 Book 1, Chapter 11 of Maya Antonia. During the week before Christmas, Jake was the most important person of our household. For he was to go to town and do all our Christmas shopping. But on the twenty-first of December the snow began to fall. The flakes came down so thickly that from the sitting-room windows I could not see beyond the windmill. Its frame looked dim and gray, unsubstantial, like a shadow. The snow did not stop falling all day or during the night that followed. The cold was not severe, but the storm was quiet and resistless. The men could not go farther than the barns and corral. They sat about the house most of the day, as if it were Sunday, greasing their boots, mending their suspenders, plating whiplashes. On the morning of the twenty-second, grandfather announced at breakfast that it would be impossible to go to Blackhawk for Christmas purchases. Jake was sure he could get through on horseback and bring home our things and saddle-bags. But grandfather told him the roads would be obliterated, and a newcomer in the country would be lost ten times over. Anyway, he would never allow one of his horses to be put to such a strain. We decided to have a country Christmas without any help from town. I had wanted to get some picture-books for Yolka and Antonia. Even Yolka was able to read a little now. Grandmother took me into the ice-cold storeroom where she had some bolts of gingham and sheeting. She cut squares of cottoncloth, and we sewed them together into a book. We bound it between pasteboards, which I covered with brilliant calico, representing scenes from a circus. For two days I sat at the dining-room table, pasting this book full of pictures for Yolka. We had files of those good old family magazines, which used to publish colored lithographs of popular paintings, and I was allowed to use some of these. I took Napoleon announcing the divorce to Josephine for my frontispiece. On the white pages I grouped Sunday school cards and advertising cards, which I had brought from my old country. Fuchs got out the old candle molds and made tallow candles. Grandmother hunted up her fancy cake-cutters and baked gingerbread men and roosters, which we decorated with burnt sugar and red cinnamon drops. On the day before Christmas, Jake packed the things we were sending to the Shemurtas in his saddle-bags, and set off on grandfather's gray gelding. When he mounted his horse at the door, I saw that he had a hatchet slung to his belt, and he gave grandmother a meaning-look, which told me he was planning a surprise for me. That afternoon I watched long and eagerly from the sitting-room window. At last I saw a dark spot moving on the west hill, beside the half-buried cornfield, where the sky was taking on a coppery flush from the sun that did not quite break through. I put on my cap and ran out to meet Jake. When I got to the pond, I could see that he was bringing in a little cedar tree across his pommel. He used to help my father cut Christmas trees for me in Virginia, and he had not forgotten how much I liked them. By the time we had placed the cold, fresh-smelling little tree in a corner of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve. After supper we all gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his paper by the table, looked up with friendly interest now and then. The cedar was about five feet high, and very shapely. We hung it with gingerbread animals, strings of popcorn, and bits of candle which fuchs had fitted into paste-board sockets. Its real splendors, however, came from the most unlikely place in the world—from Otto's cowboy trunk. I had never seen anything in that trunk but old boots, and spurs, and pistols, and a fascinating mixture of yellow leather tongs, cartridges, and shoemaker's wax. From under the lining he now produced a collection of brilliantly colored paper figures, several inches high, and stiff enough to stand alone. They had been sent to him year after year by his old mother in Austria. There was a bleeding heart in tufts of paper lace. There were three kings, gorgeously apparelled, and the ox and the ass and the shepherds. There was the baby in the manger, and a group of angels singing. There were camels and leopards held back by the black slaves of the three kings. Our tree became the talking tree of the fairytale, legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches. Grandmother said it reminded her of the tree of knowledge. We put sheets of cotton wool under it for a snow field, and Jake's pocket mirror for a frozen lake. I can see them now, exactly as they looked, working about the table in the lamplight. Jake with his heavy features so rudely molded that his face seemed somehow unfinished. Otto with his half ear and the savage scar that made his upper lip curl so ferociously under his twisted mustache. As I remember them, what unprotected faces they were, their very roughness and violence made them defenceless. These boys had no practised manner behind which they could retreat and hold people at a distance. They had only their hard fists to batter at the world with. Otto was already one of those drifting, case-hardened labours who never marry or have children of their own, yet he was so fond of children. End of Book 1, the Shamurtas, Chapter 11. On Christmas morning, when I got down to the kitchen, the men were just coming in from their chores. The horses and pigs always had their breakfast before we did. Jake and Otto shouted Merry Christmas to me and winked at each other when they saw the waffle-irons on the stove. Grandfather came down wearing a white shirt and his Sunday coat. Morning prayers were longer than usual. He read the chapters from St. Matthew about the birth of Christ, and as we listened it all seemed like something that had happened lately and near at hand. In his prayer he thanked the Lord for the first Christmas and for all that it had meant to the world ever since. He gave thanks for our food and comfort and prayed for the poor and destitute in great cities where the struggle for life was harder than it was here with us. Grandfather's prayers were often very interesting. We had the gift of simple and moving expression. Because he talked so little, his words had a peculiar force. They were not worn dull from constant use. His prayers reflected what he was thinking about at the time, and it was chiefly through them that we got to know his feelings and his views about things. After we sat down to our waffles and sausage, Jake told us how pleased the Shamurtas had been with their presents. It was a soft grey day outside with heavy clouds working across the sky and occasional squalls of snow. There were always odd jobs to be done about the barn on holidays, and the men were busy until afternoon. Then Jake and I played dominoes, while Otto wrote a long letter home to his mother. He always wrote to her on Christmas Day, he said, no matter where he was, and no matter how long it had been since his last letter. All afternoon he sat in the dining-room. He would write for a while, then sit idle, his clenched fist lying on the table, his eyes following the pattern of the oil-cloth. He spoke and wrote his own language so seldom that it came to him awkwardly, his effort to remember entirely absorbed him. At about four o'clock a visitor appeared. Mr. Shamurda, wearing his rabbit-skin cap and collar, and new mittens his wife had knitted. He had come to thank us for the presents, and for all grandmother's kindness to his family. Jake and Otto joined us from the basement, and we sat about the stove, enjoying the deepening grey of the winter afternoon, and the atmosphere of comfort and security in my grandfather's house. This feeling seemed completely to