 3. Winter Memories, CHAPTER II. If Alexandra had had much imagination she might have guessed what was going on in Marie's mind, and she would have seen long before what was going on in Amill's. But that, as Amill himself had more than once reflected, was Alexandra's blind side, and her life had not been of the kind to sharpen her vision. Her training had all been toward the end of making her proficient in what she had undertaken to do. Her personal life, her own realization of herself, was almost a subconscious existence, like an underground river that came to the surface only here and there, at intervals months apart, and then sank again to flow on under her own fields. Nevertheless, the underground stream was there, and it was because she had so much personality to put into her enterprises, and succeeded in putting it into them so completely, that her affairs prospered better than those of her neighbors. There were certain days in her life, outwardly uneventful, which Alexandra remembered as peculiarly happy, days when she was close to the flat, fallow world about her, and felt, as it were, in her own body the joyous germination in the soil. There were days too, which she and Amill had spent together, upon which she loved to look back. There had been such a day when they were down on the river in the dry year, looking over the land. They had made an early start one morning, and had driven a long way before noon. When Amill said he was hungry, they drew back from the road, gave Brigham his oats among the bushes, and climbed up to the top of a grassy bluff to eat their lunch under the shade of some little elm trees. The river was clear there, and shallow, since there had been no rain, and it ran in ripples over the sparkling sand. Under the overhanging willows of the opposite bank there was an inlet where the water was deeper, and flowed so slowly that it seemed to sleep in the sun. In this little bay a single wild duck was swimming and diving and preening her feathers, disporting herself very happily in the flickering light and shade. They sat for a long time, watching the solitary bird take its pleasure. No living thing had ever seemed to Alexandra as beautiful as that wild duck. Amill must have felt about it as she did, for afterward, when they were at home, he used some times to say, Sister, you know our duck down there. Alexandra remembered that day as one of the happiest in her life. Years afterward she thought of the duck as still there, swimming and diving all by herself in the sunlight, a kind of enchanted bird that did not know age or change. Most of Alexandra's happy memories were as impersonal as this one, yet to her they were very personal. Her mind was a white book, with clear writing about weather and beasts and growing things. Not many people would have cared to read it, only a happy few. She had never been in love. She had never indulged in sentimental reveries. Even as a girl she had looked upon men as work-fellows. She had grown up in serious times. There was one fancy indeed which persisted through her girlhood. It most often came to her on Sunday mornings, the one day in the week when she lay lay to bed listening to the familiar morning sounds, the windmill singing in the brisk breeze, Amill whistling as he blacked his boots down by the kitchen door. Sometimes as she lay thus luxuriously idle her eyes closed she used to have an illusion of being lifted up bodily and carried lightly by someone very strong. It was a man certainly who carried her, but he was like no man she knew. He was much larger and stronger and swifter, and he carried her as easily as if she were a sheave of wheat. She never saw him, but, with eyes closed, she could feel that he was yellow like the sunlight, and there was the smell of ripe corn fields about him. She could feel him approach, bend over her and lift her, and then she could feel herself being carried swiftly off across the fields. After such a reverie she would rise hastily, angry with herself, and go down to the bath-house that was partitioned off the kitchen shed. There she would stand in a tin-tub and prosecute her bath with vigor, finishing it by pouring buckets of cold well-water over her gleaming white body, which no man on the divide could have carried very far. As she grew older this fancy more often came to her when she was tired than when she was fresh and strong. Sometimes after she had been in the open all day, overseeing the branding of the cattle or the loading of the pigs, she would come in chilled, take a concoction of spices and warm homemade wine, and go to bed with her body actually aching with fatigue. Then, just before she went to sleep, she had the old sensation of being lifted and carried by a strong being who took from her all her bodily weariness. End of Chapter 2 of Part 3 Part 4, Chapter 1 of O. Pioneers. The French church, properly the church of Saint Agnes, stood upon a hill. The high, narrow, red brick building, with its tall steeple and steep roof, could be seen for miles across the wheat-fields, though the little town of Saint Agnes was completely hidden away at the foot of the hill. The church looked powerful and triumphant there on its eminence, so high above the rest of the landscape, with miles of warm colour lying at its feet, and by its position and setting it reminded one of some of the churches built long ago in the wheat-lands of middle France. Late one June afternoon, Alexandra Bergson was driving along one of the many roads that led through the rich French farming country to the big church. The sunlight was shining directly in her face, and there was a blaze of light all about the red church on the hill. Beside Alexandra lounged a strikingly exotic figure in a tall Mexican hat, a silk sash, and a black velvet jacket sewn with silver buttons. Amill had returned only the night before, and his sister was so proud of him that she decided at once to take him up to the church supper, and to make him wear the Mexican costume he had brought home in his trunk. All the girls who have stands are going to wear fancy costumes, she argued, and some of the boys. Marie is going to tell fortunes, and she sent to Omaha for a bohemian dress her father brought back from a visit to the old country. If you wear those clothes, they will all be pleased, and you must take your guitar. Everybody ought to do what they can to help along, and we have never done much. We are not a talented family. The supper was to be at six o'clock, in the basement of the church, and afterward there would be a fair, with charades, and an auction. Alexandra had set out from home early, leaving the house to Cygna and Nelsa Jensen, who were to be married next week. Cygna had shyly asked to have the wedding put off until Amill came home. Alexandra was well satisfied with her brother, as they drove through the rolling French country toward the Westering Sun and the Stalwart Church. She was thinking of that time long ago, when she and Amill drove back from the River Valley to the still unconquered divide. Yes, she told herself, it had been worthwhile, both Amill and the country had become what she had hoped. Out of her father's children there was one who was fit to cope with the world, who had not been tied to the plow, and who had a personality apart from the soil. And that, she reflected, was what she had worked for. She felt well satisfied with her life. When they reached the church, a score of teams were hitched in front of the basement doors that opened from the hillside upon the sanded terrace, where the boys wrestled and had jumping matches. Amédie Chevalier, a proud father of one week, rushed out and embraced Amill. Amédie was an only son, hence he was a very rich young man, but he meant to have twenty children himself, like his uncle Exavier. Oh, Amill! he cried, hugging his old friend rapturously. Why, ain't you been up to see my boy? You come to-morrow, sure. Amill, you want to get a boy right off. It's the greatest thing ever. No, no, no, Angel, not sick at all. Everything just fine. That boy, he'd come into this world laughing, and he'd been laughing ever since. You come and see. He pounded Amill's ribs to emphasize each announcement. Amill caught his arms. Stop, Amédie! You're knocking the wind out of me. I brought him cups and spoons and blankets and moccasins enough for an orphan asylum. I'm awful glad it's a boy, sure enough. The young men crowded round Amill to admire his costume, and to tell him in the breath everything that had happened since he went away. Amill had more friends up here in the French country than down on Norway Creek. The French and Bohemian boys were spirited and jolly, liked variety, and were as much predisposed to favor anything new as the Scandinavian boys were to reject it. The Norwegian and Swedish lads were much more self-centered, apt to be egotistical and jealous. They were cautious and reserved with Amill because he had been away to college, and were prepared to take him down if he should try to put on airs with them. The French boys liked a bit of swagger, and they were always delighted to hear about anything new—new clothes, new games, new songs, new dances. Now they carried Amill off to show him the club-room they had just fitted up over the post-office, down in the village. They ran down the hill in a drove, all laughing and chattering at once, some in French, some in English. Alexandra went into the cool, white-washed basement where the women were setting the tables. Marie was standing on a chair, building a little tent of shawls where she was to tell fortunes. She sprang down and ran toward Alexandra, stopping short and looking at her, in disappointment. Alexandra nodded to her encouragingly. Oh, he will be here, Marie. The boys have taken him off to show him something. You won't know him. He is a man now, sure enough. I have no boy left. He smokes terrible smelling Mexican cigarettes and talks Spanish. How pretty you look, child! Where did you get those beautiful earrings? They belonged to Father's mother. He always promised them to me. He sent them with the dress and said I could keep them. Marie wore a short red skirt of stoutly woven cloth, a white bodice and kirtle, a yellow silk turban wound low over her brown curls, and long, coral pendants in her ears. Her ears had been pierced against a piece of cork by her great aunt when she was seven years old. In those germless days she had worn bits of broom-straw, plucked from the common sweeping-broom, in the lobes until the holes were healed and ready for little gold rings. When Amill came back from the village, he lingered outside on the terrace with the boys. Marie could hear him talking and strumming on his guitar while Raul Marcell sang falsetto. She was vexed with him for staying out there. It made her very nervous to hear him and not to see him, for, certainly, she told herself, she was not going out to look for him. When the supper bell rang and the boys came trooping in to get seats at the first table, she forgot all about her annoyance and ran to greet the tallest of the crowd, in his conspicuous attire. She didn't mind showing her embarrassment at all. She blushed and laughed excitedly as she gave Amill her hand, and looked delightedly at the black velvet coat that brought out his fair skin and fine blonde head. Marie was incapable of being lukewarm about anything that pleased her. She simply did not know how to give a half-hearted response. When she was delighted, she was as likely as not to stand on her tiptoes and clap