles opened on the stage before--indeed, I had never seen them opened -anywhere. The memory of that supper makes me hungry now; the sight of it -then, when I had only a students' boarding-house dinner behind me, was -delicate torment. I seem to remember gilded chairs and tables (arranged -hurriedly by footmen in white gloves and stockings), linen of dazzling -whiteness, glittering glass, silver dishes, a great bowl of fruit, and the -reddest of roses. The room was invaded by beautiful women and dashing -young men, laughing and talking together. The men were dressed more or -less after the period in which the play was written; the women were not. I -saw no inconsistency. Their talk seemed to open to one the brilliant world -in which they lived; every sentence made one older and wiser, every -pleasantry enlarged one's horizon. One could experience excess and satiety -without the inconvenience of learning what to do with one's hands in a -drawing-room! When the characters all spoke at once and I missed some of -the phrases they flashed at each other, I was in misery. I strained my -ears and eyes to catch every exclamation. - -The actress who played Marguerite was even then old-fashioned, though -historic. She had been a member of Daly's famous New York company, and -afterward a "star" under his direction. She was a woman who could not be -taught, it is said, though she had a crude natural force which carried -with people whose feelings were accessible and whose taste was not -squeamish. She was already old, with a ravaged countenance and a physique -curiously hard and stiff. She moved with difficulty--I think she was lame--I -seem to remember some story about a malady of the spine. Her Armand was -disproportionately young and slight, a handsome youth, perplexed in the -extreme. But what did it matter? I believed devoutly in her power to -fascinate him, in her dazzling loveliness. I believed her young, ardent, -reckless, disillusioned, under sentence, feverish, avid of pleasure. I -wanted to cross the footlights and help the slim-waisted Armand in the -frilled shirt to convince her that there was still loyalty and devotion in -the world. Her sudden illness, when the gayety was at its height, her -pallor, the handkerchief she crushed against her lips, the cough she -smothered under the laughter while Gaston kept playing the piano -lightly--it all wrung my heart. But not so much as her cynicism in the long -dialogue with her lover which followed. How far was I from questioning her -unbelief! While the charmingly sincere young man pleaded with -her--accompanied by the orchestra in the old "Traviata" duet, "misterioso, -misterioso!"--she maintained her bitter skepticism, and the curtain fell on -her dancing recklessly with the others, after Armand had been sent away -with his flower. - -Between the acts we had no time to forget. The orchestra kept sawing away -at the "Traviata" music, so joyous and sad, so thin and far-away, so -clap-trap and yet so heart-breaking. After the second act I left Lena in -tearful contemplation of the ceiling, and went out into the lobby to -smoke. As I walked about there I congratulated myself that I had not -brought some Lincoln girl who would talk during the waits about the Junior -dances, or whether the cadets would camp at Plattsmouth. Lena was at least -a woman, and I was a man. - -Through the scene between Marguerite and the elder Duval, Lena wept -unceasingly, and I sat helpless to prevent the closing of that chapter of -idyllic love, dreading the return of the young man whose ineffable -happiness was only to be the measure of his fall. - -I suppose no woman could have been further in person, voice, and -temperament from Dumas' appealing heroine than the veteran actress who -first acquainted me with her. Her conception of the character was as heavy -and uncompromising as her diction; she bore hard on the idea and on the -consonants. At all times she was highly tragic, devoured by remorse. -Lightness of stress or behavior was far from her. Her voice was heavy and -deep: "Ar-r-r-mond!" she would begin, as if she were summoning him to the -bar of Judgment. But the lines were enough. She had only to utter them. -They created the character in spite of her. - -The heartless world which Marguerite re-entered with Varville had never -been so glittering and reckless as on the night when it gathered in -Olympe's salon for the fourth act. There were chandeliers hung from the -ceiling, I remember, many servants in livery, gaming-tables where the men -played with piles of gold, and a staircase down which the guests made -their entrance. After all the others had gathered round the card tables, -and young Duval had been warned by Prudence, Marguerite descended the -staircase with Varville; such a cloak, such a fan, such jewels--and her -face! One knew at a glance how it was with her. When Armand, with the -terrible words, "Look, all of you, I owe this woman nothing!" flung the -gold and bank-notes at the half-swooning Marguerite, Lena cowered beside -me and covered her face with her hands. - -The curtain rose on the bedroom scene. By this time there was n't a nerve -in me that had n't been twisted. Nanine alone could have made me cry. I -loved Nanine tenderly; and Gaston, how one clung to that good fellow! The -New Year's presents were not too much; nothing could be too much now. I -wept unrestrainedly. Even the handkerchief in my breast-pocket, worn for -elegance and not at all for use, was wet through by the time that moribund -woman sank for the last time into the arms of her lover. - -When we reached the door of the theater, the streets were shining with -rain. I had prudently brought along Mrs. Harling's useful Commencement -present, and I took Lena home under its shelter. After leaving her, I -walked slowly out into the country part of the town where I lived. The -lilacs were all blooming in the yards, and the smell of them after the -rain, of the new leaves and the blossoms together, blew into my face with -a sort of bitter sweetness. I tramped through the puddles and under the -showery trees, mourning for Marguerite Gauthier as if she had died only -yesterday, sighing with the spirit of 1840, which had sighed so much, and -which had reached me only that night, across long years and several -languages, through the person of an infirm old actress. The idea is one -that no circumstances can frustrate. Wherever and whenever that piece is -put on, it is April. - - - - -IV - - -HOW well I remember the stiff little parlor where I used to wait for Lena: -the hard horsehair furniture, bought at some auction sale, the long -mirror, the fashion-plates on the wall. If I sat down even for a moment I -was sure to find threads and bits of colored silk clinging to my clothes -after I went away. Lena's success puzzled me. She was so easy-going; had -none of the push and self-assertiveness that get people ahead in business. -She had come to Lincoln, a country girl, with no introductions except to -some cousins of Mrs. Thomas who lived there, and she was already making -clothes for the women of "the young married set." She evidently had great -natural aptitude for her work. She knew, as she said, "what people looked -well in." She never tired of poring over fashion books. Sometimes in the -evening I would find her alone in her work-room, draping folds of satin on -a wire figure, with a quite blissful expression of countenance. I could -n't help thinking that the years when Lena literally had n't enough -clothes to cover herself might have something to do with her untiring -interest in dressing the human figure. Her clients said that Lena "had -style," and overlooked her habitual inaccuracies. She never, I discovered, -finished anything by the time she had promised, and she frequently spent -more money on materials than her customer had authorized. Once, when I -arrived at six o'clock, Lena was ushering out a fidgety mother and her -awkward, overgrown daughter. The woman detained Lena at the door to say -apologetically:-- - -"You'll try to keep it under fifty for me, won't you, Miss Lingard? You -see, she's really too young to come to an expensive dressmaker, but I knew -you could do more with her than anybody else." - -"Oh, that will be all right, Mrs. Herron. I think we'll manage to get a -good effect," Lena replied blandly. - -I thought her manner with her customers very good, and wondered where she -had learned such self-possession. - -Sometimes after my morning classes were over, I used to encounter Lena -downtown, in her velvet suit and a little black hat, with a veil tied -smoothly over her face, looking as fresh as the spring morning. Maybe she -would be carrying home a bunch of jonquils or a hyacinth plant. When we -passed a candy store her footsteps would hesitate and linger. "Don't let -me go in," she would murmur. "Get me by if you can." She was very fond of -sweets, and was afraid of growing too plump. - -We had delightful Sunday breakfasts together at Lena's. At the back of her -long work-room was a bay-window, large enough to hold a box-couch and a -reading-table. We breakfasted in this recess, after drawing the curtains -that shut out the long room, with cutting-tables and wire women and -sheet-draped garments on the walls. The sunlight poured in, making -everything on the table shine and glitter and the flame of the alcohol -lamp disappear altogether. Lena's curly black water-spaniel, Prince, -breakfasted with us. He sat beside her on the couch and behaved very well -until the Polish violin-teacher across the hall began to practice, when -Prince would growl and sniff the air with disgust. Lena's landlord, old -Colonel Raleigh, had given her the dog, and at first she was not at all -pleased. She had spent too much of her life taking care of animals to have -much sentiment about them. But Prince was a knowing little beast, and she -grew fond of him. After breakfast I made him do his lessons; play dead -dog, shake hands, stand up like a soldier. We used to put my cadet cap on -his head--I had to take military drill at the University--and give him a -yard-measure to hold with his front leg. His gravity made us laugh -immoderately. - -Lena's talk always amused me. 聲tonia had never talked like the people -about her. Even after she learned to speak English readily there was -always something impulsive and foreign in her speech. But Lena had picked -up all the conventional expressions she heard at Mrs. Thomas's dressmaking -shop. Those formal phrases, the very flower of small-town proprieties, and -the flat commonplaces, nearly all hypocritical in their origin, became -very funny, very engaging, when they were uttered in Lena's soft voice, -with her caressing intonation and arch na鴳et. Nothing could be more -diverting than to hear Lena, who was almost as candid as Nature, call a -leg a "limb" or a house a "home." - -We used to linger a long while over our coffee in that sunny corner. Lena -was never so pretty as in the morning; she wakened fresh with the world -every day, and her eyes had a deeper color then, like the blue flowers -that are never so blue as when they first open. I could sit idle all -through a Sunday morning and look at her. Ole Benson's behavior was now no -mystery to me. - -"There was never any harm in Ole," she said once. "People need n't have -troubled themselves. He just liked to come over and sit on the draw-side -and forget about his bad luck. I liked to have him. Any company's welcome -when you're off with cattle all the time." - -"But was n't he always glum?" I asked. "People said he never talked at -all." - -"Sure he talked, in Norwegian. He'd been a sailor on an English boat and -had seen lots of queer places. He had wonderful tattoos. We used to sit -and look at them for hours; there was n't much to look at out there. He -was like a picture book. He had a ship and a strawberry girl on one arm, -and on the other a girl standing before a little house, with a fence and -gate and all, waiting for her sweetheart. Farther up his arm, her sailor -had come back and was kissing her. 'The Sailor's Return,' he called it." - -I admitted it was no wonder Ole liked to look at a pretty girl once in a -while, with such a fright at home. - -"You know," Lena said confidentially, "he married Mary because he thought -she was strong-minded and would keep him straight. He never could keep -straight on shore. The last time he landed in Liverpool he'd been out on a -two years' voyage. He was paid off one morning, and by the next he had n't -a cent left, and his watch and compass were gone. He'd got with some -women, and they'd taken everything. He worked his way to this country on a -little passenger boat. Mary was a stewardess, and she tried to convert him -on the way over. He thought she was just the one to keep him steady. Poor -Ole! He used to bring me candy from town, hidden in his feed-bag. He could -n't refuse anything to a girl. He'd have given away his tattoos long ago, -if he could. He's one of the people I'm sorriest for." - -If I happened to spend an evening with Lena and stayed late, the Polish -violin-teacher across the hall used to come out and watch me descend the -stairs, muttering so threateningly that it would have been easy to fall -into a quarrel with him. Lena had told him once that she liked to hear him -practice, so he always left his door open, and watched who came and went. - -There was a coolness between the Pole and Lena's landlord on her account. -Old Colonel Raleigh had come to Lincoln from Kentucky and invested an -inherited fortune in real estate, at the time of inflated prices. Now he -sat day after day in his office in the Raleigh Block, trying to discover -where his money had gone and how he could get some of it back. He was a -widower, and found very little congenial companionship in this casual -Western city. Lena's good looks and gentle manners appealed to him. He -said her voice reminded him of Southern voices, and he found as many -opportunities of hearing it as possible. He painted and papered her rooms -for her that spring, and put in a porcelain bathtub in place of the tin -one that had satisfied the former tenant. While these repairs were being -made, the old gentleman often dropped in to consult Lena's preferences. -She told me with amusement how Ordinsky, the