take possession of Mr. Shamurda. I suppose, in the crowded clutter of their cave, the old man had come to believe that peace and order had vanished from the earth, or existed only in the old world he had left so far behind. He sat still and passive, his head resting against the back of the wooden rocking chair, his hands relaxed upon the arms. His face had a look of weariness and pleasure, like that of sick people, when they feel relief from pain. Brother insisted on his drinking a glass of Virginia Apple Brandy after his long walk in the cold, and when a faint flush came up in his cheeks, his features might have been cut out of a shell, they were so transparent. He said almost nothing, and smiled rarely, but as he rested there we all had a sense of his utter content. As it grew dark, I asked whether I might light the Christmas tree before the lamp was brought. When the candle ends sent up their conical yellow flames, all the colored figures from Austria stood out clear and full of meaning against the green boughs. Mr. Shamurda rose, crossed himself, and quietly knelt down before the tree, his head sunk forward. His long body formed a letter S. I saw Grandmother look apprehensively at grandfather. He was rather narrow in religious matters, and sometimes spoke out and hurt people's feelings. There had been nothing strange about the tree before, but now with someone kneeling before it—images, candles. Grandfather merely put his fingertips to his brow, and bowed his venerable head, thus protestantizing the atmosphere. We persuaded our guest to stay for supper with us. We needed a little urging. As we sat down to the table it occurred to me that he liked to look at us, and that our faces were open books to him. When his deep-seeing eyes rested on me, I felt as if he were looking far ahead into the future for me. Down the road I would have to travel. At nine o'clock Mr. Shamurda lighted one of our lanterns, and put on his overcoat and fur collar. He stood in the little entry hall, the lantern and his fur cap under his arm, shaking hands with us. When he took Grandmother's hand, he bent over at us as he always did and said slowly, Good woman. He made the sign of the cross over me, put on his cap, and went off in the dark. As we turned back to the sitting-room, grandfather looked at me searchingly. The prayers of all good people are good, he said quietly. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIII. The week following Christmas brought in a thaw, and by New Year's Day all the world about us was a broth of gray slush, and the guttered slope between the windmill and the barn was running black water. The soft black earth stood out in patches along the roadsides. I resumed all my chores, carried in the cobs and wood and water, and spent the afternoons at the barn, watching Jake shell-corn with a hand-sheller. One morning during this interval of fine weather, Antonia and her mother rode over on one of their shaggy old horses to pay us a visit. It was the first time Mrs. Shimerda had been to our house, and she ran about, examining our carpets and curtains and furniture, all the while commenting upon them to her daughter in an envious, complaining tone. In the kitchen she caught up an iron pot that stood on the back of the stove and said, You got many, Shimerda's no-got. I thought it weak-minded of grandmother to give the pot to her. After dinner, when she was helping to wash the dishes she said, tossing her head, You got many things for cook, if I got all things like you I make much better. She was a conceited, boastful old thing, and even misfortune could not humble her. I was so annoyed that I felt coldly even toward Antonia, and listened unsympathetically when she told me her father was not well. My papa's sad for the old country, he not look good, he never make music any more. At home he play violin all the time, for weddings and for dance, here never. When I beg him for play he shake his head no. Some days he take his violin out of his box and make with his fingers on the strings like this, but never he make the music. He don't like this country. People who don't like this country ought to stay home, I said severely. We don't make them come here. He not want to come, never she burst out. My momenka made him come, all the time she say, America big country, much money, much land for my boys, much husband for my girls. My papa he cry for leave his old friends, what make music with him. He love very much the man what play the longhorn, like this. She indicated a slide trombone. We go to school together and our friends from boys, but my mama, she want Ambrose for be rich with many cattle. Your mama, I said angrily, wants other people's things. Your grandfather is rich, she retorted fiercely. Why he not help my papa? Ambrose be rich too after a while, and he pay back, he is a very smart boy. For Ambrose my mama come here. Ambrose was considered the important person in the family. Mrs. Shimerna and Antonia always deferred to him, though he was often surly with them and contemptuous toward his father. Ambrose and his mother had everything their own way. Though Antonia loved her father more than she did anyone else, she stood in awe of her elder brother. After I watched Antonia and her mother go over the hill on their miserable horse, carrying our iron pot with them, I turned to grandmother, who had taken up her darning, and said I hope that snooping old woman wouldn't come to see us any more. Grandmother chuckled and drove her bright needle across a hole in Otto's sock. She's not old, Jim, though I expect she seems old to you. No, I wouldn't mourn if she never came again. But you see, a body never knows what traits poverty might bring out in him. It makes a woman grasping to see her children want for things. Now read me a chapter in the Prince of the House of David. Let's forget the Bohemians. We had three weeks of this mild open weather. The cattle in the corral ate corn almost as fast as the men could shell it for them, and we hoped they would be ready for an early market. One morning the two big bulls, Gladstone and Brigham Young, thought spring had come, and they began to tease and bud at each other across the barbed wire that separated them. Soon they got angry. They bellowed and pawed up the soft earth with their hoofs, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads. Each withdrew to a far corner of his own corral, and then they made for each other at a gallop. Thud, thud! We could hear the impact of their great heads, and their bellowing shook the pans on the kitchen shelves. Had they not been dehorned, they would have torn each other to pieces. Pretty soon the fat steers took it up and began budding and horning each other. Clearly the affair had to be stopped. We all stood by and watched admiringly, as fooks rode into the corral with the pitchfork and prodded the bulls again and again, finally driving them apart. The big storm of the winter began on my eleventh birthday, the twentieth of January. When I went down to breakfast that morning, Jake and Otto came in white snowmen, beating their hands and stamping their feet. They began to laugh boisterously when they saw me, calling, You've got a birthday present this time, Jim, and no mistake. They was a full-grown blizzard-ordered for you. All day the storm went on. The snow did not fall this time. It simply spilled out of heaven, like thousands of feather-beds being emptied. The afternoon kitchen was a carpenter's shop. The men brought in their tools and made two great wooden shovels with long handles. Neither grandmother nor I could go out in the storm, so Jake fed the chickens and brought in a pitiful contribution of eggs. This day our men had to shovel