her hands. If people laughed at her, she laughed with them. Do the men wear clothes like that every day in the street? She caught Amill by his sleeve and turned him about. Oh, I wish I lived where people wore things like that. Are the buttons real silver? Put on the hat, please. What a heavy thing! How do you ever wear it? Why don't you tell us about the bullfights? She wanted to wring all his experiences from him at once, without waiting a moment. Amill smiled tolerantly and stood looking down at her, with his old brooding gaze, while the French girls fluttered about him in their white dresses and ribbons, and Alexandra watched the scene with pride. Several of the French girls, Marie knew, were hoping that Amill would take them to supper, and she was relieved when he took only his sister. Marie caught Frank's arm and dragged him to the same table, managing to get seats opposite the Berksons, so that she could hear what they were talking about. Alexandra made Amill tell Mrs. Exavier Chevalier, the mother of the twenty, about how he had seen a famous matador killed in the bullring. Marie listened to every word, only taking her eyes from Amill to watch Frank's plate and keep it filled. When Amill finished his account, bloody enough to satisfy Mrs. Exavier and to make her feel thankful that she was not a matador, Marie broke out with a volley of questions. How did the women dress when they went to the bullfights? Did they wear mantillas? Did they never wear hats? After supper the young people played charades for the amusement of their elders, who sat gossiping between their guesses. All the shops in Saint Agnes were closed at eight o'clock that night, so that the merchants and their clerks could attend the fair. The auction was the liveliest part of the entertainment, for the French boys always lost their heads when they began to bid, satisfied that their extravagance was in a good cause. After all the pin-cushions and sofa-pillows and embroidered slippers were sold, Amill precipitated a panic by taking out one of his turquoise shirt-studs, which every one had been admiring, and handing it to the auctioneer. All the French girls clamoured for it, and their sweethearts bid against each other recklessly. Marie wanted it too, and she kept making signals to Frank, which he took a sour pleasure in disregarding. He didn't see the use of making a fuss over a fellow just because he was dressed like a clown. When the turquoise went to Malvina Savage, the French baker's daughter, Marie shrugged her shoulders and betook herself to her little tent of shawls, where she began to shuffle her cards by the light of a tallow candle, calling out, The young priest, Father Duchéne, went first to have his fortune read. Marie took his long white hand, looked at it, and then began to run off her cards. I see a long journey across water for you, Father. You will go to a town all cut up by water, built on islands, it seems to be, with rivers and green fields all about. And you will visit an old lady with a white cap and gold hoops in her ears, and you will be very happy there. Mais oui, said the priest, with a melancholy smile, c'est l'Ile-à-Dame chez ma mère. Vous êtes près de vente, ma fille. He patted her yellow turban, calling, Venez donc, mes garçons, il y a ici une véritable clairvoyante. Marie was clever at fortune-telling, indulging in a light irony that amused the crowd. She told old Bruno, the miser, that he would lose all his money, marry a girl of sixteen, and live happily on a crust. Scholte, the fat Russian boy, who lived for his stomach, was to be disappointed in love, growth in, and shoot himself from despondency. Amédie was to have twenty children, and nineteen of them were to be girls. Amédie slapped Frank on the back, and asked him why he didn't see what the fortune-teller would promise him. But Frank shook off his friendly hand and grunted, she tell my fortune long ago, bad enough. Then he withdrew to a corner, and sat glowering at his wife. Frank's case was all the more painful, because he had no one in particular to fix his jealousy upon. Sometimes he could have thanked the man who would bring him evidence against his wife. He had discharged a good farm boy, Yance Merca, because he thought Marie was fond of him. But she had not seemed to miss Yance when he was gone, and she had been just as kind to the next boy. The farm-hands would always do anything for Marie. Frank couldn't find one so surly that he would not make an effort to please her. At the bottom of his heart Frank knew well enough that if he could once give up his grudge his wife would come back to him. But he could never in the world do that. The grudge was fundamental. Perhaps he could not have given it up if he had tried. Perhaps he got more satisfaction out of feeling himself abused than he would have got out of being loved. If he could once have made Marie thoroughly unhappy he might have relented and raised her from the dust. But she had never humbled herself. In the first days of their love she had been his slave. She had admired him abundantly. But the moment he began to bully her and to be unjust she began to draw away, at first in tearful amazement, then in quiet, unspoken disgust. The distance between them had widened and hardened. It no longer contracted and brought them suddenly together. The spark of her life went somewhere else, and he was always watching to surprise it. He knew that somewhere she must get a feeling to live upon, for she was not a woman who could live without loving. He wanted to prove to himself the wrong he felt. What did she hide in her heart? Where did it go? Even Frank had his churlish delicacies. He never reminded her of how much she had once loved him. For that Marie was grateful to him. While Marie was chattering to the French boys, Amédie called Amiel to the back of the room and whispered to him that they were going to play a joke on the girls. At eleven o'clock Amédie was to go up to the switchboard in the vestibule and turn off the electric lights, and every boy would have a chance to kiss his sweetheart before Fr. Duchéne could find his way up the stairs to turn the current on again. The only difficulty was the candle in Marie's tent. Perhaps, as Amiel had no sweetheart, he would oblige the boys by blowing out the candle. Amiel said he would undertake to do that. At five minutes to eleven he sauntered up to Marie's booth, and the French boys dispersed to find their girls. He leaned over the card-table and gave himself up to looking at her. "'Do you think you could tell my fortune?' he murmured. It was the first word he had had alone with her for almost a year. My luck hasn't changed any. It's just the same.' Marie had often wondered whether there was anyone else who could look his thoughts to you as Amiel could. Tonight, when she met his steady, powerful eyes, it was impossible not to feel the sweetness of the dream he was dreaming. It reached her before she could shut it out, and hid itself in her heart. She began to shuffle her cards furiously. "'I'm angry with you, Amiel,' she broke out with petulance. "'Why did you give them that lovely blue stone to sell? You might have known Frank wouldn't buy it for me, and I wanted it awfully.' Amiel laughed shortly. "'People who want such little things surely ought to have them,' he said, dryly. He thrust his hand into the pocket of his velvet trousers, and brought out a handful of uncut turquoise's, as big as marbles. Leaning over the table he dropped them into her lap. There will those do. Be careful, don't let any one see them. Now I suppose you want me to go away and let you play with them.' Marie was gazing and rapture at the soft blue colour of the stones. "'Oh, Amiel! Is everything down there beautiful like these? How could you ever come away?' At that instant Ahmedie laid hands on the switchboard. There was a shiver and a giggle, and everyone looked toward the red blur that Marie's candle made in the dark. Immediately that, too, was gone. Little shrieks and currants of soft laughter ran up and down the dark hall. Marie started up, directly into Amiel's arms. In the same instant she felt his lips. The veil that had hung uncertainly between them for so long was dissolved. Before she knew what she was doing she had committed herself to that kiss that was at once a boy's and a man's, as timid as it was tender, so like Amiel, and so unlike anyone else in the world. Not until it was over did she realise what it meant. And Amiel, who had so often imagined the shock of this first kiss, was surprised at its gentleness and naturalness. It was like a sigh which they had breathed together, almost sorrowful, as if each were afraid of wakening something in the other. When the lights came on again everybody was laughing and shouting, and all the French girls were rosy and shining with mirth. Only Marie, in her little tent of shawls, was pale and quiet. Under her yellow turban the red coral pendants swung against white cheeks. Frank was still staring at her, but he seemed to see nothing. Years ago he himself had had the power to take the blood from her cheeks like that. Perhaps he did not remember. Perhaps he had never noticed. Amiel was already at the other end of the hall, walking about with the shoulder motion he had acquired among the Mexicans, studying the floor with his intent, deep-set eyes. Marie began to take down and fold her shawls. She did not glance up again. The young people drifted to the other end of the hall where the guitar was sounding. In a moment she heard Amiel and Rao singing. Across the Rio Grande there lies a sunny londae, my bright-eyed Mexico. Alexandra Bergson came up to the card-booth. Let me help you, Marie. You look tired. She placed her hand on Marie's arm and felt her shiver. Marie stiffened under that kind, calm hand. Alexandra drew back, perplexed and hurt. There was about Alexandra something of the impervious calm of the fatalist, always disconcerting to very young people who cannot feel that the heart lives at all unless it is still at the mercy of storms, unless its strings can scream to the touch of pain. End of Chapter 1 of Part 4 Part 4, Chapter 2 of O. Pioneers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. O. Pioneers by Willa Cather. Part 4, The White Mulberry Tree. Chapter 2 Sykhna's wedding supper was over. The guests and the tiresome little Norwegian preacher who had performed the marriage ceremony were saying good night. Old Ivar was hitching the horses to the wagon to take the wedding presents and the bride and groom up to their new home on Alexandra's north quarter. When Ivar drove up to the gate, Amyl and Marie Shabbata began to carry out the presents, and Alexandra went into her bedroom to bid Sykhna good-bye and to give her a few words of good counsel. She was surprised to find that the bride had changed her slippers for heavy shoes and was pinning up her skirts. At that moment Nels appeared at the gate with the two milk-cows that Alexandra had given Sykhna for a wedding present. Alexandra began to laugh. Why, Sykhna, you and Nels are to ride home. I'll send Ivar over with the cows in the morning. Sykhna hesitated and looked perplexed. When her husband called her, she pinned her hat on resolutely. A tank I better do just like he say. She murmured in confusion. Alexandra and Marie accompanied Sykhna to the gate and saw the party set off, old Ivar driving ahead in the wagon and the bride and groom following on foot, each leading a cow. Amyl burst into a laugh before they were out of