Pole, had presented himself -at her door one evening, and said that if the landlord was annoying her by -his attentions, he would promptly put a stop to it. - -"I don't exactly know what to do about him," she said, shaking her head, -"he's so sort of wild all the time. I would n't like to have him say -anything rough to that nice old man. The Colonel is long-winded, but then -I expect he's lonesome. I don't think he cares much for Ordinsky, either. -He said once that if I had any complaints to make of my neighbors, I must -n't hesitate." - -One Saturday evening when I was having supper with Lena we heard a knock -at her parlor door, and there stood the Pole, coatless, in a dress shirt -and collar. Prince dropped on his paws and began to growl like a mastiff, -while the visitor apologized, saying that he could not possibly come in -thus attired, but he begged Lena to lend him some safety pins. - -"Oh, you'll have to come in, Mr. Ordinsky, and let me see what's the -matter." She closed the door behind him. "Jim, won't you make Prince -behave?" - -I rapped Prince on the nose, while Ordinsky explained that he had not had -his dress clothes on for a long time, and to-night, when he was going to -play for a concert, his waistcoat had split down the back. He thought he -could pin it together until he got it to a tailor. - -Lena took him by the elbow and turned him round. She laughed when she saw -the long gap in the satin. "You could never pin that, Mr. Ordinsky. You've -kept it folded too long, and the goods is all gone along the crease. Take -it off. I can put a new piece of lining-silk in there for you in ten -minutes." She disappeared into her work-room with the vest, leaving me to -confront the Pole, who stood against the door like a wooden figure. He -folded his arms and glared at me with his excitable, slanting brown eyes. -His head was the shape of a chocolate drop, and was covered with dry, -straw-colored hair that fuzzed up about his pointed crown. He had never -done more than mutter at me as I passed him, and I was surprised when he -now addressed me. - -"Miss Lingard," he said haughtily, "is a young woman for whom I have the -utmost, the utmost respect." - -"So have I," I said coldly. - -He paid no heed to my remark, but began to do rapid finger-exercises on -his shirt-sleeves, as he stood with tightly folded arms. - -"Kindness of heart," he went on, staring at the ceiling, "sentiment, are -not understood in a place like this. The noblest qualities are ridiculed. -Grinning college boys, ignorant and conceited, what do they know of -delicacy!" - -I controlled my features and tried to speak seriously. - -"If you mean me, Mr. Ordinsky, I have known Miss Lingard a long time, and -I think I appreciate her kindness. We come from the same town, and we grew -up together." - -His gaze traveled slowly down from the ceiling and rested on me. "Am I to -understand that you have this young woman's interests at heart? That you -do not wish to compromise her?" - -"That's a word we don't use much here, Mr. Ordinsky. A girl who makes her -own living can ask a college boy to supper without being talked about. We -take some things for granted." - -"Then I have misjudged you, and I ask your pardon,"--he bowed gravely. -"Miss Lingard," he went on, "is an absolutely trustful heart. She has not -learned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige,"--he -watched me narrowly. - -Lena returned with the vest. "Come in and let us look at you as you go -out, Mr. Ordinsky. I've never seen you in your dress suit," she said as -she opened the door for him. - -A few moments later he reappeared with his violin case--a heavy muffler -about his neck and thick woolen gloves on his bony hands. Lena spoke -encouragingly to him, and he went off with such an important, professional -air, that we fell to laughing as soon as we had shut the door. "Poor -fellow," Lena said indulgently, "he takes everything so hard." - -After that Ordinsky was friendly to me, and behaved as if there were some -deep understanding between us. He wrote a furious article, attacking the -musical taste of the town, and asked me to do him a great service by -taking it to the editor of the morning paper. If the editor refused to -print it, I was to tell him that he would be answerable to Ordinsky "in -person." He declared that he would never retract one word, and that he was -quite prepared to lose all his pupils. In spite of the fact that nobody -ever mentioned his article to him after it appeared--full of typographical -errors which he thought intentional--he got a certain satisfaction from -believing that the citizens of Lincoln had meekly accepted the epithet -"coarse barbarians." "You see how it is," he said to me, "where there is -no chivalry, there is no amour propre." When I met him on his rounds now, -I thought he carried his head more disdainfully than ever, and strode up -the steps of front porches and rang doorbells with more assurance. He told -Lena he would never forget how I had stood by him when he was "under -fire." - -All this time, of course, I was drifting. Lena had broken up my serious -mood. I was n't interested in my classes. I played with Lena and Prince, I -played with the Pole, I went buggy-riding with the old Colonel, who had -taken a fancy to me and used to talk to me about Lena and the "great -beauties" he had known in his youth. We were all three in love with Lena. - -Before the first of June, Gaston Cleric was offered an instructorship at -Harvard College, and accepted it. He suggested that I should follow him in -the fall, and complete my course at Harvard. He had found out about -Lena--not from me--and he talked to me seriously. - -"You won't do anything here now. You should either quit school and go to -work, or change your college and begin again in earnest. You won't recover -yourself while you are playing about with this handsome Norwegian. Yes, -I've seen her with you at the theater. She's very pretty, and perfectly -irresponsible, I should judge." - -Cleric wrote my grandfather that he would like to take me East with him. -To my astonishment, grandfather replied that I might go if I wished. I was -both glad and sorry on the day when the letter came. I stayed in my room -all evening and thought things over; I even tried to persuade myself that -I was standing in Lena's way--it is so necessary to be a little noble!--and -that if she had not me to play with, she would probably marry and secure -her future. - -The next evening I went to call on Lena. I found her propped up on the -couch in her bay window, with her foot in a big slipper. An awkward little -Russian girl whom she had taken into her work-room had dropped a flat-iron -on Lena's toe. On the table beside her there was a basket of early summer -flowers which the Pole had left after he heard of the accident. He always -managed to know what went on in Lena's apartment. - -Lena was telling me some amusing piece of gossip about one of her clients, -when I interrupted her and picked up the flower basket. - -"This old chap will be proposing to you some day, Lena." - -"Oh, he has--often!" she murmured. - -"What! After you've refused him?" - -"He does n't mind that. It seems to cheer him to mention the subject. Old -men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they're -in love with somebody." - -"The Colonel would marry you in a minute. I hope you won't marry some old -fellow; not even a rich one." - -Lena shifted her pillows and looked up at me in surprise. "Why, I'm not -going to marry anybody. Did n't you know that?" - -"Nonsense, Lena. That's what girls say, but you know better. Every -handsome girl like you marries, of course." - -She shook her head. "Not me." - -"But why not? What makes you say that?" I persisted. - -Lena laughed. "Well, it's mainly because I don't want a husband. Men are -all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky -old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible -and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer -to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody." - -"But you'll be lonesome. You'll get tired of this sort of life, and you'll -want a family." - -"Not me. I like to be lonesome. When I went to work for Mrs. Thomas I was -nineteen years old, and I had never slept a night in my life when there -were n't three in the bed. I never had a minute to myself except when I -was off with the cattle." - -Usually, when Lena referred to her life in the country at all, she -dismissed it with a single remark, humorous or mildly cynical. But -to-night her mind seemed to dwell on those early years. She told me she -could n't remember a time when she was so little that she was n't lugging -a heavy baby about, helping to wash for babies, trying to keep their -little chapped hands and faces clean. She remembered home as a place where -there were always too many children, a cross man, and work piling up -around a sick woman. - -"It was n't mother's fault. She would have made us comfortable if she -could. But that was no life for a girl! After I began to herd and milk I -could never get the smell of the cattle off me. The few underclothes I had -I kept in a cracker box. On Saturday nights, after everybody was in bed, -then I could take a bath if I was n't too tired. I could make two trips to -the windmill to carry water, and heat it in the wash-boiler on the stove. -While the water was heating, I could bring in a washtub out of the cave, -and take my bath in the kitchen. Then I could put on a clean nightgown and -get into bed with two others, who likely had n't had a bath unless I'd -given it to them. You can't tell me anything about family life. I've had -plenty to last me." - -"But it's not all like that," I objected. - -"Near enough. It's all being under somebody's thumb. What's on your mind, -Jim? Are you afraid I'll want you to marry me some day?" - -Then I told her I was going away. - -"What makes you want to go away, Jim? Have n't I been nice to you?" - -"You've been just awfully good to me, Lena," I blurted. "I don't think -about much else. I never shall think about much else while I'm with you. -I'll never settle down and grind if I stay here. You know that." I dropped -down beside her and sat looking at the floor. I seemed to have forgotten -all my reasonable explanations. - -Lena drew close to me, and the little hesitation in her voice that had -hurt me was not there when she spoke again. - -"I ought n't to have begun it, ought I?" she murmured. "I ought n't to -have gone to see you that first time. But I did want to. I guess I've -always been a little foolish about you. I don't know what first put it -into my head, unless it was 聲tonia, always telling me I must n't be up to -any of my nonsense with you. I let you alone for a long while, though, did -n't I?" - -She was a sweet creature to those she loved, that Lena Lingard! - -At last she sent me away with her soft, slow, renunciatory kiss. "You are -n't sorry I came to see you that time?" she whispered. "It seemed so -natural. I used to think I'd like to be your first sweetheart. You were -such a funny kid!" She always kissed one as if she were sadly and wisely -sending one away forever. - -We said many good-byes before I left Lincoln, but she never tried to -hinder me or hold me back. "You are going, but you have n't gone yet, have -you?" she used to say. - -My Lincoln chapter closed abruptly. I went home to my grandparents for a -few weeks, and afterward visited my relatives in Virginia until I joined -Cleric in Boston. I was then nineteen years old. - - - - - -BOOK IV--THE PIONEER WOMAN'S STORY - - - - -I - - -TWO years after I left Lincoln I completed my academic course at Harvard. -Before I entered the Law School I went home for the summer vacation. On -the night of my arrival Mrs. Harling and Frances and Sally came over to -greet me. Everything seemed just as it used to be. My grandparents looked -very little older. Frances Harling was married now, and she and her -husband managed the Harling interests in Black Hawk. When we gathered in -grandmother's parlor, I could hardly believe that I had been away at all. -One subject, however, we avoided all evening. - -When I was walking home with Frances, after we had left Mrs. Harling at -her gate, she said simply, "You know, of course, about poor 聲tonia." - -Poor 聲tonia! Every one would be saying that now, I thought bitterly. I -replied that grandmother had written me how 聲tonia went away to marry -Larry Donovan at some place where he was working; that he had deserted -her, and that there was now a baby. This was all I knew. - -"He never married her," Frances said. "I have n't seen her since she came -back. She lives at home, on the farm, and almost never comes to town. She -brought the baby in to show it to mama once. I'm afraid she's settled down -to be Ambrosch's drudge for good." - -I tried to shut 聲tonia out of my mind. I was bitterly disappointed in -her. I could not forgive her for becoming an object of pity, while Lena -Lingard, for whom people had always foretold trouble, was now the leading -dressmaker of Lincoln, much respected in Black Hawk. Lena gave her heart -away when she felt like it, but she kept her head for her business and had -got on in the world. - -Just then it was the fashion to speak indulgently of Lena and severely of -Tiny Soderball, who had quietly gone West to try her fortune the year -before. A Black Hawk boy, just back from Seattle, brought the news that -Tiny had not gone to the coast on a venture, as she had allowed people to -think, but with very definite plans. One of the roving promoters that used -to stop at Mrs. Gardener's hotel owned idle property along the water-front -in Seattle, and he had offered to set Tiny up in business in one of his -empty buildings. She was now conducting a sailors' lodging-house. This, -every one said, would be the end of Tiny. Even if she had begun by running -a decent place, she could n't keep it up; all sailors' boarding-houses -were alike. - -When I thought about it, I discovered that I had never known Tiny as well -as I knew the other girls. I remembered her tripping briskly about the -dining-room on her high heels, carrying a big tray full of dishes, -glancing rather pertly at the spruce traveling men, and contemptuously at -the scrubby