until noon to reach the barn, and the snow was still falling. There had not been such a storm in the ten years my grandfather had lived in Nebraska. He said at dinner that we would not try to reach the cattle. They were fat enough to go without their corn for a day or two. But tomorrow we must feed them and thaw out their water-tap so they could drink. We could not so much as see the corrals, but we knew the steers were over there, huddled together under the north bank. Our ferocious bulls, subdued enough by this time, were probably warming each other's backs. This will take the bile out of them, Fuchs remarked gleefully. At noon that day the hens had not been heard from. After dinner Jake and Otto, their damp clothes now dried on them, stretched their stiff arms and plunged again into the drifts. They made a tunnel under the snow to the hen-house, with walls so solid that grandmother and I could walk back and forth in it. We found the chickens asleep. Perhaps they thought night had come to stay. One old rooster was stirring about, pecking at the solid lump of ice in their water-tin. When we flashed the lantern in their eyes the hens set up a great cackling and flew about clumsily, scattering down feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea hens, always resentful of captivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and poked their ugly painted faces through the snow-walls. By five o'clock the chores were done. Just when it was time to begin them all over again. That was a strange, unnatural sort of day. XIV. On the morning of the twenty-second I wakened with a start. Before I opened my eyes I seemed to know that something had happened. I heard excited voices in the kitchen. Grandmothers was so shrill, that I knew she must be almost beside herself. I looked forward to any new crisis with delight. What could it be, I wondered, as I hurried into my clothes. Perhaps the barn had burned. Perhaps the cattle had frozen to death. Perhaps the neighbor was lost in the storm. Down in the kitchen grandfather was standing before the stove with his hands behind him. Make-and-auto had taken off their boots and were rubbing their woolen socks. Their clothes and boots were steaming and they both looked exhausted. On the bench behind the stove lay a man, covered up with a blanket. Grandmother motioned me to the dining-room. I obeyed reluctantly. I watched as she came in, went, carrying dishes. Her lips were tightly compressed and she kept whispering to herself, Oh dear savior, Lord thou knowest! Presently grandfather came in and spoke to me. Jimmy, we will not have prayers this morning because we have a great deal to do. Old Mr. Shimerda is dead and his family are in great distress. Ambrosh came over here in the middle of the night and Jake and Otto went back with him. The boys have had a hard night and you must not bother them with questions. That is Ambrosh's asleep on the bench. Come in to breakfast, boys. After Jake and Otto had swallowed their first cup of coffee, they began to talk excitedly, disregarding grandmother's warning glances. I held my tongue but I listened with all my ears. No sir, Fook said, and answered to a question from grandfather. Nobody heard the gun go off. Ambrosh was out with the oxen team, trying to break a road, and the women folks was shut up tight in their cave. When Ambrosh came in, it was dark and he didn't see nothing, but the oxen acted kind of queer. One of them ripped around and got away from him, bolded clean out of the stable. His hands as blistered were the rope run through. He got a lantern and went back and found the old man, just as we seen him. Poor soul, poor soul! Grandmother groaned. I'd like to think he never done it. He was always considerate and unwishful to give trouble. How could he forget himself and bring this on us? I don't think he was out of his head for a minute, Mrs. Burden, folks, declared. He'd done everything natural. You know he was always sort of fixy, and fixy he was to the last. He shaved after dinner, and washed his self all over after the girls was done the dishes. Antonia heated the water for him. Then he put on a clean shirt and clean socks, and after he was dressed he kissed her, and the little one, and took his gun and said he was going out to hunt rabbits. He must have gone right down to the barn and done it then. He laid down on that bunk bed, close to the ox stalls where he always slept. When we found him, everything was decent except… folks wrinkled his brow and hesitated. Except what he couldn't know wise foresee. His coat was hung on a peg, and his boots was under the bed. He took off that silk neckcloth he always wore, and folded it smooth and stuck his pin through it. He turned back his shirt at the neck, and rolled up his sleeves. I don't see how he could do it, grandmother kept saying. Otto misunderstood her. Why mam, it was simple enough. He pulled the trigger with his big toe. He laid over on his side, and put the end of the barrel in his mouth. Then he drew up one foot and felt for the trigger. He found it all right. Maybe he did, said Jake Grimbley. There's something mighty queer about it. Now what do you mean, Jake, grandmother, asked sharply? Well, mam, I found Cragik's axe under the manger, and I picked it up and carried it over to the corpse, and I take my oaths it just fit the gash in the front of the old man's face. That there Cragik had been sneaking around, pale and quiet, and when he had seen me examine the axe he had begun whimpering. My God, man, don't do that. I reckon I'm going to look into this, says I. Then he began to squeal like a rat, and wrung around wringing his hands. They'll hang me, says he. My God, they'll hang me sure. Folks spoke up impatiently. Cragik's gone silly, Jake, and so have you. The old man wouldn't have made all them preparations for Cragik to murder him, would he? It don't hang together. The gun was right beside him when Ambrose found him. Cragik could have put it there, couldn't he? Jake demanded. The other broke in excitedly. See here, Jake Marpole, don't you go trying to add murder to suicide. We're deep enough in trouble. Otto reads you too many of them detective stories. It will be easy to decide all that, Emeline said, grandfather quietly. If he shot himself in the way they think, the gash will be torn from the inside outward. Just so it is, Mr. Burden, Otto affirmed. I seen bunches of hair and stuff sticking to the poles and straw along the roof. They was blown up there by gunshot, no question. Grandmother told grandfather she meant to go over to the shimmer-dust with him. There is nothing you can do, he said doubtfully. The body can't be touched until we get the coroner here from Blackhawk, and that will be a matter of several days this weather. Well I can take them some victuals anyway and say a word of comfort to them poor little girls. The oldest one was his darling, and was like a right hand to him. You might have thought of her he's left her alone in a hard world. She glanced distrustfully at Ambrosh, who was now eating his breakfast at the kitchen table. Folks, although he had been up in the cold nearly all night, was going to make the long ride to Blackhawk to fetch the priest and the coroner. On the gray gilding our best horse he would try to pick his way across the country with no roads to guide him. Don't you worry about me, Mrs. Burden, he said cheerfully, as he put on a second pair of socks. I've got a good nose for directions, and I never did need much sleep. It's the gray I'm worried about. I'll save him what I can, but it'll strain him, as sure as I'm telling you. This is no time to be over-considerate of animals, Otto. Do the best you can for yourself. Stop at the