hearing. Those two will get on, said Alexandra, as they turned back to the house. They are not going to take any chances. They will feel safer with those cows in their own stable. Marie, I am going to send for an old woman next. As soon as I get the girls broken in, I marry them off. I've no patience with Sykhna marrying that grumpy fellow, Marie declared. I wanted her to marry that nice smirkaboy who worked for us last winter. I think she liked him, too. Yes, I think she did, Alexandra assented. But I suppose she was too much afraid of Nels to marry anyone else. Now that I think of it, most of my girls have married men they were afraid of. I believe there is a good deal of the cow in most Swedish girls. You high-strung Bohemians can't understand us. We are a terribly practical people, and I guess we think a cross man makes a good manager. Marie shrugged her shoulders and turned to pin up a lock of hair that had fallen on her neck. Somehow, Alexandra had irritated her of late. Everybody irritated her. She was tired of everybody. I'm going home alone, Amyl, so you needn't get your hat. She said as she wound her scarf quickly about her head. Good night, Alexandra. She called back in a strained voice, running down the gravel walk. Amyl followed with long strides until he overtook her. Then she began to walk slowly. It was a night of warm wind and faint starlight, and the fireflies were glimmering over the wheat. Marie said, Amyl, after they had walked for a while. I wonder if you know how unhappy I am. Marie did not answer him. Her head, in its white scarf, drooped forward a little. Amyl kicked a clawed from the path and went on. I wonder whether you are really shallow-hearted like you seem. Sometimes I think one boy does just as well as another for you. It never seems to make much difference whether it is me or Raoul Marcell or Jan Smirka. Are you really like that? Perhaps I am. What do you want me to do? Sit round and cry all day. When I've cried until I can't cry any more, then, then I must do something else. Are you sorry for me? He persisted. No, I'm not. If I were big and free like you, I wouldn't let anything make me unhappy. As old Napoleon Bruno said at the fair, I wouldn't go lovering after no woman. I'd take the first train and go off and have all the fun there is. I tried that, but it didn't do any good. Everything reminded me. The nicer the place was, the more I wanted you. They had come to the style, and Amyl pointed to it persuasively. Sit down a moment. I want to ask you something. Marie sat down on the top-step, and Amyl drew nearer. Would you tell me something that's none of my business, if you thought it would help me out? Well, then, tell me. Please tell me why you ran away with Frank Shabbatah. Marie drew back. Because I was in love with him, she said firmly. Really? He asked incredulously. Yes, indeed. Very much in love with him. I think I was the one who suggested our running away. From the first it was more my fault than his. Amyl turned away his face. And now, Marie went on, I've got to remember that. Frank is just the same now as he was then. Only then I would see him as I wanted him to be. I would have my own way, and now I pay for it. You don't do all the paying. That's it. When one makes a mistake, there's no telling where it will stop. But you can go away. You can leave all this behind you. Not everything. I can't leave you behind. Will you go away with me, Marie? Marie started up and stepped across the style. Amyl, how wickedly you talk! I am not that kind of a girl, and you know it. But what am I going to do if you keep tormenting me like this? She added plaintively. Marie, I won't bother you any more if you will tell me just one thing. Stop a minute and look at me. No, nobody can see us. Everybody's asleep. That was only a firefly. Marie, stop and tell me. Amyl overtook her and, catching her by the shoulders, shook her gently, as if he were trying to awaken a sleep-walker. Marie hid her face on his arm. Don't ask me anything more. I don't know anything except how miserable I am. And I thought it would be all right when you came back. Oh, Amyl! she clutched his sleeve and began to cry. What am I to do if you don't go away? I can't go. And one of us must. Can't you see? Amyl stood looking down at her, holding his shoulders stiff and stiffening the arm to which she clung. Her white dress looked gray in the darkness. She seemed like a troubled spirit, like some shadow out of the earth, clinging to him and in treating him to give her peace. Behind her the fireflies were weaving in and out over the wheat. He put his hand on her bent head. On my honour, Marie, if you will say you love me, I will go away. She lifted her face to his. How could I help it? Didn't you know? Amyl was the one who trembled, through all his frame. After he left Marie at her gate, he wandered about the fields all night, till morning put out the fireflies and the stars. And of Chapter 2 of Part 4 Part 4 Chapter 3 of Oh! Pioneers This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Oh! Pioneers by Willa Cather. Part 4 The White Mulberry Tree Chapter 3 One evening, a week after Cygna's wedding, Amyl was kneeling before a box in the sitting-room, packing his books. From time to time he rose and wandered about the house, picking up stray volumes and bringing them listlessly back to his box. He was packing without enthusiasm. He was not very sanguine about his future. Alexandra sat sewing by the table. She had helped him pack his trunk in the afternoon. As Amyl came and went by her chair with his books, he fought to himself that it had not been so hard to leave his sister since he first went away to school. He was going directly to Omaha, to read law in the office of a Swedish lawyer, until October, when he would enter the law school at Ann Arbor. They had planned that Alexandra was to come to Michigan, a long journey for her, at Christmas time, and spend several weeks with him. Nevertheless, he felt that this leave-taking would be more final than his earlier ones had been, that it meant a definite break with his old home and the beginning of something new. He did not know what. His ideas about the future would not crystallize. The more he tried to think about it, the vaguer his conception of it became. But one thing was clear, he told himself. It was high time that he made good to Alexandra, and that ought to be incentive enough to begin with. As he went about gathering up his books, he felt as if he were uprooting things. At last he threw himself down on the old slat lounge where he had slept when he was little, and lay looking up at the familiar cracks in the ceiling. Tired, Amill, his sister asked. Lazy, he murmured, turning on his side and looking at her. He studied Alexandra's face for a long time in the lamp-light. It had never occurred to him that his sister was a handsome woman until Marie Shabbata had told him so. Indeed he had never thought of her as being a woman at all, only a sister. As he studied her bent head, he looked up at the picture of John Bergson above the lamp. No, he thought to himself, she didn't get it there. I suppose I am more like that. Alexandra, he said suddenly, that old walnut secretary you used for a desk was father's, wasn't it? Alexandra went on stitching. Yes, it was one of the first things he bought for the old log-house. It was a great extravagance in those days, but he wrote a great many letters back to the old country. He had many friends there, and they wrote to him up to the time he died. No one ever blamed him for grandfather's disgrace. I can see him now, sitting there on Sundays, in his white shirt, writing pages and pages, so carefully. He wrote a fine, regular hand, almost like engraving. Yours is something like his, when you take pains. Grandfather was really crooked, was he? He married an unscrupulous woman, and then—then I'm afraid he was really crooked. When we first came here, father used to have dreams about making a great fortune, and going back to Sweden to pay back to the poor sailors the money grandfather had lost. Amyl stirred on the lounge. I say, that would have been worthwhile, wouldn't it? Father wasn't a bit like Lou or Oscar, was he? I can't remember much about him before he got sick. Oh, not at all! Alexandra dropped her sewing on her knee. He had better opportunities, not to make money, but to make something of himself. He was a quiet man, but he was very intelligent. You would have been proud of him, Amyl. Alexandra felt that he would like to know there had been a man of his kin whom he could admire. She knew that Amyl was ashamed of Lou and Oscar, because they were bigoted and self-satisfied. He never said much about them, but she could feel his disgust. His brothers had shown their disapproval of him ever since he first went away to school. The only thing that would have satisfied them would have been his failure at the university. As it was, they resented every change in his speech, in his dress, in his point of view, though the latter they had to conjecture, for Amyl avoided talking to them about any but family matters. All his interests they treated as affectations. Alexandra took up her sewing again. I can remember Father when he was quite a young man. He belonged to some kind of musical society, a male chorus in Stockholm. I can remember going with Mother to hear them sing. There must have been a hundred of them, and they all wore long black coats and white neck ties. I was used to seeing Father in a blue coat, a sort of jacket, and when I recognized him on the platform I was very proud. Do you remember that Swedish song he taught you about the ship boy? Yes, I used to sing it to the Mexicans. They like anything different. Amyl paused. Father had a hard fight here, didn't he? he added thoughtfully. Yes, and he died in a dark time. Still he had help. He believed in the land. And in you, I guess, Amyl said to himself, there was another period of silence, that warm, friendly silence, full of perfect understanding, in which Amyl and Alexandra had spent many of their happiest half hours. At last Amyl said abruptly, Lou and Oscar would be better off if they were poor, wouldn't they? Alexandra smiled. Maybe, but their children wouldn't. I have great hopes of Milly. Amyl shivered. I don't know. Seems to me it gets worse as it goes on. The worst of the Swedes is that they're never willing to find out how much they don't know. It was like that at the university. Always so pleased with themselves. There's no getting behind that conceited Swedish grin. The Bohemians and Germans were so different. Come, Amyl, don't go back on your own people. Father wasn't conceited. Uncle Otto wasn't. Even Lou and Oscar weren't when they were boys. Amyl looked incredulous, but he did not dispute the point. He turned on his back and lay still for a long time, his hands locked under his head, looking up at the ceiling. Alexandra knew that he was thinking of many things. She felt no anxiety about Amyl. She had always believed in him as she had believed in the land. He had been more like himself since he got back from Mexico, seemed glad to be at home and talked to her as he used to do. She had no doubt that his wandering fit was over and that he would soon be settled in life. Alexandra, said Amyl suddenly, do you remember the wild duck we saw down on the river that time? His sister looked up. I often think of her. It always seems to me she's there still, just like we saw her. I know. It's queer what things one remembers and what things one