ones--who were so afraid of her that they did n't dare to ask -for two kinds of pie. Now it occurred to me that perhaps the sailors, too, -might be afraid of Tiny. How astonished we would have been, as we sat -talking about her on Frances Harling's front porch, if we could have known -what her future was really to be! Of all the girls and boys who grew up -together in Black Hawk, Tiny Soderball was to lead the most adventurous -life and to achieve the most solid worldly success. - -This is what actually happened to Tiny: While she was running her -lodging-house in Seattle, gold was discovered in Alaska. Miners and -sailors came back from the North with wonderful stories and pouches of -gold. Tiny saw it and weighed it in her hands. That daring which nobody -had ever suspected in her, awoke. She sold her business and set out for -Circle City, in company with a carpenter and his wife whom she had -persuaded to go along with her. They reached Skaguay in a snowstorm, went -in dog sledges over the Chilkoot Pass, and shot the Yukon in flatboats. -They reached Circle City on the very day when some Siwash Indians came -into the settlement with the report that there had been a rich gold strike -farther up the river, on a certain Klondike Creek. Two days later Tiny and -her friends, and nearly every one else in Circle City, started for the -Klondike fields on the last steamer that went up the Yukon before it froze -for the winter. That boatload of people founded Dawson City. Within a few -weeks there were fifteen hundred homeless men in camp. Tiny and the -carpenter's wife began to cook for them, in a tent. The miners gave her a -lot, and the carpenter put up a log hotel for her. There she sometimes fed -a hundred and fifty men a day. Miners came in on snowshoes from their -placer claims twenty miles away to buy fresh bread from her, and paid for -it in gold. - -That winter Tiny kept in her hotel a Swede whose legs had been frozen one -night in a storm when he was trying to find his way back to his cabin. The -poor fellow thought it great good fortune to be cared for by a woman, and -a woman who spoke his own tongue. When he was told that his feet must be -amputated, he said he hoped he would not get well; what could a -working-man do in this hard world without feet? He did, in fact, die from -the operation, but not before he had deeded Tiny Soderball his claim on -Hunker Creek. Tiny sold her hotel, invested half her money in Dawson -building lots, and with the rest she developed her claim. She went off -into the wilds and lived on it. She bought other claims from discouraged -miners, traded or sold them on percentages. - -After nearly ten years in the Klondike, Tiny returned, with a considerable -fortune, to live in San Francisco. I met her in Salt Lake City in 1908. -She was a thin, hard-faced woman, very well-dressed, very reserved in -manner. Curiously enough, she reminded me of Mrs. Gardener, for whom she -had worked in Black Hawk so long ago. She told me about some of the -desperate chances she had taken in the gold country, but the thrill of -them was quite gone. She said frankly that nothing interested her much now -but making money. The only two human beings of whom she spoke with any -feeling were the Swede, Johnson, who had given her his claim, and Lena -Lingard. She had persuaded Lena to come to San Francisco and go into -business there. - -"Lincoln was never any place for her," Tiny remarked. "In a town of that -size Lena would always be gossiped about. Frisco's the right field for -her. She has a fine class of trade. Oh, she's just the same as she always -was! She's careless, but she's level-headed. She's the only person I know -who never gets any older. It's fine for me to have her there; somebody who -enjoys things like that. She keeps an eye on me and won't let me be -shabby. When she thinks I need a new dress, she makes it and sends it -home--with a bill that's long enough, I can tell you!" - -Tiny limped slightly when she walked. The claim on Hunker Creek took toll -from its possessors. Tiny had been caught in a sudden turn of weather, -like poor Johnson. She lost three toes from one of those pretty little -feet that used to trip about Black Hawk in pointed slippers and striped -stockings. Tiny mentioned this mutilation quite casually--did n't seem -sensitive about it. She was satisfied with her success, but not elated. -She was like some one in whom the faculty of becoming interested is worn -out. - - - - -II - - -SOON after I got home that summer I persuaded my grandparents to have -their photographs taken, and one morning I went into the photographer's -shop to arrange for sittings. While I was waiting for him to come out of -his developing-room, I walked about trying to recognize the likenesses on -his walls: girls in Commencement dresses, country brides and grooms -holding hands, family groups of three generations. I noticed, in a heavy -frame, one of those depressing "crayon enlargements" often seen in -farmhouse parlors, the subject being a round-eyed baby in short dresses. -The photographer came out and gave a constrained, apologetic laugh. - -"That's Tony Shimerda's baby. You remember her; she used to be the -Harling's Tony. Too bad! She seems proud of the baby, though; would n't -hear to a cheap frame for the picture. I expect her brother will be in for -it Saturday." - -I went away feeling that I must see 聲tonia again. Another girl would have -kept her baby out of sight, but Tony, of course, must have its picture on -exhibition at the town photographer's, in a great gilt frame. How like -her! I could forgive her, I told myself, if she had n't thrown herself -away on such a cheap sort of fellow. - -Larry Donovan was a passenger conductor, one of those train-crew -aristocrats who are always afraid that some one may ask them to put up a -car-window, and who, if requested to perform such a menial service, -silently point to the button that calls the porter. Larry wore this air of -official aloofness even on the street, where there were no car-windows to -compromise his dignity. At the end of his run he stepped indifferently -from the train along with the passengers, his street hat on his head and -his conductor's cap in an alligator-skin bag, went directly into the -station and changed his clothes. It was a matter of the utmost importance -to him never to be seen in his blue trousers away from his train. He was -usually cold and distant with men, but with all women he had a silent, -grave familiarity, a special handshake, accompanied by a significant, -deliberate look. He took women, married or single, into his confidence; -walked them up and down in the moonlight, telling them what a mistake he -had made by not entering the office branch of the service, and how much -better fitted he was to fill the post of General Passenger Agent in Denver -than the roughshod man who then bore that title. His unappreciated worth -was the tender secret Larry shared with his sweethearts, and he was always -able to make some foolish heart ache over it. - -As I drew near home that morning, I saw Mrs. Harling out in her yard, -digging round her mountain-ash tree. It was a dry summer, and she had now -no boy to help her. Charley was off in his battleship, cruising somewhere -on the Caribbean sea. I turned in at the gate--it was with a feeling of -pleasure that I opened and shut that gate in those days; I liked the feel -of it under my hand. I took the spade away from Mrs. Harling, and while I -loosened the earth around the tree, she sat down on the steps and talked -about the oriole family that had a nest in its branches. - -"Mrs. Harling," I said presently, "I wish I could find out exactly how -聲tonia's marriage fell through." - -"Why don't you go out and see your grandfather's tenant, the Widow -Steavens? She knows more about it than anybody else. She helped 聲tonia -get ready to be married, and she was there when 聲tonia came back. She -took care of her when the baby was born. She could tell you everything. -Besides, the Widow Steavens is a good talker, and she has a remarkable -memory." - - - - -III - - -ON the first or second day of August I got a horse and cart and set out -for the high country, to visit the Widow Steavens. The wheat harvest was -over, and here and there along the horizon I could see black puffs of -smoke from the steam thrashing-machines. The old pasture land was now -being broken up into wheatfields and cornfields, the red grass was -disappearing, and the whole face of the country was changing. There were -wooden houses where the old sod dwellings used to be, and little orchards, -and big red barns; all this meant happy children, contented women, and men -who saw their lives coming to a fortunate issue. The windy springs and the -blazing summers, one after another, had enriched and mellowed that flat -tableland; all the human effort that had gone into it was coming back in -long, sweeping lines of fertility. The changes seemed beautiful and -harmonious to me; it was like watching the growth of a great man or of a -great idea. I recognized every tree and sandbank and rugged draw. I found -that I remembered the conformation of the land as one remembers the -modeling of human faces. - -When I drew up to our old windmill, the Widow Steavens came out to meet -me. She was brown as an Indian woman, tall, and very strong. When I was -little, her massive head had always seemed to me like a Roman senator's. I -told her at once why I had come. - -"You'll stay the night with us, Jimmy? I'll talk to you after supper. I -can take more interest when my work is off my mind. You've no prejudice -against hot biscuit for supper? Some have, these days." - -While I was putting my horse away I heard a rooster squawking. I looked at -my watch and sighed; it was three o'clock, and I knew that I must eat him -at six. - -After supper Mrs. Steavens and I went upstairs to the old sitting-room, -while her grave, silent brother remained in the basement to read his farm -papers. All the windows were open. The white summer moon was shining -outside, the windmill was pumping lazily in the light breeze. My hostess -put the lamp on a stand in the corner, and turned it low because of the -heat. She sat down in her favorite rocking-chair and settled a little -stool comfortably under her tired feet. "I'm troubled with callouses, Jim; -getting old," she sighed cheerfully. She crossed her hands in her lap and -sat as if she were at a meeting of some kind. - -"Now, it's about that dear 聲tonia you want to know? Well, you've come to -the right person. I've watched her like she'd been my own daughter. - -"When she came home to do her sewing that summer before she was to be -married, she was over here about every day. They've never had a sewing -machine at the Shimerdas', and she made all her things here. I taught her -hemstitching, and I helped her to cut and fit. She used to sit there at -that machine by the window, pedaling the life out of it--she was so -strong--and always singing them queer Bohemian songs, like she was the -happiest thing in the world. - -"'聲tonia,' I used to say, 'don't run that machine so fast. You won't -hasten the day none that way.' - -"Then she'd laugh and slow down for a little, but she'd soon forget and -begin to pedal and sing again. I never saw a girl work harder to go to -housekeeping right and well-prepared. Lovely table linen the Harlings had -given her, and Lena Lingard had sent her nice things from Lincoln. We -hemstitched all the tablecloths and pillow-cases, and some of the sheets. -Old Mrs. Shimerda knit yards and yards of lace for her underclothes. Tony -told me just how she meant to have everything in her house. She'd even -bought silver spoons and forks, and kept them in her trunk. She was always -coaxing brother to go to the post-office. Her young man did write her real -often, from the different towns along his run. - -"The first thing that troubled her was when he wrote that his run had been -changed, and they would likely have to live in Denver. 'I'm a country -girl,' she said, 'and I doubt if I'll be able to manage so well for him in -a city. I was counting on keeping chickens, and maybe a cow.' She soon -cheered up, though. - -"At last she got the letter telling her when to come. She was shaken by -it; she broke the seal and read it in this room. I suspected then that -she'd begun to get faint-hearted, waiting; though she'd never let me see -it. - -"Then there was a great time of packing. It was in March, if I remember -rightly, and a terrible muddy, raw spell, with the roads bad for hauling -her things to town. And here let me say, Ambrosch did the right thing. He -went to Black Hawk and bought her a set of plated silver in a purple -velvet box, good enough for her station. He gave her three hundred dollars -in money; I saw the check. He'd collected her wages all those first years -she worked out, and it was but right. I shook him by the hand in this -room. 'You're behaving like a man, Ambrosch,' I said, 'and I'm glad to see -it, son.' - -"'T was a cold, raw day he drove her and her three trunks into Black Hawk -to take the night train for Denver--the boxes had been shipped before. He -stopped the wagon here, and she ran in to tell me good-bye. She threw her -arms around me and kissed me, and thanked me for all I'd done for her. She -was so happy she was crying and laughing at the same time, and her red -cheeks was all wet with rain. - -"'You're surely handsome enough for any man,' I said, looking her over. - -"She laughed kind of flighty like, and whispered, 'Good-bye, dear house!' -and then ran out to the wagon. I expect she meant that for you and your -grandmother, as much as for me, so I'm particular to tell you. This house -had always been a refuge to her. - -"Well, in a few days we had a letter saying she got to Denver safe, and he -was there to meet her. They were to be married in a few days. He was -trying to get his promotion before he married, she said. I did n't like -that, but I said nothing. The next week Yulka got a postal card, saying -she was 'well and happy.' After that we heard nothing. A month went by, -and old Mrs. Shimerda began to get fretful. Ambrosch was as sulky with me -as if I'd picked out the man and arranged the match. - -"One night brother William came in and said that on his way back from the -fields he had passed a livery team from town, driving fast out the west -road. There was a trunk on the front seat with the driver, and another -behind. In the back seat there was a woman all bundled up; but for all her -veils, he thought 't was 聲tonia Shimerda, or 聲tonia Donovan, as her name -ought now to be. - -"The next morning I got brother to drive me over. I can walk still, but my -feet ain't what they used to be, and I try to save myself. The lines -outside the Shimerdas' house was full of washing, though it was the middle -of the week. As we got nearer I saw a sight that made my heart sink--all -those underclothes we'd put so much work on, out there swinging in the -wind. Yulka came bringing a dishpanful of wrung clothes, but she darted -back into the house like she was loath to see us. When I went in, 聲tonia -was standing over the tubs, just finishing up a big washing. Mrs. Shimerda -was going about her work, talking and scolding to herself. She did n't so -much as raise her eyes. Tony wiped her hand on her apron and held it out -to me, looking at me steady but mournful. When I took her in my arms she -drew away. 