widow's Stevens for dinner. She's a good woman, and she'll do well by you. After folks rode away I was left with Ambrosh. I saw a sight of him I had not seen before. He was deeply, even slavishly devout. He did not say a word all morning, but sat with his rosary in his hands, praying. Now silently, now aloud. He never looked away from his beads, nor lifted his hands except to cross himself. Several times the poor boy fell asleep where he sat, wakened with a start, and began to pray again. No wagon could be got to the shimarduses until a road was broken, and that would be a day's job. Grandfather came from the barn on one of our big black horses, and Jake lifted grandmother up behind him. She wore her black hood, and was bundled up in shawls. Grandfather tucked his bushy white beard inside his overcoat. They looked very biblical as they set off, I thought. Jake and Ambrosh followed them, riding the other black and my pony, carrying bundles of clothes that we had got together for Mrs. Shimerda. I watched them go past the pond and over the hill by the drifted cornfield. Then for the first time I realized that I was alone in the house. I felt a considerable extension of power and authority, and was anxious to acquit myself creditably. I carried in cobs and wood from the long cellar and filled both the stoves. I remembered that in the hurry and excitement of the morning nobody had thought of the chickens, and the eggs had not been gathered. Going out through the tunnel I gave the hens their corn, emptied the ice from their drinking pan, and filled it with water. After the cat had had his milk, I could think of nothing else to do, and I sat down to get warm. The quiet was delightful, and the ticking clock was the most pleasant of companions. I got Robinson Crusoe and tried to read, but his life on the island seemed dull compared with ours. Presently as I looked with satisfaction about our comfortable sitting-room, it flashed upon me that if Mr. Shimerda's soul were lingering about in this world at all, it would be here in our house, which had been more to his liking than any other in the neighborhood. I remembered his contented face when he was with us on Christmas Day. If he could have lived with us, this terrible thing would never have happened. I knew it was homesickness that had killed Mr. Shimerda, and I wondered whether his relieved spirit would not eventually find its way back to his own country. I thought of how far it was to Chicago, and then to Virginia, to Baltimore, and then the great wintry ocean. No, he would not at once set out upon that long journey. Surely his exhausted spirit, so tired of cold and crowding, and the struggle with the ever-falling snow, was resting now in this quiet house. I was not frightened, but I made no noise. I did not wish to disturb him. I went softly down to the kitchen, which tucked away so snugly underground, always seemed to me the heart and center of the house. There on the bench, behind the stove, I thought and thought about Mr. Shimerda. Outside I could hear the wind singing over hundreds of miles of snow. It was as if I had let the old man in out of the tormenting winter, and were sitting there with him. I went over all that Antonia had ever told me about his life before he came to this country, how he used to play the fiddle at wendings and dances. I thought about the friends he had mourned to leave, the trombone player, the great forest full of game belonging, as Antonia said, to the nobles, from which she and her mother used to steal wood on moonlight nights. There was a white heart that lived in that forest, and if anyone killed it, he would be hanged, she said. Such vivid pictures came to me that they might have been Mr. Shimerda's memories, not yet faded out from the air in which they had haunted him. It had begun to grow dark when my household returned, and grandmother was so tired that she went at once to bed. Jake and I got supper, and while we were washing the dishes he told me in loud whispers about the state of things, or at the Shimerda's. Nobody could touch the body until the coroner came. If anyone did, something terrible would happen, apparently. The dead man was frozen through, just as stiff as a dressed turkey you hang out to freeze, Jake said. The horses and oxen would not go into the barn until he was frozen so hard that there was no longer any smell of blood. They were stabled there now with the dead man, because there was no other place to keep them. A lighted lantern was kept hanging over Mr. Shimerda's head. Antonia and Ambrash and the mother took turns going down to pray beside him. The crazy boy went with them, because he did not feel the cold. I believe he felt cold as much as anyone else, but he liked to be thought insensible to it. He was always coveting distinction, poor Marek. Ambrash, Jake said, showed more human feeling than he would have supposed him capable of, but he was chiefly concerned about getting a priest and about his father's soul, which he believed was in a place of torment, and would remain there until his family and the priest had prayed a great deal for him. As I understand it, Jake concluded, it will be a matter of years to pray his soul out of Percatori, and right now he's in torment. I don't believe it, I said stoutly. I almost know and ain't true. I did not, of course, say that I believed he had been in that very kitchen all afternoon, on his way back to his own country. Nevertheless after I went to bed, this idea of punishment and Percatori came back on me crushingly. I remembered the account of dives and torment and shuddered. But Mr. Shimerda had not been rich and selfish. He had only been so unhappy that he could not live any longer. Otto Fuchs got back from Blackhawk at noon the next day. He reported that the coroner would reach the Shimerda some time that afternoon, but the missionary priest was at the other end of his parish a hundred miles away, and the trains were not running. Fuchs had got a few hours sleep at the livery barn in town, but he was afraid the gray gilding had strained himself. Indeed he was never the same horse afterward. That long trip through the deep snow had taken all the endurance out of him. Fuchs brought home with him a stranger, a young bohemian who had taken a homestead near Blackhawk, and who came on his only horse to help his fellow countrymen in their trouble. That was the first time I ever saw Anton Jelenik. He was a strapping young fellow in the early 20s then, handsome, warm-hearted, and full of life, and he came to us like a miracle in the midst of that grim business. I remember exactly how he strode into our kitchen in his felt boots and long wolfskin coat, his eyes and cheeks bright with a cold. At sight of grandmother he snatched off his fur cap, greeting her in a deep, rolling voice which seemed older than he. I want to thank you very much, Mrs. Burden, for that you are so kind to poor strangers from my country. He did not hesitate like a farmer boy, but looked one eagerly in the eye when he spoke. Everything about him was warm and spontaneous. He said he would have come to see the Shemurtas before, but he had hired out to husk corn all the fall, and since winter began he had been going to the school by the mill to learn English along with the little children. He told me he had a nice lady teacher and that he liked to go to school. At dinner grandfather talked to Jelenik more than he usually did to strangers. Will they be much disappointed because we cannot get a priest? he asked. Jelenik looked serious. Yes, sir, that is very bad for them. Their father has done a great sin. He looked straight at grandfather. Or Lord has said that. Grandfather seemed to like his frankness. We believe