forgets. Amyl yawned and sat up. Well, it's time to turn in. He rose and, going over to Alexandra, stooped down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Good night, sister. I think you did pretty well by us. Amyl took up his lamp and went upstairs. Alexandra sat finishing his new night-shirt, that must go in the top tray of his trunk. And of Chapter 3 of Part 4 Part 4, Chapter 4 of O' Pioneers This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. O' Pioneers by Willa Cather Part 4 The White Mulberry Tree Chapter 4 The next morning Angelique, Amédie's wife, was in the kitchen baking pies, assisted by old Mrs. Chevalier. Between the mixing-board and the stove stood the old cradle that had been Amédie's, and in it was his black-eyed son. As Angelique flushed and excited with flour on her hands, stopped to smile at the baby, Amyl Berkson rode up to the kitchen door on his mare and dismounted. Amédie is out in the field, Amyl. Angelique called as she ran across the kitchen to the oven. He begins to cut his wheat to-day, the first wheat ready to cut anywhere about here. He bought a new header, you know, because all the wheat's so short this year. I hope he can rent it to the neighbours it costs so much. He and his cousins bought a steam-thresher on shares. He ought to go out and see that header work. I watched it an hour this morning, busy as I am with all the men to feed. He has a lot of hands, but he's the only one that knows how to drive the header or how to run the engine, so he has to be everywhere at once. He's sick, too, and ought to be in his bed. Amyl bent over Hector Baptiste, trying to make him blink his round, bead-like black eyes. Sick! What's the matter with your daddy, kid? Been making him walk the floor with you. Angelique sniffed. Not much. We don't have that kind of babies. It was his father that kept Baptiste awake. All night I had to be getting up and making mustard-blasters to put on his stomach. He had an awful colic. He said he felt better this morning, but I don't think he ought to be out in the field overheating himself. Angelique did not speak with much anxiety. Not because she was indifferent, but because she felt so secure in their good fortune. Only good things could happen to a rich, energetic, handsome young man like Amadi with a new baby in the cradle, and a new header in the field. Amyl stroked the black fuzz on Baptiste's head. I say, Angelique, one of Amadi's grandmothers way back must have been a squaw. This kid looks exactly like the Indian babies. Angelique made a face at him, but old Mrs. Chevalier had been touched on a sore point, and she let out such a stream of fiery patois that Amyl fled from the kitchen and mounted his mare. Opening the pasture-gate from the saddle, Amyl rode across the field to the clearing where the thresher stood, driven by a stationary engine and fed from the header-boxes. As Amadi was not on the engine, Amyl rode on to the wheat-field, where he recognized on the header, the slight, wiry figure of his friend, coatless, his white shirt puffed out by the wind. His straw hat stuck jauntily on the side of his head. The six big work-horses that drew, or rather pushed, the header, went abreast at a rapid walk, and as they were still green at the work, they required a good deal of management on Amadi's part, especially when they turned the corners, where they divided three and three, and then swung round into line again with the movement that looked as complicated as a wheel of artillery. Amyl felt a new thrill of admiration for his friend, and with it the old pang of envy at the way in which Amadi could do with his might what his hand found to do, and feel that, whatever it was, it was the most important thing in the world. I'll have to bring Alexandra up to see this thing work. Amyl fought. It splendid. When he saw Amyl, Amadi waved to him and called to one of his twenty cousins to take the reins. Stepping off the header without stopping it, he ran up to Amyl who had dismounted. Come along, he called. I have to go over to the engine for a minute. I've got a green man running it, and I've got to keep an eye on him. Amyl thought the lad was unnaturally flushed and more excited than even the cares of managing a big farm at a critical time warranted. As they passed behind a last year's stack, Amadi clutched at his right side and sank down for a moment on the straw. Ouch! I got an awful pain in me, Amyl. Something's the matter with my insides, for sure. Amyl felled his fiery cheek. You ought to go straight to bed, Medi, and telephone for the doctor. That's what you ought to do. Amadi staggered up with a gesture of despair. How can I? I've got no time to be sick. Three thousand dollars' worth of new machinery to manage, and the wheat so ripe it will begin to shatter next week. My wheat's short, but it's got a grandful berries. What's he slowing down for? We haven't got header boxes enough to feed the thresher, I guess. Amadi started hot foot across the stubble, leaning a little to the right as he ran, and waved to the engineer not to stop the engine. Amyl saw that this was no time to talk about his own affairs. He mounted his mare and rode on to Santhonyas, to bid his friends there good-bye. He went first to see Role Marcell, and found him innocently practicing the gloria for the big confirmation service on Sunday while he polished the mirrors of his father's saloon. As Amyl rode homewards at three o'clock in the afternoon, he saw Amadi staggering out of the wheat-field, supported by two of his cousins. Amyl stopped, and helped them put the boy to bed. PART IV. THE WHITE MULBERRY TREE. CHAPTER V When Frank Shabata came in from work at five o'clock that evening, old Moses Marcell, Role's father, telephoned him that Amadi had had a seizure in the wheat-field, and that Dr. Paradis was going to operate on him as soon as the Hanover doctor got there to help. Frank dropped a word of this at the table, bolted his supper, and rode off to Santhonyas, where there would be sympathetic discussion of Amadi's case at Marcell's saloon. As soon as Frank was gone, Marie telephoned Alexandra. It was a comfort to hear her friend's voice. Yes, Alexandra knew what there was to be known about Amadi. Amyl had been there when they carried him out of the field, and had stayed with him until the doctors operated for appendicitis at five o'clock. They were afraid it was too late to do much good. It should have been done three days ago. Amadi was in a very bad way. Amyl had just come home, worn out, and sick himself. She had given him some brandy, and put him to bed. Marie hung up the receiver. Poor Amadi's illness had taken on a new meaning to her, now that she knew Amyl had been with him. And it might so easily have been the other way. Amyl, who was ill, and Amadi, who was sad. Marie looked about the dusky sitting-room. She had seldom felt so utterly lonely. If Amyl was asleep there was not even a chance of his coming, and she could not go to Alexandra for sympathy. She meant to tell Alexandra everything as soon as Amyl went away. Then whatever was left between them would be honest. But she could not stay in the house this evening. Where should she go? She walked slowly down through the orchard, where the evening air was heavy with the smell of wild cotton. The fresh, salty scent of the wild roses had given way before this more powerful perfume of Midsummer. Wherever those ashes of rose-balls hung on their milky stocks, the air about them was saturated with their breath. The sky was still red in the west, and the evening star hung directly over the Bergson's windmill. Marie crossed the fence at the wheat-field corner, and walked slowly along the path that led to Alexandra's. She could not help feeling heard that Amyl had not come to tell her about Amadi. It seemed to her most unnatural that he should not have come. If she were in trouble, certainly he was the one person in the world she would want to see. Perhaps he wished her to understand that for her he was as good as gone already. Marie stole slowly, flutteringly along the path, like a white night-moth out of the fields. The years seemed to stretch before her like the land. Spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring. Always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives. Always the same yearning, the same pulling at the chain, until the instinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last time, until the chain secured a dead woman who might cautiously be released. Marie walked on, her face lifted toward the remote, inaccessible evening star. When she reached the style she sat down and waited, how terrible it was to love people when you could not really share their lives. Yes, insofar as she was concerned Amyl was already gone. They couldn't meet any more. There was nothing for them to say. They had spent the last penny of their small change. There was nothing left but gold. The day of love tokens was passed. They had now only their hearts to give each other. And Amyl being gone, what was her life to be like? In some ways it would be easier. She would not, at least, live in perpetual fear. If Amyl were once away and settled at work, she would not have the feeling that she was spoiling his life. With the memory he left her, she could be as rash as she chose. Nobody could be the worse for it but herself, and that surely did not matter. Her own case was clear. When a girl had loved one man, and then loved another while that man was still alive, everybody knew what to think of her. What happened to her was of little consequence, as long as she did not drag other people down with her. Amyl once away she could let everything else go and live a new life of perfect love. Marie left the style reluctantly. She had, after all, thought he might come. And how glad she ought to be, she told herself that he was asleep. She left the path and went across the pasture. The moon was almost full, and Owl was hooting somewhere in the fields. She had scarcely thought about where she was going when the pond glittered before her where Amyl had shot the ducks. She stopped and looked at it. Yes, there would be a dirty way out of life, if one chose to take it. But she did not want to die. She wanted to live and dream, a hundred years, forever, as long as this sweetness welled up in her heart, as long as her breast could hold this treasure of pain. She felt as the pond must feel when it held the moon like that, when it encircled and swelled with that image of gold. In the morning, when Amyl came downstairs, Alexandra met him in the sitting-room and put her hands on his shoulders. Amyl, I went to your room as soon as it was light, but you were sleeping so sound, I hated to wake you. There was nothing you could do, so I let you sleep. They telephoned from St. Agnes that Amadie died at three o'clock this morning. End of chapter 5 of part 4. Part 4 Chapter 6 of O Pioneers This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. O Pioneers by Willa Cather Part 4 The White Mulberry Tree Chapter 6 The church has always held that life is for the living. On Saturday, while half the village of St. Agnes was mourning for Amadie, and preparing the funeral-black for his burial on Monday, the other half was busy with white dresses and white veils for the great confirmation service to-morrow, when the bishop was to confirm a class of one hundred boys and girls. Father Duchéne divided his time between the living and the dead. All day Saturday the church was a scene of bustling activity, a little