'Don't, Mrs. Steavens,' she says, 'you'll make me cry, and I -don't want to.' - -"I whispered and asked her to come out of doors with me. I knew she could -n't talk free before her mother. She went out with me, bareheaded, and we -walked up toward the garden. - -"'I'm not married, Mrs. Steavens,' she says to me very quiet and -natural-like, 'and I ought to be.' - -"'Oh, my child,' says I, 'what's happened to you? Don't be afraid to tell -me!' - -"She sat down on the draw-side, out of sight of the house. 'He's run away -from me,' she said. 'I don't know if he ever meant to marry me.' - -"'You mean he's thrown up his job and quit the country?' says I. - -"'He did n't have any job. He'd been fired; blacklisted for knocking down -fares. I did n't know. I thought he had n't been treated right. He was -sick when I got there. He'd just come out of the hospital. He lived with -me till my money gave out, and afterwards I found he had n't really been -hunting work at all. Then he just did n't come back. One nice fellow at -the station told me, when I kept going to look for him, to give it up. He -said he was afraid Larry'd gone bad and would n't come back any more. I -guess he's gone to Old Mexico. The conductors get rich down there, -collecting half-fares off the natives and robbing the company. He was -always talking about fellows who had got ahead that way.' - -"I asked her, of course, why she did n't insist on a civil marriage at -once--that would have given her some hold on him. She leaned her head on -her hands, poor child, and said, 'I just don't know, Mrs. Steavens. I -guess my patience was wore out, waiting so long. I thought if he saw how -well I could do for him, he'd want to stay with me.' - -"Jimmy, I sat right down on that bank beside her and made lament. I cried -like a young thing. I could n't help it. I was just about heart-broke. It -was one of them lovely warm May days, and the wind was blowing and the -colts jumping around in the pastures; but I felt bowed with despair. My -聲tonia, that had so much good in her, had come home disgraced. And that -Lena Lingard, that was always a bad one, say what you will, had turned out -so well, and was coming home here every summer in her silks and her -satins, and doing so much for her mother. I give credit where credit is -due, but you know well enough, Jim Burden, there is a great difference in -the principles of those two girls. And here it was the good one that had -come to grief! I was poor comfort to her. I marveled at her calm. As we -went back to the house, she stopped to feel of her clothes to see if they -was drying well, and seemed to take pride in their whiteness--she said -she'd been living in a brick block, where she did n't have proper -conveniences to wash them. - -"The next time I saw 聲tonia, she was out in the fields ploughing corn. -All that spring and summer she did the work of a man on the farm; it -seemed to be an understood thing. Ambrosch did n't get any other hand to -help him. Poor Marek had got violent and been sent away to an institution -a good while back. We never even saw any of Tony's pretty dresses. She did -n't take them out of her trunks. She was quiet and steady. Folks respected -her industry and tried to treat her as if nothing had happened. They -talked, to be sure; but not like they would if she'd put on airs. She was -so crushed and quiet that nobody seemed to want to humble her. She never -went anywhere. All that summer she never once came to see me. At first I -was hurt, but I got to feel that it was because this house reminded her of -too much. I went over there when I could, but the times when she was in -from the fields were the times when I was busiest here. She talked about -the grain and the weather as if she'd never had another interest, and if I -went over at night she always looked dead weary. She was afflicted with -toothache; one tooth after another ulcerated, and she went about with her -face swollen half the time. She would n't go to Black Hawk to a dentist -for fear of meeting people she knew. Ambrosch had got over his good spell -long ago, and was always surly. Once I told him he ought not to let -聲tonia work so hard and pull herself down. He said, 'If you put that in -her head, you better stay home.' And after that I did. - -"聲tonia worked on through harvest and thrashing, though she was too -modest to go out thrashing for the neighbors, like when she was young and -free. I did n't see much of her until late that fall when she begun to -herd Ambrosch's cattle in the open ground north of here, up toward the big -dog town. Sometimes she used to bring them over the west hill, there, and -I would run to meet her and walk north a piece with her. She had thirty -cattle in her bunch; it had been dry, and the pasture was short, or she -would n't have brought them so far. - -"It was a fine open fall, and she liked to be alone. While the steers -grazed, she used to sit on them grassy banks along the draws and sun -herself for hours. Sometimes I slipped up to visit with her, when she had -n't gone too far. - -"'It does seem like I ought to make lace, or knit like Lena used to,' she -said one day, 'but if I start to work, I look around and forget to go on. -It seems such a little while ago when Jim Burden and I was playing all -over this country. Up here I can pick out the very places where my father -used to stand. Sometimes I feel like I'm not going to live very long, so -I'm just enjoying every day of this fall.' - -"After the winter begun she wore a man's long overcoat and boots, and a -man's felt hat with a wide brim. I used to watch her coming and going, and -I could see that her steps were getting heavier. One day in December, the -snow began to fall. Late in the afternoon I saw 聲tonia driving her cattle -homeward across the hill. The snow was flying round her and she bent to -face it, looking more lonesome-like to me than usual. 'Deary me,' I says -to myself, 'the girl's stayed out too late. It'll be dark before she gets -them cattle put into the corral.' I seemed to sense she'd been feeling too -miserable to get up and drive them. - -"That very night, it happened. She got her cattle home, turned them into -the corral, and went into the house, into her room behind the kitchen, and -shut the door. There, without calling to anybody, without a groan, she lay -down on the bed and bore her child. - -"I was lifting supper when old Mrs. Shimerda came running down the -basement stairs, out of breath and screeching:-- - -"'Baby come, baby come!' she says. 'Ambrosch much like devil!' - -"Brother William is surely a patient man. He was just ready to sit down to -a hot supper after a long day in the fields. Without a word he rose and -went down to the barn and hooked up his team. He got us over there as -quick as it was humanly possible. I went right in, and began to do for -聲tonia; but she laid there with her eyes shut and took no account of me. -The old woman got a tubful of warm water to wash the baby. I overlooked -what she was doing and I said out loud:-- - -"'Mrs. Shimerda, don't you put that strong yellow soap near that baby. -You'll blister its little skin.' I was indignant. - - [Illustration: 聲tonia driving her cattle home] - -"'Mrs. Steavens,' 聲tonia said from the bed, 'if you'll look in the top -tray of my trunk, you'll see some fine soap.' That was the first word she -spoke. - -"After I'd dressed the baby, I took it out to show it to Ambrosch. He was -muttering behind the stove and would n't look at it. - -"'You'd better put it out in the rain barrel,' he says. - -"'Now, see here, Ambrosch,' says I, 'there's a law in this land, don't -forget that. I stand here a witness that this baby has come into the world -sound and strong, and I intend to keep an eye on what befalls it.' I pride -myself I cowed him. - -"Well, I expect you're not much interested in babies, but 聲tonia's got on -fine. She loved it from the first as dearly as if she'd had a ring on her -finger, and was never ashamed of it. It's a year and eight months old now, -and no baby was ever better cared-for. 聲tonia is a natural-born mother. I -wish she could marry and raise a family, but I don't know as there's much -chance now." - - - -I slept that night in the room I used to have when I was a little boy, -with the summer wind blowing in at the windows, bringing the smell of the -ripe fields. I lay awake and watched the moonlight shining over the barn -and the stacks and the pond, and the windmill making its old dark shadow -against the blue sky. - - - - -IV - - -THE next afternoon I walked over to the Shimerdas'. Yulka showed me the -baby and told me that 聲tonia was shocking wheat on the southwest quarter. -I went down across the fields, and Tony saw me from a long way off. She -stood still by her shocks, leaning on her pitchfork, watching me as I -came. We met like the people in the old song, in silence, if not in tears. -Her warm hand clasped mine. - -"I thought you'd come, Jim. I heard you were at Mrs. Steavens's last -night. I've been looking for you all day." - -She was thinner than I had ever seen her, and looked, as Mrs. Steavens -said, "worked down," but there was a new kind of strength in the gravity -of her face, and her color still gave her that look of deep-seated health -and ardor. Still? Why, it flashed across me that though so much had -happened in her life and in mine, she was barely twenty-four years old. - -聲tonia stuck her fork in the ground, and instinctively we walked toward -that unploughed patch at the crossing of the roads as the fittest place to -talk to each other. We sat down outside the sagging wire fence that shut -Mr. Shimerda's plot off from the rest of the world. The tall red grass had -never been cut there. It had died down in winter and come up again in the -spring until it was as thick and shrubby as some tropical garden-grass. I -found myself telling her everything: why I had decided to study law and to -go into the law office of one of my mother's relatives in New York City; -about Gaston Cleric's death from pneumonia last winter, and the difference -it had made in my life. She wanted to know about my friends and my way of -living, and my dearest hopes. - -"Of course it means you are going away from us for good," she said with a -sigh. "But that don't mean I'll lose you. Look at my papa here; he's been -dead all these years, and yet he is more real to me than almost anybody -else. He never goes out of my life. I talk to him and consult him all the -time. The older I grow, the better I know him and the more I understand -him." - -She asked me whether I had learned to like big cities. "I'd always be -miserable in a city. I'd die of lonesomeness. I like to be where I know -every stack and tree, and where all the ground is friendly. I want to live -and die here. Father Kelly says everybody's put into this world for -something, and I know what I've got to do. I'm going to see that my little -girl has a better chance than ever I had. I'm going to take care of that -girl, Jim." - -I told her I knew she would. "Do you know, 聲tonia, since I've been away, -I think of you more often than of any one else in this part of the world. -I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my -sister--anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of -my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of -times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me." - -She turned her bright, believing eyes to me, and the tears came up in them -slowly. "How can it be like that, when you know so many people, and when -I've disappointed you so? Ain't it wonderful, Jim, how much people can -mean to each other? I'm so glad we had each other when we were little. I -can't wait till my little girl's old enough to tell her about all the -things we used to do. You'll always remember me when you think about old -times, won't you? And I guess everybody thinks about old times, even the -happiest people." - -As we walked homeward across the fields, the sun dropped and lay like a -great golden globe in the low west. While it hung there, the moon rose in -the east, as big as a cartwheel, pale silver and streaked with rose color, -thin as a bubble or a ghost-moon. For five, perhaps ten minutes, the two -luminaries confronted each other across the level land, resting on -opposite edges of the world. In that singular light every little tree and -shock of wheat, every sunflower stalk and clump of snow-on-the-mountain, -drew itself up high and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields -seemed to stand up sharply. I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn -magic that comes out of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a -little boy again, and that my way could end there. - -We reached the edge of the field, where our ways parted. I took her hands -and held them against my breast, feeling once more how strong and warm and -good they were, those brown hands, and remembering how many kind things -they had done for me. I held them now a long while, over my heart. About -us it was growing darker and darker, and I had to look hard to see her -face, which I meant always