that too, Jelenik, but we believe that Mr. Shemurtas' soul will come to its creator as well off without a priest. We believe that Christ is our only intercessor. The young man shook his head. I know how you think. My teacher at the school has explained. But I have seen too much. I believe in prayer for the dead. I have seen too much. We asked him what he meant. He glanced around the table. You want I shall tell you? When I was a little boy like this one, I began to help the priest at the altar. I made my first communion very young. What the church teach seemed plain to me. Buying by war times come when the Austrians fight us. We have very many soldiers in camp near my village. And the cholera break out in that camp. And the men die like flies. All day long our priests go about there to give the sacrament to dying men. And I go with him to carry the vessels with the holy sacrament. Everybody that go near that camp catch the sickness but me and the priest. But we have no sickness. We have no fear. Because we carry that blood and that body of Christ. And it preserve us. He paused looking at grandfather. That I know Mr. Burden. For it happened to myself. All the soldiers know too. When we walk along the road, the old priest and me, we meet all the time soldiers marching in officers on horse. All those officers when they see what I carry under the cloth, I pull up their horses and kneel down on the ground in the road until we pass. So I feel very bad for my country man to die without the sacrament and to die in a bad way for his soul. And I feel sad for his family. We had listened attentively. It was impossible not to admire his frank manly faith. I'm always glad to meet a young man who thinks seriously about these things, said grandfather. And I would never be the one to say you were not in God's care when you were among the soldiers. After dinner it was decided that young Jelenek should hook our two strong black farm horses to the scraper and break a road through to the Shimurtas so that wagon could go when it was necessary. Fuchs, who was the only cabinet maker in the neighborhood, was set to work on a coffin. Jelenek put on his long wolfskin coat and when we admired it he told us that he had shot and skinned the coyotes. And the young man who batched with him, Jan Buska, had been a fur worker in Vienna made the coat. From the windmill I watched Jelenek barn with the blacks and work his way up the hillside toward the cornfield. Sometimes he was completely hidden by the clouds of snow that rose about him. Then he and the horse would emerge black and shining. Our heavy carpenter's bench had to be brought from the barn and carried down into the kitchen. Fuchs selected boards from a pile of planks grandfather had hauled out from town in the fall to make a new floor for the oath's bin. When at last the lumber and tools were assembled and the doors were closed again and the cold drafts shut out grandfather rode away to meet the coroner at the Chimeras and Fuchs took out his coat and settled down to work. I sat on his work table and watched him. He did not touch his tools at first but figured for a long while on a piece of paper and measured the planks and made marks on them. While he was thus engaged he whistled softly to himself or teasingly polled at his half-year. Grandmother moved about quietly so as not to disturb him. At last he folded his ruler and turned a cheerful face to us. The hardest part of my job's done, he announced. It's the head end of it that comes hard with me especially when I'm out of practice. Last time I made one of these Mrs. Burton he continued as he sorted and tried his chisels. It was for a fellow in the black tiger mine up above Silverton, Colorado. The mouth of that mine goes right into the face of the cliff and they used to put us in a bucket and run us over on a trolley and put us into the shaft. The bucket traveled across a box canyon three hundred feet deep and about a third full water. Two Swedes that fell out of that bucket once and hit the water feet down. If you'll believe it, they went to work the next day. Can't kill a swede. But in my time a little Italian tried the high-dive and it turned out different with them. We was snowed in then, like we are now and I happen to be the only man in camp that could make a coffin for him. It's a handy thing to know that I've done. We'd be hard put to it now if you didn't know Otto, grandmother said. Yes, I'm. Fuchs admitted with modest pride. So few folks does know how to make a good tight box that'll turn water. I sometimes wonder if there'll be anybody about to do it for me. However, I'm not at all particular that way. All afternoon wherever one went in the house one could hear the panting wheeze of the saw or the pleasant purring of the plane. There were such cheerful noises seeming to promise new things for living people. It was a pity that those freshly-plane pine boards were to be put underground so soon. The lumber was hard to work because it was full of frost and the boards gave off a sweet smell of pine woods as the heap of yellow shavings grew higher and higher. I wonder why Fuchs had not stuck to cabinet work. He settled down to it with such ease and content. He handled the tools as if he liked to feel them and when he played he went back and forth over the boards in an eager, beneficent way as if he were blessing them. He broke out, now and then, into German hymns as if this occupation brought back old times to him. At four o'clock Mr. Buschie, the postmaster with another neighbor who lived east of us stopped in to get warm. They were on their way to the Shimurtas. The news of what had happened over there had somehow got abroad through the snow-block country. Grandmother gave the visitors sugarcakes and hot coffee. Before these collars were gone the brother of the widow Stevens who lived on the Black Hawk Road drew up at our door and after him came the father of the German family our nearest neighbors on the south. They dismounted and joined us in the dining room. They were all eager for any details about the suicide and they were greatly concerned as to where Mr. Shimurta would be buried. The nearest Catholic cemetery was at Black Hawk and it might be weeks before a wagon besides Mr. Buschie and Grandmother were sure that a man who had killed himself could not be buried in a Catholic graveyard. There was a burying ground over by the Norwegian church west of Squaw Creek. Perhaps the Norwegians would take Mr. Shimurta in. After our visitors rode away in single file over the hill we returned to the kitchen. Grandmother began to make the icing for a chocolate cake and Otto again filled the house with the exciting, expecting song of the plane. The most unpleasant thing about this was that everybody talked more than usual. I had never heard the postmasters say anything but only papers today or got a sack full of mail for you until this afternoon. Grandmother always talked dear woman to herself or to the Lord if there was no one else to listen but grandfather was naturally Tessiturn and Jake and Otto were often so tired after supper that I used to feel as if I were surrounded by a wall of silence. Now everyone seemed eager to talk. That afternoon Fuchs told me story after story about the Black Tiger Mine and about violent deaths and casual burrings and the queer fancies of dying men. You never really knew a man, he said, until you saw him die. Most men were game and went without a grudge. The postmaster going home stopped to say that grandfather would bring the corner back with him to spend the night. The officers of the Norwegian church, he told us, had held a meeting and decided that the Norwegian graveyard would not extend its hospitality