hushed by the thought of Amadie. The choir were busy rehearsing a mass of Rossini, which they had studied and practiced for this occasion. The women were trimming the altar, the boys and girls were bringing flowers. On Sunday morning the bishop was to drive overland to St. Agnes from Hanover, and Aimele Bergson had been asked to take the place of one of Amadie's cousins in the cavalcade of forty French boys who were to ride across country to meet the bishop's carriage. At six o'clock on Sunday morning the boys met at the church. As they stood holding their horses by the bridle, they talked in low tones of their dead comrade. They kept repeating that Amadie had always been a good boy. Glancing toward the red-brick church which had played so large a part in Amadie's life, had been the scene of his most serious moments and of his happiest hours. He had played and wrestled and sung and courted under its shadow. Only three weeks ago he had proudly carried his baby there to be christened. They could not doubt that that invisible arm was still about Amadie, that through the church on earth he had passed to the church triumphant the goal of the hopes and faith of so many hundred years. When the word was given to mount the young men rode at a walk out of the village, but once out among the wheat fields in the morning sun their horses and their own youth got the better of them. A wave of zeal and fiery enthusiasm swept over them. They longed for a Jerusalem to deliver. The thud of their galloping hoofs interrupted many a country breakfast and brought many a woman and child to the door of the farmhouses as they passed. Five miles east of St. Agnes they met the bishop in his open carriage, attended by two priests. Like one man the boys swung off their hats in a broad salute and bowed their heads as the handsome old man lifted his two fingers in the episcopal blessing. The horsemen closed about the carriage like a guard, and whenever a restless horse broke from control and shot down the road ahead of the body the bishop laughed and rubbed his plump hands together. What fine boys! he said to his priests. The church still has her cavalry. As the troops wept past the graveyard half a mile east of the town, the first framed church of the parish had stood there. Old Pierre Seguin was already out with his pick and spade, digging Amadi's grave. He knelt and uncovered as the bishop passed. The boys with one accord looked away from Old Pierre to the red church on the hill, with the gold cross flaming on its steeple. Mass was at eleven. While the church was filling, Aimele bergs and waited outside, watching the wagons and buggies drive up the hill. After the bell began to ring he saw Frank Shabbata ride up on horseback and tie his horse to the hitch-bar. Marie then was not coming. Aimele turned and went into the church. Amadi's was the only empty pew, and he sat down in it. Some of Amadi's cousins were there, dressed in black and weeping. When all the pews were full, the old men and boys packed the open space at the back of the church, kneeling on the floor. There was scarcely a family in town that was not represented in the confirmation class, by a cousin at least. The new communicans, with their clear, reverent faces, were beautiful to look upon as they entered in Abadi and took the front benches reserved for them. Even before the mass began the air was charged with feeling. The choir had never sung so well, and Rahul Marcell, in the Gloria, drew even the bishop's eyes to the organ loft. For the offertory he sang Gunod's Ave Maria, always spoken of in Saint Agnes as the Ave Maria. Aimele began to torture himself with questions about Marie. Was she ill? Had she quarreled with her husband? Was she too unhappy to find comfort even here? Had she, perhaps, thought that he would come to her? Was she waiting for him? Overtaxed by excitement and sorrow as he was, the rapture of the service took hold upon his body and mind. As he listened to Rahul, he seemed to emerge from the conflicting emotions which had been whirling him about and sucking him under. He felt as if a clear light broke upon his mind, and with it a conviction that good was, after all, stronger than evil, and that good was possible to men. He seemed to discover that there was a kind of rapture in which he could love forever without faltering and without sin. He looked across the heads of the people at Frank Shabbatah with calmness. That rapture was for those who could feel it. For people who could not it was nonexistent. He coveted nothing that was Frank Shabbatah's. The spirit he had met in music was his own. Frank Shabbatah had never found it, would never find it, if he lived beside it a thousand years, would have destroyed it if he had found it, as Herod slew the innocents, as Rome slew the martyrs. Sancte Maria! wailed Rahul from the organ loved. Ora pro nomis! And it did not occur to Emil that anyone had ever reasoned thus before, that music had ever before given a man this equivocal revelation. The confirmation service followed the mass. When it was over, the congregation thronged about the newly confirmed. The girls, and even the boys, were kissed and embraced and wept over. All the aunts and grandmothers wept with joy. The housewives had much adieu to tear themselves away from the general rejoicing and hurry back to their kitchens. The country parishioners were staying in town for dinner, and nearly every house in St. Agnes entertained visitors that day. Father Duchéne, the bishop, and the visiting priests, dined with Fabienne Sauvage, the banker. Emil and Frank Shabbatah were both guests of old Moise Marcel. After dinner, Frank and old Moise returned to the rear room of the saloon to play California Jack and drink their cognac, and Emil went over to the bankers with Raoul, who had been asked to sing for the bishop. At three o'clock Emil felt that he could stand it no longer. He slipped out under cover of the Holy City, followed by Malvina's wistful eye, and went to the stable for his mare. He was at that height of excitement, from which everything is foreshortened, from which life seems short and simple, death very near, and the soul seems to soar like an eagle. As he rode past the graveyard, he looked at the brown hole in the earth where Amédie was to lie, and felt no horror. That, too, was beautiful, that simple doorway into forgetfulness. The heart, when it is too much alive, aches for that brown earth, and ecstasy has no fear of death. It is the old and the poor and the maimed who shrink from that brown hole. Its wooers are found among the young, the passionate, the gallant-hearted. It was not until he had passed the graveyard that Emil realized where he was going. It was the hour for saying good-bye. It might be the last time that he would see her alone, and to-day he could leave her without rancor, without bitterness. Everywhere the grain stood ripe, and the hot air was full of the smell of the ripe wheat, like the smell of bread baking in an oven. The breath of the wheat and the sweet clover passed him like pleasant things in a dream. He could feel nothing but the sense of diminishing distance. It seems to him that his mare was flying, or running on wheels like a railway train. The sunlight, flashing on the window-glass of the big red barns, drove him wild with joy. He was like an arrow shot from the bow. His life poured itself out along the road before him as he rode to the Shabbatah farm. When Emil alighted at the Shabbatah's gate, his horse was in a lather. He tied her in the stable and hurried to the house. It was empty. She might be at Mrs. Hillers or with Alexandra. But anything that reminded him of her would be enough the orchard, the mulberry tree. When he reached the orchard the sun was hanging low over the wheat-field. Long fingers of light reached through the apple-branches as through a net. The orchard was riddled and shot with gold. Light was the reality. The trees were merely interferences that reflected and refracted light. Emil went softly down between the cherry trees toward the wheat-field. When he came to the corner he stopped short, and put his hand over his mouth. Marie was lying on her side under the white mulberry tree, her face half hidden in the grass, her eyes closed, her hands lying limply where they had happened to fall. She had lived a day of her new life of perfect love, and it had left her like this. Her breast rose and fell faintly as if she were asleep. Emil threw himself down beside her and took her in his arms. The blood came back to her cheeks, her amber eyes open slowly, and in them Emil saw his own face and the orchard and the sun. I was dreaming this, she whispered, hiding her face against him. Don't take my dream away. And of Chapter 6 of Part 4. Part 4, Chapter 7 of O. Pioneers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. O. Pioneers. By Willa Cather. Part 4. The White Mulberry Tree. Chapter 7. When Frank Shabata got home that night, he found Emil's mare in his stable. Such an impertinence amazed him. Like everybody else, Frank had had an exciting day. Since noon he had been drinking too much, and he was in a bad temper. He talked bitterly to himself while he put his own horse away, and as he went up the path and saw that the house was dark, he felt an added sense of injury. He approached quietly and listened on the doorstep. Hearing nothing, he opened the kitchen door and went softly from one room to another. Then he went through the house again, upstairs and down, with no better result. He sat down on the bottom step of the boxed stairway and tried to get his wits together. In that unnatural quiet, there was no sound but his own heavy breathing. Suddenly an owl began to hoot out in the fields. Frank lifted his head. An idea flashed into his mind, and his sense of injury and outrage grew. He went into his bedroom and took his murderous 405 Winchester from the closet. When Frank took up his gun and walked out of the house, he had not the faintest purpose of doing anything with it. He did not believe that he had any real grievance, but it gratified him to feel like a desperate man. He had got into the habit of seeing himself always in desperate straits. His unhappy temperament was like a cage, he could never get out of it, and he felt that other people, his wife in particular, must have put him there. It had never more than dimly occurred to Frank that he made his own unhappiness. Though he took up his gun with dark projects in his mind, he would have been paralyzed with fright, had he known that there was the slightest probability of his ever carrying any of them out. Frank went slowly down to the orchard gate, stopped and stood for a moment, lost in thought. He retraced his steps and looked through the barn and the hayloft. Then he went out to the road, where he took the footpath along the outside of the orchard hedge. The hedge was twice as tall as Frank himself, and so dense that one could see through it only by peering closely between the leaves. He could see the empty path a long way in the moonlight. His mind travelled ahead to the stile, which he always thought of as haunted by Amill Berkson. But why had he left his horse? At the wheat field corner where the orchard hedge ended and the path led across the pasture to the Berksons, Frank stopped. In the warm, breathless night air he heard a murmuring sound, perfectly inarticulate, as low as the sound of water coming from a spring, where there is no fall, and where there are no stones to fret it. Frank strained his