to carry with me; the closest, realest face, -under all the shadows of women's faces, at the very bottom of my memory. - -"I'll come back," I said earnestly, through the soft, intrusive darkness. - -"Perhaps you will"--I felt rather than saw her smile. "But even if you -don't, you're here, like my father. So I won't be lonesome." - -As I went back alone over that familiar road, I could almost believe that -a boy and girl ran along beside me, as our shadows used to do, laughing -and whispering to each other in the grass. - - - - - -BOOK V--CUZAK'S BOYS - - - - -I - - -I TOLD 聲tonia I would come back, but life intervened, and it was twenty -years before I kept my promise. I heard of her from time to time; that she -married, very soon after I last saw her, a young Bohemian, a cousin of -Anton Jelinek; that they were poor, and had a large family. Once when I -was abroad I went into Bohemia, and from Prague I sent 聲tonia some -photographs of her native village. Months afterward came a letter from -her, telling me the names and ages of her many children, but little else; -signed, "Your old friend, 聲tonia Cuzak." When I met Tiny Soderball in -Salt Lake, she told me that 聲tonia had not "done very well"; that her -husband was not a man of much force, and she had had a hard life. Perhaps -it was cowardice that kept me away so long. My business took me West -several times every year, and it was always in the back of my mind that I -would stop in Nebraska some day and go to see 聲tonia. But I kept putting -it off until the next trip. I did not want to find her aged and broken; I -really dreaded it. In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with -many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are -realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again. - -I owe it to Lena Lingard that I went to see 聲tonia at last. I was in San -Francisco two summers ago when both Lena and Tiny Soderball were in town. -Tiny lives in a house of her own, and Lena's shop is in an apartment house -just around the corner. It interested me, after so many years, to see the -two women together. Tiny audits Lena's accounts occasionally, and invests -her money for her; and Lena, apparently, takes care that Tiny does n't -grow too miserly. "If there's anything I can't stand," she said to me in -Tiny's presence, "it's a shabby rich woman." Tiny smiled grimly and -assured me that Lena would never be either shabby or rich. "And I don't -want to be," the other agreed complacently. - -Lena gave me a cheerful account of 聲tonia and urged me to make her a -visit. - -"You really ought to go, Jim. It would be such a satisfaction to her. -Never mind what Tiny says. There's nothing the matter with Cuzak. You'd -like him. He is n't a hustler, but a rough man would never have suited -Tony. Tony has nice children--ten or eleven of them by this time, I guess. -I should n't care for a family of that size myself, but somehow it's just -right for Tony. She'd love to show them to you." - -On my way East I broke my journey at Hastings, in Nebraska, and set off -with an open buggy and a fairly good livery team to find the Cuzak farm. -At a little past midday, I knew I must be nearing my destination. Set back -on a swell of land at my right, I saw a wide farmhouse, with a red barn -and an ash grove, and cattle yards in front that sloped down to the high -road. I drew up my horses and was wondering whether I should drive in -here, when I heard low voices. Ahead of me, in a plum thicket beside the -road, I saw two boys bending over a dead dog. The little one, not more -than four or five, was on his knees, his hands folded, and his -close-clipped, bare head drooping forward in deep dejection. The other -stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, and was comforting him in a -language I had not heard for a long while. When I stopped my horses -opposite them, the older boy took his brother by the hand and came toward -me. He, too, looked grave. This was evidently a sad afternoon for them. - -"Are you Mrs. Cuzak's boys?" I asked. - -The younger one did not look up; he was submerged in his own feelings, but -his brother met me with intelligent gray eyes. "Yes, sir." - -"Does she live up there on the hill? I am going to see her. Get in and -ride up with me." - -He glanced at his reluctant little brother. "I guess we'd better walk. But -we'll open the gate for you." - -I drove along the side-road and they followed slowly behind. When I pulled -up at the windmill, another boy, barefooted and curly-headed, ran out of -the barn to tie my team for me. He was a handsome one, this chap, -fair-skinned and freckled, with red cheeks and a ruddy pelt as thick as a -lamb's wool, growing down on his neck in little tufts. He tied my team -with two flourishes of his hands, and nodded when I asked him if his -mother was at home. As he glanced at me, his face dimpled with a seizure -of irrelevant merriment, and he shot up the windmill tower with a -lightness that struck me as disdainful. I knew he was peering down at me -as I walked toward the house. - -Ducks and geese ran quacking across my path. White cats were sunning -themselves among yellow pumpkins on the porch steps. I looked through the -wire screen into a big, light kitchen with a white floor. I saw a long -table, rows of wooden chairs against the wall, and a shining range in one -corner. Two girls were washing dishes at the sink, laughing and -chattering, and a little one, in a short pinafore, sat on a stool playing -with a rag baby. When I asked for their mother, one of the girls dropped -her towel, ran across the floor with noiseless bare feet, and disappeared. -The older one, who wore shoes and stockings, came to the door to admit me. -She was a buxom girl with dark hair and eyes, calm and self-possessed. - -"Won't you come in? Mother will be here in a minute." - -Before I could sit down in the chair she offered me, the miracle happened; -one of those quiet moments that clutch the heart, and take more courage -than the noisy, excited passages in life. 聲tonia came in and stood before -me; a stalwart, brown woman, flat-chested, her curly brown hair a little -grizzled. It was a shock, of course. It always is, to meet people after -long years, especially if they have lived as much and as hard as this -woman had. We stood looking at each other. The eyes that peered anxiously -at me were--simply 聲tonia's eyes. I had seen no others like them since I -looked into them last, though I had looked at so many thousands of human -faces. As I confronted her, the changes grew less apparent to me, her -identity stronger. She was there, in the full vigor of her personality, -battered but not diminished, looking at me, speaking to me in the husky, -breathy voice I remembered so well. - -"My husband's not at home, sir. Can I do anything?" - -"Don't you remember me, 聲tonia? Have I changed so much?" - -She frowned into the slanting sunlight that made her brown hair look -redder than it was. Suddenly her eyes widened, her whole face seemed to -grow broader. She caught her breath and put out two hard-worked hands. - -"Why, it's Jim! Anna, Yulka, it's Jim Burden!" She had no sooner caught my -hands than she looked alarmed. "What's happened? Is anybody dead?" - -I patted her arm. "No. I did n't come to a funeral this time. I got off -the train at Hastings and drove down to see you and your family." - -She dropped my hand and began rushing about. "Anton, Yulka, Nina, where -are you all? Run, Anna, and hunt for the boys. They're off looking for -that dog, somewhere. And call Leo. Where is that Leo!" She pulled them out -of corners and came bringing them like a mother cat bringing in her -kittens. "You don't have to go right off, Jim? My oldest boy's not here. -He's gone with papa to the street fair at Wilber. I won't let you go! -You've got to stay and see Rudolph and our papa." She looked at me -imploringly, panting with excitement. - -While I reassured her and told her there would be plenty of time, the -barefooted boys from outside were slipping into the kitchen and gathering -about her. - -"Now, tell me their names, and how old they are." - -As she told them off in turn, she made several mistakes about ages, and -they roared with laughter. When she came to my light-footed friend of the -windmill, she said, "This is Leo, and he's old enough to be better than he -is." - -He ran up to her and butted her playfully with his curly head, like a -little ram, but his voice was quite desperate. "You've forgot! You always -forget mine. It's mean! Please tell him, mother!" He clenched his fists in -vexation and looked up at her impetuously. - -She wound her forefinger in his yellow fleece and pulled it, watching him. -"Well, how old are you?" - -"I'm twelve," he panted, looking not at me but at her; "I'm twelve years -old, and I was born on Easter day!" - -She nodded to me. "It's true. He was an Easter baby." - -The children all looked at me, as if they expected me to exhibit -astonishment or delight at this information. Clearly, they were proud of -each other, and of being so many. When they had all been introduced, Anna, -the eldest daughter, who had met me at the door, scattered them gently, -and came bringing a white apron which she tied round her mother's waist. - -"Now, mother, sit down and talk to Mr. Burden. We'll finish the dishes -quietly and not disturb you." - -聲tonia looked about, quite distracted. "Yes, child, but why don't we take -him into the parlor, now that we've got a nice parlor for company?" - -The daughter laughed indulgently, and took my hat from me. "Well, you're -here, now, mother, and if you talk here, Yulka and I can listen, too. You -can show him the parlor after while." She smiled at me, and went back to -the dishes, with her sister. The little girl with the rag doll found a -place on the bottom step of an enclosed back stairway, and sat with her -toes curled up, looking out at us expectantly. - -"She's Nina, after Nina Harling," 聲tonia explained. "Ain't her eyes like -Nina's? I declare, Jim, I loved you children almost as much as I love my -own. These children know all about you and Charley and Sally, like as if -they'd grown up with you. I can't think of what I want to say, you've got -me so stirred up. And then, I've forgot my English so. I don't often talk -it any more. I tell the children I used to speak real well." She said they -always spoke Bohemian at home. The little ones could not speak English at -all--did n't learn it until they went to school. - -"I can't believe it's you, sitting here, in my own kitchen. You would n't -have known me, would you, Jim? You've kept so young, yourself. But it's -easier for a man. I can't see how my Anton looks any older than the day I -married him. His teeth have kept so nice. I have n't got many left. But I -feel just as young as I used to, and I can do as much work. Oh, we don't -have to work so hard now! We've got plenty to help us, papa and me. And -how many have you got, Jim?" - -When I told her I had no children she seemed embarrassed. "Oh, ain't that -too bad! Maybe you could take one of my bad ones, now? That Leo; he's the -worst of all." She leaned toward me with a smile. "And I love him the -best," she whispered. - -"Mother!" the two girls murmured reproachfully from the dishes. - -聲tonia threw up her head and laughed. "I can't help it. You know I do. -Maybe it's because he came on Easter day, I don't know. And he's never out -of mischief one minute!" - -I was thinking, as I watched her, how little it mattered--about her teeth, -for instance. I know so many women who have kept all the things that she -had lost, but whose inner glow has faded. Whatever else was gone, 聲tonia -had not lost the fire of life. Her skin, so brown and hardened, had not -that look of flabbiness, as if the sap beneath it had been secretly drawn -away. - -While we were talking, the little boy whom they called Jan came in and sat -down on the step beside Nina, under the hood of the stairway. He wore a -funny long gingham apron, like a smock, over his trousers, and his hair -was clipped so short that his head looked white and naked. He watched us -out of his big, sorrowful gray eyes. - -"He wants to tell you about the dog, mother. They found it dead," Anna -said, as she passed us on her way to the cupboard. - -聲tonia beckoned the boy to her. He stood by her chair, leaning his elbows -on her knees and twisting her apron strings in his slender fingers, while -he told her his story softly in Bohemian, and the tears brimmed over and -hung on his long lashes. His mother listened, spoke soothingly to him, and -in a whisper promised him something that made him give her a quick, teary -smile. He slipped away and whispered his secret to Nina, sitting close to -her and talking behind his hand. - -When Anna finished her work and had washed her hands, she came and stood -behind her mother's chair. "Why don't we show Mr. Burden our new fruit -cave?" she asked. - -We started off across the yard with the children at our heels. The boys -were standing by the windmill, talking about the dog; some of them ran -ahead to open the cellar door. When we descended, they all came down after -us, and seemed quite as proud of the cave as the girls were. Ambrosch, the -thoughtful-looking one who had directed me down by the plum bushes, called -my attention to the stout brick walls and the cement floor. "Yes, it is a -good way from the house," he admitted. "But, you see, in winter there are -nearly always some of us around to come out and get things." - -Anna and Yulka showed me three small barrels; one full of dill pickles, -one full of chopped pickles, and one full of pickled watermelon rinds. - -"You would n't believe, Jim, what it takes to feed them all!" their mother -exclaimed. "You ought to see the bread we bake on Wednesdays and -Saturdays! It's no wonder their poor papa can't get rich, he has to buy so -much sugar for us to preserve with. We have our own wheat ground for -flour,--but then there's that much less to sell." - -Nina and Jan, and a little girl named Lucie, kept shyly pointing out to me -the shelves of glass jars. They said nothing, but glancing at me, traced -on the glass with their finger-tips the outline of the cherries and -strawberries and crab-apples within, trying by a blissful expression