to Mr. Shemurda. Grandmother was indignant. If these foreigners are so clannish, Mr. Bushy, we'll have to have an American graveyard that will be more liberal minded. I'll get right after Josiah to start one in the spring. If anything was to happen to me, I don't want the Norwegians holding inquisitions over me to see whether I'm good enough to be laid amongst them. Soon grandfather returned bringing with him Anton Jelenek and that important person, the coroner. He was a mild, flurried old man, a Civil War veteran, with one sleeve hanging empty. He seemed to find this case very perplexing and said if it had not been for grandfather he would have sworn out a warrant against Kragjek. The way he acted and the way his acts fit the wound was enough to convict any man. Although it was perfectly clear that Mr. Shemurda had killed himself, Jake and the coroner thought something ought to be done to Kragjek because he behaved like a guilty man. He was badly frightened certainly and perhaps he even felt some stirrings of remorse for his indifference to the old man's misery and loneliness. At supper the man ate like Vikings and the chocolate cake which I had hoped would linger on until tomorrow in a mutilated condition disappeared on the second round. They talked excitedly about where they should bury Mr. Shemurda. I gathered that the neighbors were all disturbed and shocked about something. It developed that Mrs. Shemurda and Ambrosh had the old man buried on the southwest corner of their own land. Indeed under the very stake that marked the corner. Grandfather had explained to Ambrosh that someday when the country was put under fence and the roads were confined to section lines two roads would cross exactly on that corner. But Ambrosh only said it makes no matter. Grandfather asked Gelenek whether in the old country there was some superstition to the effect that a suicide must be buried at the crossroads. Gelenek said he didn't know. He seemed to remember hearing there had once been such a custom in Bohemia. Mrs. Shemurda has made up her mind he added. I tried to persuade her and say it looks bad for her to all the neighbors but she says so it must be. There I will bury him if I dig the grave myself she say. I have to promise her I help Ambrosh make the grave tomorrow. Grandfather smoothed his beard and looked judicial. I don't know whose wish should decide the matter if not hers. But if she thinks she will live to see the people of this country right over that old man's head she is mistaken. End of Chapter 15 Recording by Stephanie Dupal de Martin Book 1 Chapter 16 of Mai Antonia This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Stephanie Dupal de Martin Mai Antonia by Willa Cather Book 1 The Shemurdas Chapter 16 Mr. Shemurda lay dead in the barn four days and on the fifth they buried him. All day Friday Jelenek was off with Ambrosh digging the grave chopping out the frozen earth with old axes. On Saturday we breakfasted before daylight and got into the wagon with the coffin. Jake and Jelenek went ahead on horseback to cut the body loose from the pull of blood in which it was frozen fast to the ground. When grandmother and I went to the Shemurda's house we found the women folk alone. Ambrosh and Merak were at the barn. Mrs. Shemurda sat crouching by the stove. Antonia was washing dishes. When she saw me she ran out of her dark corner and threw her arms around me. Oh Jimmy! she sobbed. What do you think for my lovely Papa? It seemed to me that I could feel her heart breaking as she clung to me. Mrs. Shemurda sitting on the stump by the stove kept looking over her shoulder toward the door while the neighbors were arriving. They came on horseback all except the postmaster who brought his family in a wagon over the only broken wagon trail. The widow Stevens rode up eight miles down the Black Hawk Road. The cold drove the women into the cave house and it was soon crowded. A fine, sleety snow was beginning to fall and everyone was afraid of another storm and anxious to have the burial over with. Grandfather and Jelenak came to tell Mrs. Shemurda that it was time to start. After bundling her mother up and closed the neighbors I brought Antonia put on an old cape from our house and the rabbit skin that our father had made for her. Four men carried Mr. Shemurda's box up the hill. Kragyak slung along behind them. The coffin was too wide for her the door so it was put down on the slope outside. I slipped out from the cave and looked at Mr. Shemurda. He was lying on his side with his knees drawn up. His body was draped in a black shawl and his head was bandaged in white muslin like a mummy's. One of his long shapely hands lay out on the black cloth. That was all one could see of him. Mrs. Shemurda came out and placed an open prayer book against the body making the sign of the cross on the bandaged head with her fingers. Ambrosh knelt down and made the same gesture and after him Antonia and Merak. Yulka hung back. Her mother pushed her forward and kept saying something to her over and over. Yulka knelt down, shut her eyes and put out her hand a little way but she drew it back and began to cry wildly. She was afraid to touch the bandage. Mrs. Shemurda caught her by the shoulders and pushed her toward the coffin but grandmother interfered. No, Mrs. Shemurda, she said firmly, I won't stand by and see that child frightened into spasms. She is too little to understand what you want of her. Let her alone. At a look from grandfather Fuchs and Jelenak placed a lid on the box and began to nail it down over Mr. Shemurda. I was afraid to look at Antonia. She put her arms round Yulka and held the little girl close to her. The coffin was put into the wagon. We drove slowly away against the fine icy snow which cut our faces like a sandblast. When we reached the grave it looked a very little spot in that snow-covered waist. The men took the coffin to the edge of the hole and lowered it with ropes. We stood about watching them and the powdery snow lay without melting on the caps and shoulders of the men and the shawls of the women. Jelenak spoken a persuasive tone to Mrs. Shemurda and then turned to grandfather. She says, Mr. Burden, she is very glad if you can make some prayer for him here in English for the neighbors to understand. Grandmother looked anxiously at grandfather. He took off his hat and the other men did likewise. I thought his prayer remarkable. I still remember it. He began, O great and just God no man among us knows what the sleeper knows nor is it for us to judge what lies between him and thee. He prayed that if any man there had been remiss toward the stranger come through a far country God would forgive him and soften his heart. He recalled the promises to the widow and the fatherless and asked God to smooth the way the widow and her children and to incline the hearts of men to deal justly with her. In closing he said we were leaving Mr. Shemurda at thy judgment seat which is also thy mercy seat. All the time he was praying grandmother watched him through the black fingers of her glove and when he said amen I thought she looked satisfied with him. She turned to Otto and whispered can't you start a hymn, Fuchs? It was seem less heathenish. Fuchs glanced about to see if there was general approval of her suggestion then began Jesus, lover of my soul and all the men and women took it up after him. Whenever I have heard the hymn since it has made me remember that white waste and the little group of people and the bluish air full of fine edding snow like long veils flying while the nearer waters roll while the tempest still is high. Years afterward when the open grazing days were over and the red grass had been plowed under and under