ears. It ceased. He held his breath and began to tremble. Resting the butt of his gun on the ground, he parted the mulberry leaves softly with his fingers, and peered through the hedge at the dark figures on the grass in the shadow of the mulberry tree. It seemed to him that they must feel his eyes, that they must hear him breathing. But they did not. Frank, who had always wanted to see things blacker than they were, for once wanted to believe less than he saw. The woman lying in the shadow might so easily be one of the Berksons' farm-girls. Again the murmur, like water welling out of the ground. This time he heard it more distinctly, and his blood was quicker than his brain. He began to act, just as a man who falls into the fire begins to act. The gun sprang to his shoulder. He sighted mechanically and fired three times without stopping—stopped without knowing why. Either he shut his eyes or he had vertigo. He did not see anything while he was firing. He thought he heard a cry simultaneous with the second report, but he was not sure. He peered again through the hedge at the two dark figures under the tree. They had fallen a little apart from each other, and were perfectly still. No, not quite. In a white patch of light, where the moon shone through the branches, a man's hand was plucking spasmodically at the grass. Suddenly the woman stirred and uttered a cry, then another, and another. She was living. She was dragging herself toward the hedge. Frank dropped his gun and ran back along the path, shaking, stumbling, gasping. He had never imagined such horror. The cries followed him. They grew fainter and thicker, as if she were choking. He dropped on his knees beside the hedge and crouched like a rabbit, listening, fainter, fainter. A sound like a whine, again, a moan, another. Silence. Frank scrambled to his feet and ran on, groaning and praying. From habit he went toward the house, where he was used to being soothed when he had worked himself into a frenzy. But at the sight of the black, open door he started back. He knew that he had murdered somebody, that a woman was bleeding and moaning in the orchard, but he had not realised before that it was his wife. The gate stared him in the face. He threw his hands over his head, which way to turn. He lifted his tormented face and looked at the sky. Holy Mother of God, not to suffer! She was a good girl, not to suffer! Frank had been want to see himself in dramatic situations. But now, when he stood by the windmill, in the bright space between the barn and the house, facing his own black doorway, he did not see himself at all. He stood like the hare when the dogs are approaching from all sides, and he ran like a hare back and forth about that moonlit space before he could make up his mind to go into the dark stable for a horse. The thought of going into a doorway was terrible to him. He caught Amill's horse by the bit and let it out. He could not have buckled a bridle on his own. After two or three attempts he lifted himself into the saddle and started for Hanover. If he could catch the one o'clock train, he had money enough to get as far as Omaha. While he was thinking duly of this in some less sensitized part of his brain, his acuter faculties were going over and over the cries he had heard in the orchard. Terror was the only thing that kept him from going back to her. Terror that she might still be she, that she might still be suffering. A woman mutilated and bleeding in his orchard. It was because it was a woman that he was so afraid. It was inconceivable that he should have hurt a woman. He would rather be eaten by wild beasts than see her move on the ground as she had moved in the orchard. Why had she been so careless? She knew he was like a crazy man when he was angry. She had more than once taken that gun away from him and held it when he was angry with other people. Ones that had gone off while they were struggling over it. She was never afraid. But when she knew him, why hadn't she been more careful? Didn't she have all summer before her to love Emil Bergson in without taking such chances? Probably she had met the smirkaboy, too, down there in the orchard. He didn't care. She could have met all the men on the divide there and welcome if only she hadn't brought this horror on him. There was a wrench in Frank's mind. He did not honestly believe that of her. He knew that he was doing her wrong. He stopped his horse to admit this to himself the more directly, to think it out the more clearly. He knew that he was to blame. For three years he had been trying to break her spirit. She had a way of making the best of things that seemed to him a sentimental affectation. He wanted his wife to resent that he was wasting his best years among these stupid and unappreciative people, but she had seemed to find the people quite good enough. If he ever got rich he meant to buy her pretty clothes and take her to California in a Pullman car and treat her like a lady. But in the meantime he wanted her to feel that life was as ugly and unjust as he felt it. He had tried to make her life ugly. He had refused to share any of the little pleasures she was so plucky about making for herself. She could be gay about the least thing in the world, but she must be gay. When she first came to him, her faith in him, her adoration, Frank struck the mare with his fist. Why had Marie made him do this thing? Why had she brought this upon him? He was overwhelmed by sickening misfortune. All at once he heard her cries again. He had forgotten for a moment. Maria! he sobbed aloud. Maria! When Frank was half-way to Hanover, the motion of his horse brought on a violent attack of nausea. After it had passed he rode on again, but he could think of nothing except his physical weakness and his desire to be comforted by his wife. He wanted to get into his own bed. Had his wife been at home, he would have turned and gone back to her meekly enough. VIII. When old Ivar climbed down from his loft at four o'clock the next morning, he came upon Amill's mare. Jaded and lather-stained, her bridal broken, chewing the scattered tufts of hay outside the stable door. The old man was thrown into a fright at once. He put the mare and her stall, threw her a measure of oats, and then set out as fast as his bow-legs could carry him on the path to the nearest neighbour. Something is wrong with that boy. Some misfortune has come upon us. He would never have used her so in his right senses. It is not his way to abuse his mare. The old man kept muttering, as he scuttled through the short, wet pasture-grass on his bare feet. While Ivar was hurrying across the fields, the first long rays of the sun were reaching down between the orchard-bows to those two do-drenched figures. The story of what had happened was written plainly on the orchard-grass and on the white mulberries that had fallen in the night and were covered with dark stain. For Amill the chapter had been short. He was shot in the heart and had rolled over on his back and died. His face was turned up to the sky and his brows were drawn in a frown as if he had realised that something had befallen him. But for Marie Shabbata it had not been so easy. One ball had torn through her right lung, another had shattered the carotid artery. She must have started up and gone toward the hedge, leaving a trail of blood. There she had fallen and bled. From that spot there was another trail, heavier than the first, where she must have dragged herself back to Amill's body. Once there she seemed not to have struggled any more. She had lifted her head to her lover's breast, taken his hand in both her own, and bled quietly to death. She was lying on her right side in an easy and natural position, her cheek on Amill's shoulder. On her face there was a look of ineffable content. Her lips were parted a little. Her eyes were lightly closed as if in a daydream or a light slumber. After she lay down there she seemed not to have moved an eyelash. The hand she held was covered with dark stains, where she had kissed it. But the stained, slippery grass, the darkened mulberries, told only half the story. Above Marie and Amill, two white butterflies from Frank's alfalfa field were fluttering in and out among the interlacing shadows, diving and soaring, now close together, now far apart. And in the long grass by the fence the last wild roses of the year opened their pink hearts to die. When Ivar reached the path by the hedge, he saw Shabbatah's rifle lying in the way. He turned and peered through the branches, falling upon his knees as if his legs had been mowed from under him. Merciful God! he groaned. Alexandra, too, had risen early that morning, because of her anxiety about Amill. She was in Amill's room upstairs when, from the window, she saw Ivar coming along the path that led from the Shabbatahs. He was running like a spent man, tottering and lurching from side to side. Ivar never drank, and Alexandra thought at once that one of his spells had come upon him, and that he must be in a very bad way indeed. She ran downstairs and hurried out to meet him, to hide his infirmity from the eyes of her household. The old man fell in the road at her feet and caught her hand, over which he bowed his shaggy head. Mistress! Mistress! he sobbed. It is fallen! Sin and death for the young ones! God have mercy upon us! End of Chapter 8 of Part 4 Part 5 Chapter 1 of O Pioneers This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. Part 5 Alexandra Chapter 1 Ivar was sitting at a cobbler's bench in the barn, mending harness by the light of a lantern, and repeating to himself the one hundred and first psalm. It was only five o'clock of a mid-October day, but a storm had come up in the afternoon, bringing black clouds, a cold wind, and torrents of rain. The old man wore his buffalo-skin coat, and occasionally stopped to warm his fingers at the lantern. Suddenly a woman burst into the shed as if she had been blown in, accompanied by a shower of raindrops. It was Cygna, wrapped in a man's overcoat and wearing a pair of boots over her shoes. In time of trouble Cygna had come back to stay with her mistress, for she was the only one of the maids from whom Alexandra would accept much personal service. It was three months now since the news of the terrible thing that had happened in Frank Shabata's orchard had first run like a fire over the divide. Cygna and Nelsa were staying on with Alexandra until winter. Ivar, Cygna exclaimed as she wiped the rain from her face, do you know where she is? The old man put down his cobbler's knife. Who, the mistress? Yes, she went away about three o'clock. I happened to look out of the window and saw her going across the fields in her thin dress and sun-hat, and now this storm has come on. I thought she was going to Mrs. Hillers, and I telephoned as soon as the thunder stopped, but she had not been there. I'm afraid she is out somewhere and will get her death of cold. Ivar put on his cap and took up the lantern. Yah, yah, we will see. I will hitch the boy's mare to the cart and go. Cygna followed him across the wagon shed to the horse's stable. She was shivering with cold and excitement. Where do you suppose she can be, Ivar? The old man lifted a set of single harness carefully from its peg. How should I know? But you think she is at the graveyard, don't you?" Cygna persisted. So do I. Oh, I wish she would be more like herself. I can't believe it's Alexandra Bergson come to this with no head about anything. I have to tell her when to eat and when to go