of -countenance to give me some idea of their deliciousness. - -"Show him the spiced plums, mother. Americans don't have those," said one -of the older boys. "Mother uses them to make kolaches," he added. - -Leo, in a low voice, tossed off some scornful remark in Bohemian. - -I turned to him. "You think I don't know what kolaches are, eh? You're -mistaken, young man. I've eaten your mother's kolaches long before that -Easter day when you were born." - -"Always too fresh, Leo," Ambrosch remarked with a shrug. - -Leo dived behind his mother and grinned out at me. - -We turned to leave the cave; 聲tonia and I went up the stairs first, and -the children waited. We were standing outside talking, when they all came -running up the steps together, big and little, tow heads and gold heads -and brown, and flashing little naked legs; a veritable explosion of life -out of the dark cave into the sunlight. It made me dizzy for a moment. - -The boys escorted us to the front of the house, which I had n't yet seen; -in farmhouses, somehow, life comes and goes by the back door. The roof was -so steep that the eaves were not much above the forest of tall hollyhocks, -now brown and in seed. Through July, 聲tonia said, the house was buried in -them; the Bohemians, I remembered, always planted hollyhocks. The front -yard was enclosed by a thorny locust hedge, and at the gate grew two -silvery, moth-like trees of the mimosa family. From here one looked down -over the cattle yards, with their two long ponds, and over a wide stretch -of stubble which they told me was a rye-field in summer. - -At some distance behind the house were an ash grove and two orchards; a -cherry orchard, with gooseberry and currant bushes between the rows, and -an apple orchard, sheltered by a high hedge from the hot winds. The older -children turned back when we reached the hedge, but Jan and Nina and Lucie -crept through it by a hole known only to themselves and hid under the -low-branching mulberry bushes. - -As we walked through the apple orchard, grown up in tall bluegrass, -聲tonia kept stopping to tell me about one tree and another. "I love them -as if they were people," she said, rubbing her hand over the bark. "There -was n't a tree here when we first came. We planted every one, and used to -carry water for them, too--after we'd been working in the fields all day. -Anton, he was a city man, and he used to get discouraged. But I could n't -feel so tired that I would n't fret about these trees when there was a dry -time. They were on my mind like children. Many a night after he was asleep -I've got up and come out and carried water to the poor things. And now, -you see, we have the good of them. My man worked in the orange groves in -Florida, and he knows all about grafting. There ain't one of our neighbors -has an orchard that bears like ours." - -In the middle of the orchard we came upon a grape-arbor, with seats built -along the sides and a warped plank table. The three children were waiting -for us there. They looked up at me bashfully and made some request of -their mother. - -"They want me to tell you how the teacher has the school picnic here every -year. These don't go to school yet, so they think it's all like the -picnic." - -After I had admired the arbor sufficiently, the youngsters ran away to an -open place where there was a rough jungle of French pinks, and squatted -down among them, crawling about and measuring with a string. "Jan wants to -bury his dog there," 聲tonia explained. "I had to tell him he could. He's -kind of like Nina Harling; you remember how hard she used to take little -things? He has funny notions, like her." - -We sat down and watched them. 聲tonia leaned her elbows on the table. -There was the deepest peace in that orchard. It was surrounded by a triple -enclosure; the wire fence, then the hedge of thorny locusts, then the -mulberry hedge which kept out the hot winds of summer and held fast to the -protecting snows of winter. The hedges were so tall that we could see -nothing but the blue sky above them, neither the barn roof nor the -windmill. The afternoon sun poured down on us through the drying grape -leaves. The orchard seemed full of sun, like a cup, and we could smell the -ripe apples on the trees. The crabs hung on the branches as thick as beads -on a string, purple-red, with a thin silvery glaze over them. Some hens -and ducks had crept through the hedge and were pecking at the fallen -apples. The drakes were handsome fellows, with pinkish gray bodies, their -heads and necks covered with iridescent green feathers which grew close -and full, changing to blue like a peacock's neck. 聲tonia said they always -reminded her of soldiers--some uniform she had seen in the old country, -when she was a child. - -"Are there any quail left now?" I asked. I reminded her how she used to go -hunting with me the last summer before we moved to town. "You were n't a -bad shot, Tony. Do you remember how you used to want to run away and go -for ducks with Charley Harling and me?" - -"I know, but I'm afraid to look at a gun now." She picked up one of the -drakes and ruffled his green capote with her fingers. "Ever since I've had -children, I don't like to kill anything. It makes me kind of faint to -wring an old goose's neck. Ain't that strange, Jim?" - -"I don't know. The young Queen of Italy said the same thing once, to a -friend of mine. She used to be a great huntswoman, but now she feels as -you do, and only shoots clay pigeons." - -"Then I'm sure she's a good mother," 聲tonia said warmly. - -She told me how she and her husband had come out to this new country when -the farm land was cheap and could be had on easy payments. The first ten -years were a hard struggle. Her husband knew very little about farming and -often grew discouraged. "We'd never have got through if I had n't been so -strong. I've always had good health, thank God, and I was able to help him -in the fields until right up to the time before my babies came. Our -children were good about taking care of each other. Martha, the one you -saw when she was a baby, was such a help to me, and she trained Anna to be -just like her. My Martha's married now, and has a baby of her own. Think -of that, Jim! - -"No, I never got down-hearted. Anton's a good man, and I loved my children -and always believed they would turn out well. I belong on a farm. I'm -never lonesome here like I used to be in town. You remember what sad -spells I used to have, when I did n't know what was the matter with me? -I've never had them out here. And I don't mind work a bit, if I don't have -to put up with sadness." She leaned her chin on her hand and looked down -through the orchard, where the sunlight was growing more and more golden. - -"You ought never to have gone to town, Tony," I said, wondering at her. - -She turned to me eagerly. "Oh, I'm glad I went! I'd never have known -anything about cooking or housekeeping if I had n't. I learned nice ways -at the Harlings', and I've been able to bring my children up so much -better. Don't you think they are pretty well-behaved for country children? -If it had n't been for what Mrs. Harling taught me, I expect I'd have -brought them up like wild rabbits. No, I'm glad I had a chance to learn; -but I'm thankful none of my daughters will ever have to work out. The -trouble with me was, Jim, I never could believe harm of anybody I loved." - -While we were talking, 聲tonia assured me that she could keep me for the -night. "We've plenty of room. Two of the boys sleep in the haymow till -cold weather comes, but there's no need for it. Leo always begs to sleep -there, and Ambrosch goes along to look after him." - -I told her I would like to sleep in the haymow, with the boys. - -"You can do just as you want to. The chest is full of clean blankets, put -away for winter. Now I must go, or my girls will be doing all the work, -and I want to cook your supper myself." - -As we went toward the house, we met Ambrosch and Anton, starting off with -their milking-pails to hunt the cows. I joined them, and Leo accompanied -us at some distance, running ahead and starting up at us out of clumps of -ironweed, calling, "I'm a jack rabbit," or, "I'm a big bull-snake." - -I walked between the two older boys--straight, well-made fellows, with good -heads and clear eyes. They talked about their school and the new teacher, -told me about the crops and the harvest, and how many steers they would -feed that winter. They were easy and confidential with me, as if I were an -old friend of the family--and not too old. I felt like a boy in their -company, and all manner of forgotten interests revived in me. It seemed, -after all, so natural to be walking along a barbed-wire fence beside the -sunset, toward a red pond, and to see my shadow moving along at my right, -over the close-cropped grass. - -"Has mother shown you the pictures you sent her from the old country?" -Ambrosch asked. "We've had them framed and they're hung up in the parlor. -She was so glad to get them. I don't believe I ever saw her so pleased -about anything." There was a note of simple gratitude in his voice that -made me wish I had given more occasion for it. - -I put my hand on his shoulder. "Your mother, you know, was very much loved -by all of us. She was a beautiful girl." - -"Oh, we know!" They both spoke together; seemed a little surprised that I -should think it necessary to mention this. "Everybody liked her, did n't -they? The Harlings and your grandmother, and all the town people." - -"Sometimes," I ventured, "it does n't occur to boys that their mother was -ever young and pretty." - -"Oh, we know!" they said again, warmly. "She's not very old now," Ambrosch -added. "Not much older than you." - -"Well," I said, "if you were n't nice to her, I think I'd take a club and -go for the whole lot of you. I could n't stand it if you boys were -inconsiderate, or thought of her as if she were just somebody who looked -after you. You see I was very much in love with your mother once, and I -know there's nobody like her." - -The boys laughed and seemed pleased and embarrassed. "She never told us -that," said Anton. "But she's always talked lots about you, and about what -good times you used to have. She has a picture of you that she cut out of -the Chicago paper once, and Leo says he recognized you when you drove up -to the windmill. You can't tell about Leo, though; sometimes he likes to -be smart." - -We brought the cows home to the corner nearest the barn, and the boys -milked them while night came on. Everything was as it should be: the -strong smell of sunflowers and ironweed in the dew, the clear blue and -gold of the sky, the evening star, the purr of the milk into the pails, -the grunts and squeals of the pigs fighting over their supper. I began to -feel the loneliness of the farm-boy at evening, when the chores seem -everlastingly the same, and the world so far away. - -What a tableful we were at supper; two long rows of restless heads in the -lamplight, and so many eyes fastened excitedly upon 聲tonia as she sat at -the head of the table, filling the plates and starting the dishes on their -way. The children were seated according to a system; a little one next an -older one, who was to watch over his behavior and to see that he got his -food. Anna and Yulka left their chairs from time to time to bring fresh -plates of kolaches and pitchers of milk. - -After supper we went into the parlor, so that Yulka and Leo could play for -me. 聲tonia went first, carrying the lamp. There were not nearly chairs -enough to go round, so the younger children sat down on the bare floor. -Little Lucie whispered to me that they were going to have a parlor carpet -if they got ninety cents for their wheat. Leo, with a good deal of -fussing, got out his violin. It was old Mr. Shimerda's instrument, which -聲tonia had always kept, and it was too big for him. But he played very -well for a self-taught boy. Poor Yulka's efforts were not so successful. -While they were playing, little Nina got up from her corner, came out into -the middle of the floor, and began to do a pretty little dance on the -boards with her bare feet. No one paid the least attention to her, and -when she was through she stole back and sat down by her brother. - -聲tonia spoke to Leo in Bohemian. He frowned and wrinkled up his face. He -seemed to be trying to pout, but his attempt only brought out dimples in -unusual places. After twisting and screwing the keys, he played some -Bohemian airs, without the organ to hold him back, and that went better. -The boy was so restless that I had not had a chance to look at his face -before. My first impression was right; he really was faun-like. He had n't -much head behind his ears, and his tawny fleece grew down thick to the -back of his neck. His eyes were not frank and wide apart like those of the -other boys, but were deep-set, gold-green in color, and seemed sensitive -to the light. His mother said he got hurt oftener than all the others put -together. He was always trying to ride the colts before they were broken, -teasing the turkey gobbler, seeing just how much red the bull would stand -for, or how sharp the new axe was. - -After the concert was over 聲tonia brought out a big boxful of -photographs; she and Anton in their wedding clothes, holding hands; her -brother Ambrosch and his very fat wife, who had a farm of her own, and who -bossed her husband, I was delighted to hear; the three Bohemian Marys and -their large families. - -"You would n't believe how steady those girls have turned out," 聲tonia -remarked. "Mary Svoboda's the best butter-maker in all this country, and a -fine manager. Her children will have a grand chance." - -As 聲tonia turned over the pictures the young Cuzaks stood behind her -chair, looking over her shoulder with interested faces. Nina and Jan, -after trying to see round the taller ones, quietly brought a chair, -climbed up on it, and stood close together, looking. The little boy forgot -his shyness and grinned delightedly when familiar faces came into view. In -the group about 聲tonia I was conscious of a kind of physical harmony. -They leaned this way and that, and were not afraid to touch each other. -They contemplated the photographs with pleased recognition; looked at some -admiringly, as if these characters in their mother's girlhood had been -remarkable people. The little children, who could not speak English, -murmured comments to each other in their rich old language. - -聲tonia held out a photograph of Lena that had come from San Francisco -last Christmas. "Does she still look like that? She has n't been home for -six years now." Yes, it was exactly like Lena, I told her; a comely woman, -a trifle too plump, in a hat a trifle too large, but with the old lazy -eyes, and the old dimpled ingenuousness still lurking at the corners of -her mouth. - -There was a picture of Frances Harling in a be-frogged riding costume that -I remembered well. "Is n't she fine!" the girls murmured. They all -assented. One could see that Frances had come down as a heroine in the -family legend. Only Leo was unmoved. - -"And there's Mr. Harling, in his grand fur coat. He was awfully rich, was -n't he, mother?" - -"He was n't any Rockefeller," put in Master Leo, in a very low tone, which -reminded me of the way in which Mrs. Shimerda had once said that my -grandfather "was n't Jesus." His habitual skepticism was like a direct -inheritance from that old woman. - -"None of your smart speeches," said Ambrosch severely. - -Leo poked out a supple red tongue at him, but a moment later broke into a -giggle at a tintype of two men, uncomfortably seated, with an -awkward-looking boy in baggy clothes standing between them; Jake and Otto -and I! We had it taken, I remembered, when we went to Black Hawk on the -first Fourth of July I spent in Nebraska. I was glad to see Jake's grin -again, and Otto's ferocious mustaches. The young Cuzaks knew all about -them. - -"He made grandfather's coffin, did n't he?" Anton asked. - -"Was n't they good fellows, Jim?" 