until it had almost disappeared from the prairie when all the fields were under fence and the roads no longer ran about like wild things but followed the surveyed section lines Mr. Shemurda's grave was still there with a sagging wire fence around it and an unpainted wooden cross. As grandfather had predicted Mrs. Shemurda never saw the roads going over his head the road from the north curved a little to the east just there and the road from the west swung out a little to the south so that the grave with its tall red grass that was never mowed was like a little island and at twilight under a new moon or the clear evening star the dusty roads used to look like soft gray rivers flowing past it I never came upon the place without emotion and in all that country it was a spot most dear to me I loved the dim superstition the propitiatory intent that I put the grave there and still more I loved the spirit that could not carry out the sentence the air of the surveyed lines the clemency of the soft earth roads along which the homecoming wagons rattled after sunset never a tired driver passed the wooden cross I am sure without wishing well to the sleeper End of Chapter 16 Recording by Stephanie DuPaul de Martin Book 1, Chapter 17 of My Antonia This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Stephanie DuPaul de Martin My Antonia by Willa Cather Book 1, The Shamurdas, Chapter 17 When spring came after that hard winter one could not get enough of the nimble air Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over there were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia no budding woods or blooming gardens there was only spring itself the throb of it, the light restlessness the vital essence of it everywhere in the sky and the swift clouds in the pale sunshine in the warm high wind rising suddenly, sinking suddenly impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted If I had been tossed down blindfold by a red prairie I should have known that it was spring everywhere now there was the smell of burning grass our neighbors burnt off their pasture before the new grass made a start so that the fresh growth would not be mixed with the dead stand of last year Those light swift fires running about the country seemed a part of the same kindling that was in the air The Shamurdas were in their new log house by then the neighbors had helped them to build it in March It stood directly in front of their old cave which they used as a cellar The family were now fairly equipped to begin their struggle with the soil They had four comfortable rooms to live in a new windmill bought on credit a chicken house and poultry Mrs. Shamurda had paid grandfather ten dollars for a milk cow and was to give him fifteen more as soon as they harvested their first crop When I rode up to the Shamurdas one bright windy afternoon in April Yulka ran out to meet me It was to her now that I gave her eating lessons Antonia was busy with other things I tied my pony and went into the kitchen where Mrs. Shamurda was baking bread chewing poppy seeds as she worked By this time she could speak enough English to ask me a great many questions about what our men were doing in the fields She seemed to think that my elders withheld helpful information and that for me she might get valuable secrets On this occasion she asked me very craftily when grandfather expected to begin planting corn I told her adding that he thought we should have a dry spring and that the corn would not be held back by too much rain as it had been last year She gave me a shrewd glance He not Jesus, she blustered He not know about the wet and the dry I did not answer her What was the use? As I sat waiting for the hour when Ambrash and Antonia would return from the fields with Mrs. Shamurda at her work She took from the oven a coffee cake which she wanted to keep warm for supper and wrapped it in a quilt stuffed with feathers I have seen her put even a roast goose in this quilt to keep it hot When the neighbors were there building the new house they saw her do this and the story got abroad that the Shamurdas kept their food in their feather beds When the sun was dropping low Antonia came up the big south draw with her team How much older she had grown in 8 months She had come to us a child and now she was a tall strong young girl although her 15th birthday had just slipped by I ran out and met her as she brought her horses up to the windmill to water them She wore the boots her father had so thoughtfully taken off before he shot himself and his old fur cap Her outgrown cotton dress switched about her calves over the boot tops She kept her sleeves rolled up all day and her arms and throat were burned as brown as sailors Her neck came up strongly out of her shoulders like the bowl of a tree out of the turf One sees that draft-horse neck among the peasant women in all old countries She greeted me gaily and began at once to tell me how much plowing she had done that day Ambrash, she said, was on the north quarter breaking sod with the oxen Jim, you ask Jake how much he plowed today I don't want that Jake get more done in one day than me I want we have very much corn this fall While the horses drew in the water and nosed each other and then drank again Antonia sat down on the windmill step and rested her head on her hand You see the big prayer fire from your place last night I hope your grandpa ain't loose no stacks Now we didn't I came to ask you something Tony Grandmother wants to know if you can't go to the term of school that begins next week over at the sod schoolhouse She says there's a good teacher and you learn a lot Antonia stood up lifting and dropping her shoulders as if they were stiff I ain't got time to learn I can walk like mans now My mother can't say no more how Ambrash do all and nobody to help him I can work as much as him School is all right for little boys I help make this land one good farm She clucked to her team and started for the barn I walked beside her feeling vexed Was she going to grow up both Before we reached the stable I felt something tense in her silence and glancing up I saw that she was crying She turned her face from me and looked off at the red streak of dying light over the dark prairie I climbed up into the loft and threw down the hay for her while she unharnessed her team We walked slowly back toward the house Ambrash had come in from the north quarter and was watering his oxen at the tank Antonia took my hand You will tell me all those nice things you learn at the school won't you Jimmy She asked with a sudden rush of feeling in her voice My father he went much to school He know a great deal how to make the fine cloth like what you not got here Play horn and violin and he read so many books that the priest in Bohemi came to talk to him You won't forget my father Jim No I said I will never forget him Mrs. Shamurda asked me to stay for supper After Ambrash and Antonia had washed the field desks from their hands and faces at the wash basin by the kitchen door we sat down at the oil cloth covered table Mrs. Shamurda ladled meal mush out of an iron pot and poured milk on it After the mush we had fresh bread and sorghum molasses and coffee with the cake that had been kept warm in the feathers Antonia and Ambrash were talking in Bohemian disputing about which of them was growing that day Mrs. Shamurda egged them on chuckling while she gobbled her food Presently Ambrash said suddenly in English You take them ox tomorrow and try the sod plow Then you not be so smart This sister laugh don't be mad I know it's awful hard work for break sod I milk the cow for you tomorrow if you want Mrs. Shamurda turned quickly to me That cow not give so much milk like