to bed. Patience, patience, sister! muttered Ivar as he settled the bit in the horse's mouth. When the eyes of the flesh are shut, the eyes of the spirit are open. She will have a message from those who are gone, and that will bring her peace. Until then we must bear with her. You and I are the only ones who have weight with her. She trusts us. How awful it's been these last three months! Cygna held the lantern, so that he could see to buckle the straps. It don't seem right that we must all be so miserable. Why do we all have to be punished? Seems to me like good times would never come again. Ivar expressed himself in a deep sigh, but said nothing. He stooped and took a sand-bur from his toe. Ivar, Cygna asked suddenly, will you tell me why you go barefoot? All the time I lived here in the house I wanted to ask you, is it for a penance or what? No, sister, it is for the indulgence of the body. From my youth up I have had a strong rebellious body, and have been subject to every kind of temptation. Even in age my temptations are prolonged. It was necessary to make some allowances, and the feet, as I understand it, are free members. There is no divine prohibition for them in the Ten Commandments. The hands, the tongue, the eyes, the heart—all the bodily desires we are commanded to subdue, but the feet are free members. I indulge them without harm to anyone, even to trampling in filth when my desires are low. They are quickly cleaned again. Cygna did not laugh. She looked thoughtful as she followed Ivar out to the wagon shed, and held the shafts up for him, while he backed in the mare, and buckled the hold-backs. You have been a good friend to the mistress, Ivar, she murmured. And you, God be with you, replied Ivar, as he clambered into the cart, and put the lantern under the oil-cloth lap cover. Now for a ducking, my girl, he said to the mare, gathering up the reins. As they emerged from the shed, a stream of water running off the thatch struck the mare on the neck. She tossed her head indignantly, then struck out bravely on the soft ground, slipping back again and again as she climbed the hill to the main road. Between the rain and the darkness, Ivar could see very little, so he let Amiel's mare have the rain, keeping her head in the right direction. When the ground was level, he turned her out of the dirt road upon the sod, where she was able to trot without slipping. Before Ivar reached the graveyard, three miles from the house, the storm had spent itself, and the downpour had died into a soft, dripping rain. The sky and the land were a dark smoke-color, and seemed to be coming together, like two waves. When Ivar stopped at the gate and swung out his lantern, a white figure rose from beside John Berkson's white stone. The old man sprang to the ground and shuffled toward the gate, calling, Mistress, Mistress! Alexandra hurried to meet him and put her hand on his shoulder. Teased! Ivar, there's nothing to be worried about. I'm sorry if I've scared you all. I didn't notice the storm till it was on me, and I couldn't walk against it. I'm glad you've come. I am so tired I didn't know how I'd ever get home. Ivar swung the lantern up so that it shone in her face. Good! You are enough to frighten us, Mistress. You look like a drowned woman. How could you do such a thing? Growning and mumbling, he led her out of the gate, and helped her into the cart, wrapping her in the dry blankets on which he had been sitting. Alexandra smiled at his solicitude. Not much in that, Ivar. You will only shut the wetion. I don't feel so cold now, but I'm heavy and numb. I'm glad you came. Ivar turned the mare and urged her into a sliding trot. Her feet sent back a continual spatter of mud. Alexandra spoke to the old man as they jogged along through the sullen grey twilight of the storm. Ivar, I think it has done me good to get cold clear through like this once. I don't believe I shall suffer so much any more. When you get so near to the dead, they seem more real than the living. Worldly thoughts leave one. Ever since Amill died, I've suffered so when it rained. Now that I've been out in it with him, I shan't dread it. After you once get cold clear through, the feeling of rain on you is sweet. It seems to bring back feelings you had when you were a baby. It carries you back into the dark before you were born. You can't see things, but they come to you somehow, and you know them, and aren't afraid of them. Maybe it's like that with the dead. If they feel anything at all, it's the old things, before they were born, that comfort people like the feeling of their own bed does when they are little. Mistress, said Ivar reproachfully. Those are bad thoughts. The dead are in paradise. Then he hung his head, for he did not believe that Amill was in paradise. When they got home, Cygna had a fire burning in the sitting-room stove. She undressed Alexandra and gave her a hot foot bath, while Ivar made ginger tea in the kitchen. When Alexandra was in bed, wrapped in hot blankets, Ivar came in with his tea and saw that she drank it. Cygna asked permission to sleep on the slat lounge outside her door. Alexandra endured their attentions patiently, but she was glad when they put out the lamp and left her. As she lay alone in the dark, it occurred to her for the first time that perhaps she was actually tired of life. All the physical operations of life seemed difficult and painful. She longed to be free from her own body, which ached and was so heavy, and longing itself was heavy. She yearned to be free of that. As she lay with her eyes closed, she had again, more vividly than for many years, the old illusion of her girlhood, of being lifted and carried lightly by someone very strong. He was with her a long while this time and carried her very far, and in his arms she felt free from pain. When he laid her down on her bed again, she opened her eyes and, for the first time in her life, she saw him. Saw him clearly though the room was dark and his face was covered. He was standing in the doorway of her room. His white cloak was thrown over his face and his head was bent a little forward. His shoulders seemed as strong as the foundations of the world. His right arm, bared from the elbow, was dark and gleaming like bronze, and she knew at once that it was the arm of the mightiest of all lovers. She knew at last for whom it was she had waited, and where he would carry her. That, she told herself, was very well. Then she went to sleep. Alexandra wakened in the morning with nothing worse than a hard cold and a stiff shoulder. She kept her bed for several days, and it was during that time that she formed a resolution to go to Lincoln to see Frank Shabbatah. Ever since she last saw him in the courtroom, Frank's haggard face and wild eyes had haunted her. The trial had lasted only three days. Frank had given himself up to the police in Omaha and pleaded guilty of killing without malice and without pre-meditation. The gun was, of course, against him, and the judge had given him the full sentence—ten years. He had now been in a state penitentiary for a month. Frank was the only one, Alexandra told herself, for whom anything could be done. He had been less in the wrong than any of them, and he was paying the heaviest penalty. She often felt that she herself had been more to blame than poor Frank. From the time the Shabbatahs had first moved to the neighboring farm, she had omitted no opportunity of throwing Marie and Amyl together. Because she knew Frank was surly about doing little things to help his wife, she was always sending Amyl over to Spade or Plant or Carpenter for Marie. She was glad to have Amyl see as much as possible of an intelligent, city-bred girl like their neighbor. She noticed that it improved his manners. She knew that Amyl was fond of Marie, but it had never occurred to her that Amyl's feelings might be different from her own. She wondered at herself now, but she had never thought of danger in that direction. If Marie had been unmarried, oh yes, then she would have kept her eyes open. But the mere fact that she was Shabbatah's wife, for Alexandra, settled everything. That she was beautiful, impulsive, barely two years older than Amyl, these facts had had no weight with Alexandra. Amyl was a good boy, and only bad boys ran after married women. Now Alexandra could in a measure realize that Marie was, after all, Marie, not merely a married woman. Sometimes, when Alexandra thought of her, it was with an aching tenderness. The moment she had reached them in the orchard that morning, everything was clear to her. There was something about those two lying in the grass, something in the way Marie had settled her cheek on Amyl's shoulder, that told her everything. She wondered then how they could have helped loving each other, how she could have helped knowing that they must. Amyl's cold, frowning face, the girl's content, Alexandra had felt awe of them, even in the first shock of her grief. The idleness of those days in bed, the relaxation of body which attended them, enabled Alexandra to think more calmly than she had done since Amyl's death. She and Frank, she told herself, were left out of that group of friends who had been overwhelmed by disaster. She must certainly see Frank Shabbatah. Even in the courtroom, her heart had grieved for him. He was in a strange country, he had no kinsmen or friends, and in a moment he had ruined his life. Being what he was, she felt Frank could not have acted otherwise. She could understand his behavior more easily than she could understand Marie's. Yes, she must go to Lincoln to see Frank Shabbatah. The day after Amyl's funeral, Alexandra had written to Carl Lindstrom, a single page of note paper, a bare statement of what had happened. She was not a woman who could write much about such a thing, and about her own feelings she could never write very freely. She knew that Carl was away from post offices, prospecting somewhere in the interior. Before he started he had written her where he expected to go, but her ideas about Alaska were vague. As the weeks went by and she heard nothing from him, it seemed to Alexandra that her heart grew hard against Carl. She began to wonder whether she would not do better to finish her life alone. What was left of life seemed unimportant. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Alighted at the Burlington Depot in Lincoln. She drove to the Lindell Hotel, where she had stayed two years ago when she came up for Amyl's commencement. In spite of her usual air of sureness and self-possession, Alexandra felt ill at ease in hotels, and she was glad, when she went to the clerk's desk to register, that there were not many people in the lobby. She had her supper early, wearing her hat and black jacket down to the dining-room and carrying her handbag. After supper she went out for a walk. It was growing dark when she reached the university campus. She did not go into the grounds, but walked slowly up and down the stone walk outside the long iron fence, looking through at the young men who were running from one building to another, at the lights shining from the armory and the library. A squad of cadets were going through their drill behind the armory, and the commands of their young officer rang out at regular intervals, so sharp and quick that Alexandra could not understand them. Two stalwart girls came down the library steps and out through one of the iron gates. As they passed her, Alexandra was pleased to hear them speaking bohemian to each other. Every few moments a boy would come running down the flagged walk and dash out into the street as if he were rushing to announce some wonder to the world. Alexandra felt a great tenderness for them all. She wished one of them would stop and speak to her. She wished she could ask them whether they had known Amill. As she lingered by the south gate, she actually did encounter one of the boys. He had on his drill cap and was swinging his books at the end of a long strap. It was dark by this time. He did not see her and ran against her. He snatched off his cap and stood bare-headed and panting. I'm awfully sorry," he said in a bright, clear voice, with a rising inflection as if he expected her to say something. Oh, it was my fault," said Alexandra eagerly. Are you an old student here, may I ask? No, ma'am. I'm a freshie just off the farm, Cherry County. Were you hunting somebody? No, thank you. That is— Alexandra wanted to detain him. That is, I would like to find some of my brother's friends. He graduated two years ago. Then you'd have to try the seniors, wouldn't you? Let's see. I don't know any of them yet, but there's sure to be some of them around the library. That red building right there," he pointed. Thank you. I'll try there," said Alexandra, lingeringly. Oh, that's all right. Good night. The lad clapped his cap on his head and ran straight down 11th Street. Alexandra looked after him wistfully. She walked back to her hotel, unreasonably comforted. What a nice voice that boy had, and how polite he was. I know Amyl was always like that to women. And again, after she had undressed and was standing in her nightgown, brushing her long, heavy hair by the electric light, she remembered him and said to herself, I don't think I ever heard a nicer voice than that boy had. I hope he will get on well here. Cherry County, that's where the hay is so fine, and the coyotes can scratch down to water. At nine o'clock the next morning Alexandra presented herself at the Warden's office in the state penitentiary. The Warden was a German, a ruddy, cheerful-looking man who had formerly been a harness-maker. Alexandra had a letter to him from the German banker and Hanover. As he glanced at the letter, Mr. Schwartz put away his pipe. That big bohemian is it? Sure, he's gittin' along fine, said Mr. Schwartz cheerfully. I'm glad to hear that. I was afraid he might be quarrelsome and get himself into more trouble. Mr. Schwartz, if you have time, I would like to tell you a little about Frank Shabbata, and why I am interested in him. The Warden listened genially while she told him briefly something of Frank's history and character, but he did not seem to find anything unusual in her account. Sure, I'll keep an eye on him. We'll take care of him all right. He said, rising. You can talk to him here while I go to see to things in the kitchen. I'll have him sent in. He ought to be done washing out his cell by this time. We have to keep him clean, you know. The Warden paused at the door, speaking back over his shoulder to a pale young man in convict's clothes, who was seated at a desk in the corner, writing in a big ledger, Bertie, when ten-thirty-seven is brought in, you just step out and give this lady a chance to talk. The young man bowed his head, and bent over his ledger again. When Mr. Schwartz disappeared, Alexandra thrust her black-edged handkerchief nervously into her handbag. Coming out on the streetcar, she had not had the least dread of meeting Frank. But since she had been here, the sounds and smells in the corridor, the look of the men in convict's clothes who passed the glass door of the Warden's office, affected her unpleasantly. The Warden's clock ticked. The young convict's pen scratched busily in the big book, and his sharp shoulders were shaken every few seconds by a loose cough which he tried to smother. It was easy to see that he was a sick man. Alexandra looked at him timidly, but he did not once raise his eyes. He wore a white shirt under his striped jacket, a high collar, and a neck-tie, very carefully tied. His hands were thin and white and well cared for, and he had a steel ring on his little finger. When he heard steps approaching in the corridor, he rose, blotted his book, put his pen in the rack, and left the room without raising his eyes. Through the door he opened a guard came in, bringing Frank Shabbatah. You the lady that wanted to talk to ten-thirty-seven? Here he is. Be on your good behaviour now. He can set down, lady. Seeing that Alexandra remained standing, push that white button when you're through with him, and I'll come. The guard went out, and Alexandra and Frank were left alone. Alexandra tried not to see his hideous clothes. She tried to look straight into his face, which she could scarcely believe was his. It was already bleached to a chalky gray. His lips were colourless, his fine teeth looked yellowish. He glanced at Alexandra sullenly, blinked as if he had come from a dark place, and one eyebrow twitched continually. She felt at once that this interview was a terrible ordeal to him. His shaved head, showing the conformation of his skull, gave him a criminal look which he had not had during the trial. Alexandra held out her hand. Frank, she said, her eyes filling suddenly. I hope you'll let me be friendly with you. I understand how you did it. I don't feel hard toward you. They were more to blame than you. Frank jerked a dirty blue handkerchief from his trousers pocket. He had begun to cry. He turned away from Alexandra. I never did mean to do nothing to that woman, he muttered. I never mean to do nothing to that boy. I ain't had nothing again, that boy. I always liked that boy fine. And then I find him. He stopped. The feeling went out of his face and eyes. He dropped into a chair and sat looking staudedly at the floor, his hands hanging loosely between his knees, the handkerchief lying across his striped leg. He seemed to have stirred up in his mind a disgust that had paralyzed his faculties. I haven't come up here to blame you, Frank. I think they were more to blame than you. Alexandra, too, felt benumbed. Frank looked up suddenly and stared out of the office window. I guess that place all go to hell what I work so hard on, he said with a slow, bitter smile. I not care a damn. He stopped and rubbed the palm of his hand over the light bristles on his head with annoyance. I no can tink without my hair, he complained. I forget English. We not talk here except swear. Alexandra was bewildered. Frank seemed to have undergone a change of personality. There was scarcely anything by which she could recognize her handsome bohemian neighbor. He seemed, somehow, not altogether human. She did not know what to say to him. You do not feel hard to me, Frank? She asked at last. Frank clenched his fist and broke out in excitement. I not feel hard at no woman. I tell you, I not that kind of man. I never hit my wife. No, I never hurt her when she deviled me something awful. He struck his fist down on the warden's desk so hard that he afterward stroked it absently. A pale pink crept over his neck and face. Two, three years ago I know that woman don't care no more about me, Alexandra Bergson. I know she after some other man. I know her, ooh, ooh, and I ain't never hurt her. I never would have done that if I ain't had that gun along. I don't know what in hell make me take that gun. She always say I ain't no man to carry gun. If she been in that house, were she oughta been? But that's a foolish talk. Frank rubbed his head and stopped suddenly, as he had stopped before. Alexandra felt that there was something strange in the way he chilled off, as if something came up in him that extinguished his power of feeling or thinking. Yes, Frank, she said kindly, I know you never meant to hurt Marie. Frank smiled at her queerly. His eyes filled slowly with tears. You know, I most forget that woman's name. She ain't got no name for me no more. I never hate my wife, but that woman what make me do that? Honest to God, but I hate her. I know man to fight. I don't want to kill no boy and no woman. I not care how many men she take under that tree. I no care for nothing but that fine boy I kill, Alexander Bergson. I guess I go crazy sure enough. Alexandra remembered the little yellow cane she had found in Frank's clothes-closet. She thought of how he had come to this country a gay young fellow, so attractive that the prettiest bohemian girl in Omaha had run away with him. It seemed unreasonable that life should have landed him in such a place as this. She blamed Marie bitterly. And why, with her happy, affectionate nature, should she have brought destruction and sorrow to all who had loved her, even to poor old Joe Taveski, the uncle who used to carry her about so proudly when she was a little girl? That was the strangest thing of all. Was there, then, something wrong in being warm-hearted and impulsive like that? Alexandra hated to think so. But there was Amill in the Norwegian graveyard at home, and here was Frank Shabata. Alexandra rose and took him by the hand. Frank Shabata, I am never going to stop trying until I get you pardoned. I'll never give the Governor any peace. I know I can get you out of this place. Frank looked at her distrustfully, but he gathered confidence from her face. Alexandra, he said earnestly, if I get out of here, I not trouble this country no more. I go back where I came from. See my mother. Alexandra tried to withdraw her hand, but Frank held on to it nervously. He put out his finger and absently touched a button on her black jacket. Alexandra, he said in a low tone, looking steadily at the button. You ain't Tinka used that girl awful bad before. No, Frank. We won't talk about that. Alexandra said, pressing his hand. I can't help Amill now, so I'm going to do what I can for you. You know I don't go away from home often, and I came up here on purpose to tell you this. The warden at the glass door looked in inquiringly. Alexandra nodded, and he came in and touched the white button on his desk. The guard appeared, and with a sinking heart Alexandra saw Frank led away down the corridor. After a few words with Mr. Schwartz, she left the prison and made her way to the streetcar. She had refused with horror the warden's cordial invitation to go through the institution. As the car lurched over its uneven roadbed, back toward Lincoln, Alexandra thought of how she and Frank had been wrecked by the same storm, and of how, although she could come out into the sunlight, she had not much more left in her life than he. She remembered some lines from a poem she had liked in her school days. Henceforth the world will only be a wider prison-house to me. And sighed. A disgust of life weighed upon her heart, some such feeling as had twice frozen Frank Shabbata's features while they talked together. She wished she were back on the divide. When Alexandra entered her hotel, the clerk held up one finger and beckoned to her. As she approached his desk, he handed her a telegram. Alexandra took the yellow envelope and looked at it in perplexity, then stepped into the elevator without opening it. As she walked down the corridor toward her room, she reflected that she was, in a manner, immune from evil tidings. On reaching her room she locked the door, and sitting down on a chair by the dresser, opened the telegram. It was from Hanover, and it read, Arrived Hanover last night, shall wait here until you come. Please hurry, Carl Lindstrom. Alexandra put her head down on the dresser and burst into tears.