聲tonia's eyes filled. "To this day I'm -ashamed because I quarreled with Jake that way. I was saucy and -impertinent to him, Leo, like you are with people sometimes, and I wish -somebody had made me behave." - -"We are n't through with you, yet," they warned me. They produced a -photograph taken just before I went away to college; a tall youth in -striped trousers and a straw hat, trying to look easy and jaunty. - -"Tell us, Mr. Burden," said Charley, "about the rattler you killed at the -dog town. How long was he? Sometimes mother says six feet and sometimes -she says five." - -These children seemed to be upon very much the same terms with 聲tonia as -the Harling children had been so many years before. They seemed to feel -the same pride in her, and to look to her for stories and entertainment as -we used to do. - -It was eleven o'clock when I at last took my bag and some blankets and -started for the barn with the boys. Their mother came to the door with us, -and we tarried for a moment to look out at the white slope of the corral -and the two ponds asleep in the moonlight, and the long sweep of the -pasture under the star-sprinkled sky. - -The boys told me to choose my own place in the haymow, and I lay down -before a big window, left open in warm weather, that looked out into the -stars. Ambrosch and Leo cuddled up in a hay-cave, back under the eaves, -and lay giggling and whispering. They tickled each other and tossed and -tumbled in the hay; and then, all at once, as if they had been shot, they -were still. There was hardly a minute between giggles and bland slumber. - -I lay awake for a long while, until the slow-moving moon passed my window -on its way up the heavens. I was thinking about 聲tonia and her children; -about Anna's solicitude for her, Ambrosch's grave affection, Leo's -jealous, animal little love. That moment, when they all came tumbling out -of the cave into the light, was a sight any man might have come far to -see. 聲tonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not -fade--that grew stronger with time. In my memory there was a succession of -such pictures, fixed there like the old woodcuts of one's first primer: -聲tonia kicking her bare legs against the sides of my pony when we came -home in triumph with our snake; 聲tonia in her black shawl and fur cap, as -she stood by her father's grave in the snowstorm; 聲tonia coming in with -her work-team along the evening sky-line. She lent herself to immemorial -human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I -had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; -but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still -stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed -the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put -her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel -the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the -strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless -in serving generous emotions. - -It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich -mine of life, like the founders of early races. - - - - -II - - -WHEN I awoke in the morning long bands of sunshine were coming in at the -window and reaching back under the eaves where the two boys lay. Leo was -wide awake and was tickling his brother's leg with a dried cone-flower he -had pulled out of the hay. Ambrosch kicked at him and turned over. I -closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. Leo lay on his back, elevated -one foot, and began exercising his toes. He picked up dried flowers with -his toes and brandished them in the belt of sunlight. After he had amused -himself thus for some time, he rose on one elbow and began to look at me, -cautiously, then critically, blinking his eyes in the light. His -expression was droll; it dismissed me lightly. "This old fellow is no -different from other people. He does n't know my secret." He seemed -conscious of possessing a keener power of enjoyment than other people; his -quick recognitions made him frantically impatient of deliberate judgments. -He always knew what he wanted without thinking. - -After dressing in the hay, I washed my face in cold water at the windmill. -Breakfast was ready when I entered the kitchen, and Yulka was baking -griddle-cakes. The three older boys set off for the fields early. Leo and -Yulka were to drive to town to meet their father, who would return from -Wilber on the noon train. - -"We'll only have a lunch at noon," 聲tonia said, "and cook the geese for -supper, when our papa will be here. I wish my Martha could come down to -see you. They have a Ford car now, and she don't seem so far away from me -as she used to. But her husband's crazy about his farm and about having -everything just right, and they almost never get away except on Sundays. -He's a handsome boy, and he'll be rich some day. Everything he takes hold -of turns out well. When they bring that baby in here, and unwrap him, he -looks like a little prince; Martha takes care of him so beautiful. I'm -reconciled to her being away from me now, but at first I cried like I was -putting her into her coffin." - -We were alone in the kitchen, except for Anna, who was pouring cream into -the churn. She looked up at me. "Yes, she did. We were just ashamed of -mother. She went round crying, when Martha was so happy, and the rest of -us were all glad. Joe certainly was patient with you, mother." - -聲tonia nodded and smiled at herself. "I know it was silly, but I could -n't help it. I wanted her right here. She'd never been away from me a -night since she was born. If Anton had made trouble about her when she was -a baby, or wanted me to leave her with my mother, I would n't have married -him. I could n't. But he always loved her like she was his own." - -"I did n't even know Martha was n't my full sister until after she was -engaged to Joe," Anna told me. - -Toward the middle of the afternoon the wagon drove in, with the father and -the eldest son. I was smoking in the orchard, and as I went out to meet -them, 聲tonia came running down from the house and hugged the two men as -if they had been away for months. - -"Papa" interested me, from my first glimpse of him. He was shorter than -his older sons; a crumpled little man, with run-over boot heels, and he -carried one shoulder higher than the other. But he moved very quickly, and -there was an air of jaunty liveliness about him. He had a strong, ruddy -color, thick black hair, a little grizzled, a curly mustache, and red -lips. His smile showed the strong teeth of which his wife was so proud, -and as he saw me his lively, quizzical eyes told me that he knew all about -me. He looked like a humorous philosopher who had hitched up one shoulder -under the burdens of life, and gone on his way having a good time when he -could. He advanced to meet me and gave me a hard hand, burned red on the -back and heavily coated with hair. He wore his Sunday clothes, very thick -and hot for the weather, an unstarched white shirt, and a blue necktie -with big white dots, like a little boy's, tied in a flowing bow. Cuzak -began at once to talk about his holiday--from politeness he spoke in -English. - -"Mama, I wish you had see the lady dance on the slack-wire in the street -at night. They throw a bright light on her and she float through the air -something beautiful, like a bird! They have a dancing bear, like in the -old country, and two three merry-go-around, and people in balloons, and -what you call the big wheel, Rudolph?" - -"A Ferris wheel," Rudolph entered the conversation in a deep baritone -voice. He was six foot two, and had a chest like a young blacksmith. "We -went to the big dance in the hall behind the saloon last night, mother, -and I danced with all the girls, and so did father. I never saw so many -pretty girls. It was a Bohunk crowd, for sure. We did n't hear a word of -English on the street, except from the show people, did we, papa?" - -Cuzak nodded. "And very many send word to you, 聲tonia. You will -excuse"--turning to me--"if I tell her." While we walked toward the house he -related incidents and delivered messages in the tongue he spoke fluently, -and I dropped a little behind, curious to know what their relations had -become--or remained. The two seemed to be on terms of easy friendliness, -touched with humor. Clearly, she was the impulse, and he the corrective. -As they went up the hill he kept glancing at her sidewise, to see whether -she got his point, or how she received it. I noticed later that he always -looked at people sidewise, as a work-horse does at its yoke-mate. Even -when he sat opposite me in the kitchen, talking, he would turn his head a -little toward the clock or the stove and look at me from the side, but -with frankness and good-nature. This trick did not suggest duplicity or -secretiveness, but merely long habit, as with the horse. - -He had brought a tintype of himself and Rudolph for 聲tonia's collection, -and several paper bags of candy for the children. He looked a little -disappointed when his wife showed him a big box of candy I had got in -Denver--she had n't let the children touch it the night before. He put his -candy away in the cupboard, "for when she rains," and glanced at the box, -chuckling. "I guess you must have hear about how my family ain't so -small," he said. - -Cuzak sat down behind the stove and watched his women-folk and the little -children with equal amusement. He thought they were nice, and he thought -they were funny, evidently. He had been off dancing with the girls and -forgetting that he was an old fellow, and now his family rather surprised -him; he seemed to think it a joke that all these children should belong to -him. As the younger ones slipped up to him in his retreat, he kept taking -things out of his pockets; penny dolls, a wooden clown, a balloon pig that -was inflated by a whistle. He beckoned to the little boy they called Jan, -whispered to him, and presented him with a paper snake, gently, so as not -to startle him. Looking over the boy's head he said to me, "This one is -bashful. He gets left." - -Cuzak had brought home with him a roll of illustrated Bohemian papers. He -opened them and began to tell his wife the news, much of which seemed to -relate to one person. I heard the name Vasakova, Vasakova, repeated -several times with lively interest, and presently I asked him whether he -were talking about the singer, Maria Vasak. - -"You know? You have heard, maybe?" he asked incredulously. When I assured -him that I had heard her, he pointed out her picture and told me that -Vasak had broken her leg, climbing in the Austrian Alps, and would not be -able to fill her engagements. He seemed delighted to find that I had heard -her sing in London and in Vienna; got out his pipe and lit it to enjoy our -talk the better. She came from his part of Prague. His father used to mend -her shoes for her when she was a student. Cuzak questioned me about her -looks, her popularity, her voice; but he particularly wanted to know -whether I had noticed her tiny feet, and whether I thought she had saved -much money. She was extravagant, of course, but he hoped she would n't -squander everything, and have nothing left when she was old. As a young -man, working in Wienn, he had seen a good many artists who were old and -poor, making one glass of beer last all evening, and "it was not very -nice, that." - -When the boys came in from milking and feeding, the long table was laid, -and two brown geese, stuffed with apples, were put down sizzling before -聲tonia. She began to carve, and Rudolph, who sat next his mother, started -the plates on their way. When everybody was served, he looked across the -table at me. - -"Have you been to Black Hawk lately, Mr. Burden? Then I wonder if you've -heard about the Cutters?" - -No, I had heard nothing at all about them. - -"Then you must tell him, son, though it's a terrible thing to talk about -at supper. Now, all you children be quiet, Rudolph is going to tell about -the murder." - -"Hurrah! The murder!" the children murmured, looking pleased and -interested. - -Rudolph told his story in great detail, with occasional promptings from -his mother or father. - -Wick Cutter and his wife had gone on living in the house that 聲tonia and -I knew so well, and in the way we knew so well. They grew to be very old -people. He shriveled up, 聲tonia said, until he looked like a little old -yellow monkey, for his beard and his fringe of hair never changed color. -Mrs. Cutter remained flushed and wild-eyed as we had known her, but as the -years passed she became afflicted with a shaking palsy which made her -nervous nod continuous instead of occasional. Her hands were so uncertain -that she could no longer disfigure china, poor woman! As the couple grew -older, they quarreled more and more about the ultimate disposition of -their "property." A new law was passed in the State, securing the -surviving wife a third of her husband's estate under all conditions. -Cutter was tormented by the fear that Mrs. Cutter would live longer than -he, and that eventually her "people," whom he had always hated so -violently, would inherit. Their quarrels on this subject passed the -boundary of the close-growing cedars, and were heard in the street by -whoever wished to loiter and listen. - -One morning, two years ago, Cutter went into the hardware store and bought -a pistol, saying he was going to shoot a dog, and adding that he "thought -he would take a shot at an old cat while he was about it." (Here the -children interrupted Rudolph's narrative by smothered giggles.) - -Cutter went out behind the hardware store, put up a target, practiced for -an hour or so, and then went home. At six o'clock that evening, when -several men were passing the Cutter house on their way home to supper, -they heard a pistol shot. They paused and were looking doubtfully at one -another, when another shot came crashing through an upstairs window. They -ran into the house and found Wick Cutter lying on a sofa in his upstairs -bedroom, with his throat torn open, bleeding on a roll of sheets he had -placed beside his head. - -"Walk in, gentlemen," he said weakly. "I am alive, you see, and competent. -You are witnesses that I have survived my wife. You will find her in her -own room. Please make your examination at once, so that there will be no -mistake." - -One of the neighbors telephoned for a doctor, while the others went into -Mrs. Cutter's room. She was lying on her bed, in her nightgown and -wrapper, shot through the heart. Her husband must have come in while she -was taking her afternoon nap and shot her, holding the revolver near her -breast. Her nightgown was burned from the powder. - -The horrified neighbors rushed back to Cutter. He opened his eyes and said -distinctly, "Mrs. Cutter is quite dead, gentlemen, and I am conscious. My -affairs are in order." Then, Rudolph said, "he let go and died." - -On his desk the coroner found a letter, dated at five o'clock that -afternoon. It stated that he had just shot his wife; that any will she -might secretly have made would be invalid, as he survived her. He meant to -shoot himself at six o'clock and would, if he had strength, fire a shot -through the window in the hope that passers-by might come in and see him -"before life was extinct," as he wrote. - -"Now, would you have thought that man had such a cruel heart?" 聲tonia -turned to me after the story was told. "To go and do that poor woman out -of any comfort she might have from his money after he was gone!" - -"Did you ever hear of anybody else that killed himself for spite, Mr. -Burden?" asked Rudolph. - -I admitted that I had n't. Every lawyer learns over and over how strong a -motive hate can be, but in my collection of legal anecdotes I had nothing -to match this one. When I asked how much the estate amounted to, Rudolph -said it was a little over a hundred thousand dollars. - -Cuzak gave me a twinkling, sidelong glance. "The lawyers, they got a good -deal of it, sure," he said merrily. - -A hundred thousand dollars; so that was the fortune that had been scraped -together by such hard dealing, and that Cutter himself had died for in the -end! - -After supper Cuzak and I took a stroll in the orchard and sat down by the -windmill to smoke. He told me his story as if it were my business to know -it. - -His father was a shoemaker, his uncle a furrier, and he, being a younger -son, was apprenticed to the latter's trade. You never got anywhere working -for your relatives, he said, so when he was a journeyman he went to Vienna -and worked in a big fur shop, earning good money. But a young fellow who -liked a good time did n't save anything in Vienna; there were too many -pleasant ways of spending every night what he'd made in the day. After -three years there, he came to New York. He was badly advised and went to -work on furs during a strike, when the factories were offering big wages. -The strikers won, and Cuzak was blacklisted. As he had a few hundred -dollars ahead, he decided to go to Florida and raise oranges. He had -always thought he would like to raise oranges! The second year a hard -frost killed his young grove, and he fell ill with malaria. He came to -Nebraska to visit his cousin, Anton Jelinek, and to look about. When he -began to look about, he saw 聲tonia, and she was exactly the kind of girl -he had always been hunting for. They were married at once, though he had -to borrow money from his cousin to buy the wedding-ring. - -"It was a pretty hard job, breaking up this place and making the first -crops grow," he said, pushing back his hat and scratching his grizzled -hair. "Sometimes I git awful sore on this place and want to quit, but my -wife she always say we better stick it out. The babies come along pretty -fast, so it look like it be hard to move, anyhow. I guess she was right, -all right. We got this place clear now. We pay only twenty dollars an acre -then, and I been offered a hundred. We bought another quarter ten years -ago, and we got it most paid for. We got plenty boys; we can work a lot of -land. Yes, she is a good wife for a poor man. She ain't always so strict -with me, neither. Sometimes maybe I drink a little too much beer in town, -and when I come home she don't say nothing. She don't ask me no questions. -We always get along fine, her and me, like at first. The children don't -make trouble between us, like sometimes happens." He lit another pipe and -pulled on it contentedly. - -I found Cuzak a most companionable fellow. He asked me a great many -questions about my trip through Bohemia, about Vienna and the Ringstrasse -and the theaters. - -"Gee! I like to go back there once, when the boys is big enough to farm -the place. Sometimes when I read the papers from the old country, I pretty -near run away," he confessed with a little laugh. "I never did think how I -would be a settled man like this." - -He was still, as 聲tonia said, a city man. He liked theaters and lighted -streets and music and a game of dominoes after the day's work was over. -His sociability was stronger than his acquisitive instinct. He liked to -live day by day and night by night, sharing in the excitement of the -crowd.--Yet his wife had managed to hold him here on a farm, in one of the -loneliest countries in the world. - -I could see the little chap, sitting here every evening by the windmill, -nursing his pipe and listening to the silence; the wheeze of the pump, the -grunting of the pigs, an occasional squawking when the hens were disturbed -by a rat. It did rather seem to me that Cuzak had been made the instrument -of 聲tonia's special mission. This was a fine life, certainly, but it was -n't the kind of life he had wanted to live. I wondered whether the life -that was right for one was ever right for two! - -I asked Cuzak if he did n't find it hard to do without the gay company he -had always been used to. He knocked out his pipe against an upright, -sighed, and dropped it into his pocket. - -"At first I near go crazy with lonesomeness," he said frankly, "but my -woman is got such a warm heart. She always make it as good for me as she -could. Now it ain't so bad; I can begin to have some fun with my boys, -already!" - -As we walked toward the house, Cuzak cocked his hat jauntily over one ear -and looked up at the moon. "Gee!" he said in a hushed voice, as if he had -just wakened up, "it don't seem like I am away from there twenty-six -year!" - - - - -III - - -AFTER dinner the next day I said good-bye and drove back to Hastings to -take the train for Black Hawk. 聲tonia and her children gathered round my -buggy before I started, and even the little ones looked up at me with -friendly faces. Leo and Ambrosch ran ahead to open the lane gate. When I -reached the bottom of the hill, I glanced back. The group was still there -by the windmill. 聲tonia was waving her apron. - -At the gate Ambrosch lingered beside my buggy, resting his arm on the -wheel-rim. Leo slipped through the fence and ran off into the pasture. - -"That's like him," his brother said with a shrug. "He's a crazy kid. Maybe -he's sorry to have you go, and maybe he's jealous. He's jealous of anybody -mother makes a fuss over, even the priest." - -I found I hated to leave this boy, with his pleasant voice and his fine -head and eyes. He looked very manly as he stood there without a hat, the -wind rippling his shirt about his brown neck and shoulders. - -"Don't forget that you and Rudolph are going hunting with me up on the -Niobrara next summer," I said. "Your father's agreed to let you off after -harvest." - -He smiled. "I won't likely forget. I've never had such a nice thing -offered to me before. I don't know what makes you so nice to us boys," he -added, blushing. - -"Oh, yes you do!" I said, gathering up my reins. - -He made no answer to this, except to smile at me with unabashed pleasure -and affection as I drove away. - - - -My day in Black Hawk was disappointing. Most of my old friends were dead -or had moved away. Strange children, who meant nothing to me, were playing -in the Harlings' big yard when I passed; the mountain ash had been cut -down, and only a sprouting stump was left of the tall Lombardy poplar that -used to guard the gate. I hurried on. The rest of the morning I spent with -Anton Jelinek, under a shady cottonwood tree in the yard behind his -saloon. While I was having my mid-day dinner at the hotel, I met one of -the old lawyers who was still in practice, and he took me up to his office -and talked over the Cutter case with me. After that, I scarcely knew how -to put in the time until the night express was due. - -I took a long walk north of the town, out into the pastures where the land -was so rough that it had never been ploughed up, and the long red grass of -early times still grew shaggy over the draws and hillocks. Out there I -felt at home again. Overhead the sky was that indescribable blue of -autumn; bright and shadowless, hard as enamel. To the south I could see -the dun-shaded river bluffs that used to look so big to me, and all about -stretched drying cornfields, of the pale-gold color I remembered so well. -Russian thistles were blowing across the uplands and piling against the -wire fences like barricades. Along the cattle paths the plumes of -golden-rod were already fading into sun-warmed velvet, gray with gold -threads in it. I had escaped from the curious depression that hangs over -little towns, and my mind was full of pleasant things; trips I meant to -take with the Cuzak boys, in the Bad Lands and up on the Stinking Water. -There were enough Cuzaks to play with for a long while yet. Even after the -boys grew up, there would always be Cuzak himself! I meant to tramp along -a few miles of lighted streets with Cuzak. - -As I wandered over those rough pastures, I had the good luck to stumble -upon a bit of the first road that went from Black Hawk out to the north -country; to my grandfather's farm, then on to the Shimerdas' and to the -Norwegian settlement. Everywhere else it had been ploughed under when the -highways were surveyed; this half-mile or so within the pasture fence was -all that was left of that old road which used to run like a wild thing -across the open prairie, clinging to the high places and circling and -doubling like a rabbit before the hounds. On the level land the tracks had -almost disappeared--were mere shadings in the grass, and a stranger would -not have noticed them. But wherever the road had crossed a draw, it was -easy to find. The rains had made channels of the wheel-ruts and washed -them so deep that the sod had never healed over them. They looked like -gashes torn by a grizzly's claws, on the slopes where the farm wagons used -to lurch up out of the hollows with a pull that brought curling muscles on -the smooth hips of the horses. I sat down and watched the haystacks turn -rosy in the slanting sunlight. - -This was the road over which 聲tonia and I came on that night when we got -off the train at Black Hawk and were bedded down in the straw, wondering -children, being taken we knew not whither. I had only to close my eyes to -hear the rumbling of the wagons in the dark, and to be again overcome by -that obliterating strangeness. The feelings of that night were so near -that I could reach out and touch them with my hand. I had the sense of -coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man's -experience is. For 聲tonia and for me, this had been the road of Destiny; -had taken us to those early accidents of fortune which predetermined for -us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to -bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the -precious, the incommunicable past. - - THE END - - - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - - 1 The Bohemian name _聲tonia_ is strongly accented on the first - syllable, like the English name _Anthony_, and the _i_ is, of - course, given the sound of long _e_. The name is pronounced - An{~MODIFIER LETTER PRIME~}-ton-ee-ah. - - - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY 篾TONIA*** - - - -CREDITS - - -November 14, 2006 - - LibraryCity Trusted Edition - Jon Noring - Lori Watrous-de Versterre - Jos Men幯dez - -November 14, 2006 - - Conversion to PGTEI v0.4 - Joshua Hutchinson - - - -A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG - - -This file should be named 19810-8.txt or 19810-8.zip. - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - - - http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/8/1/19810/ - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one -- the old editions will be -renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one -owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and -you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission -and without paying copyright royalties. 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