what your grandpa say If he make talk about $15 I send him back the cow He doesn't talk about the $15 I exclaim indignantly He doesn't find fault with people He say I break his saw when we built and I never grumbled Ambrash I knew he had broken the saw and then hid it and lied about it I began to wish I had not stayed for supper Everything was disagreeable to me Antonia ate so noisily now like a man and she yawned often at the table and kept stretching her arms over her head as if they ached Grandmother had said Heavy field work I'll spoil that girl She'll lose all her nice ways and get rough ones She had lost them already After supper I rode home through the sad soft spring twilight Since winter I had seen very little of Antonia She was out in the fields from sun up until sundown If I rode over to see her where she was plowing She stopped at the end of a row to chat for a moment then gripped her plow handles, plucked her team and waded on down the furrow making me feel that she was now grown up and had no time for me On Sundays she helped her mother make garden or sowed all day Grandfather was pleased with Antonia When he complained of her he only smiled and said she'll help some fellow get ahead in the world Nowadays Tony could talk of nothing by the prices of things she was too proud of her strength I knew too that Ambrosh put upon her some chores a girl ought not to do and that the farmhands around the country joked in a nasty way about it Whenever I saw her come up the furrow shouting to her beasts sunburned, sweaty, her dress open at the neck and her throat and chest desplattered I used to think of a tone in which poor Mr. Shimerda who could say so little yet managed to say so much when he exclaimed After I began to go to the country school I saw less of the Bohemians We were sixteen pupils at the Saad school house and we all came on horseback and brought our dinner My schoolmates were none of them very interesting but I somehow felt that by making comrades of them I was getting even with Antonia for her indifference Since the father's death Ambrosh was more than ever the head of the house and he seemed to direct the feelings as well as the fortunes of his womenfolk Antonia often quoted his opinions to me and she let me see that she admired him while she thought of me only as a little boy Before the spring was over there was a distinct coldness between us and the Shimerdas It came about in this way One Sunday I rode over there with Jake to get a horse collar which Ambrosh had borrowed from him and not returned It was a beautiful blue morning The buffalo peas were blooming in pink purple masses along the roadside and the larks perched on last year's dried sunflower stalks were singing straight at the sun their heads thrown back in their yellow breasts a quiver The wind blew about us in warm sweet gusts We rode slowly with a pleasant sense of Sunday indolence We found the Shimerdas working just as if it were a weekday Marek was cleaning up the stable and Antonia and her mother were making garden a pond in the drawhead Ambrosh was up on the windmill tower oiling the wheel He came down not very cordially When Jake asked for the collar he grunted and scratched his head The collar belonged to grandfather of course and Jake, feeling responsible for it, flared up Now don't you say you haven't gotten Ambrosh because I know you have and if you ain't going to look for it I will Ambrosh shrugged his shoulders towards the stable I could see that it was one of his mean days presently he returned carrying a collar that had been badly used trampled in the dirt and yawed by rats until the hair was sticking out of it This what you want he asked surly Jake jumped off his horse I saw a wave of red come up under the rough stubble on his face That ain't the piece of harness I loaned you Ambrosh or if it is you've used it shameful to carry such a looking thing back to Mr. Burden Ambrosh dropped the collar on the ground All right, he said coolly took up his oil can and began to climb the mill Jake caught him by the belt of his trousers and yanked him back Ambrosh's feet had scarcely touched the ground when he lunged out with a vicious kick at Jake's stomach Fortunately Jake was in such a position that he could dodge it This was not the sort of thing country boys did when they played at fisty cuffs I'm curious He landed Ambrosh a blow on the head It sounded like the crack of an axe on a cow pumpkin Ambrosh dropped over stunned We heard squeals and looking up saw Antony and her mother coming on the run They did not take the path around the pond but plunged through the muddy water without even lifting their skirts They came on screaming and clawing the air By this time Ambrosh had come to his senses and was sputtering his nosebleed Jake sprang into his saddle Let's get out this gym, he called Mrs. Shemurda threw her hands over her head and clutched as if she were going to pull down lightning Law, law, she shrieked after us Law for knock my Ambrosh down I never like you no more Jake and Jim Burden Antonio panted No friends any more Jake stopped and turned his horse for a second While you're a damn ungrateful Law the whole pack of you, he shouted back I guess the burdens can get along without you You've been a sight of trouble to them anyhow We rode away feeling so outraged that the fine warning was spoiled for us I had no word to say and poor Jake was white as paper and trembling all over and made him sick to get so angry They ain't the same Jimmy he kept saying in a hurt tone These foreigners ain't the same you can't trust them to be fair Dirty to kick a feller You heard how the women turn on you and after all we went through on accent of them last winter they ain't to be trusted I don't want to see you get too thick with any of them I'll never be friends with them again Jake I declared hotly I believe they're all like Kragjek and Ambrosh underneath Grandfather heard our story with a twinkle in his eye He advised Jake to write to town tomorrow Go to justice of the peace Tell them he had knocked young Shemurda down and pay his fine Then if Mrs. Shemurda was inclined to make trouble her son was still underage she would be forestalled Jake said he might as well take the wagon and halt to market the pig he had been fattening On Monday about an hour after Jake had started we saw Mrs. Shemurda and her Ambrosh proudly driving by looking neither to the right nor left As they rattled out of sight down the Black Hawk Road Grandfather chuckled saying he had rather expected she would follow the matter up Jake paid us fine with the $10 bill Grandfather had given him for that purpose But when the Shemurda's found that Jake sold his pig in town that day Ambrosh worked it out in his shrewd head that Jake had to sell his pig to pay his fine This theory afforded the Shemurda's great satisfaction apparently For weeks afterward whenever Jake and I met Antonia on her way to the post office or going along the road with her work team she would clap her hands and call to us in a spiteful, crowing voice Jakey, Jakey sell the pig in payless lap Otto pretended not to be surprised at Antonia's behaviour He only lifted his brows and said You can't tell me anything new about a check I'm an Austrian Grandfather was never a party to what Jake called her feud with the Shemurda's Ambrosh and Antonia always greeted him thankfully and he asked them about their affairs and gave them advice as usual He thought the future looked hopeful for them Ambrosh was a far-seeing fellow He soon realised that his oxen were too heavy for any work except breaking sod and he succeeded in selling them to a newly arrived German With the money he bought another team of horses which grandfather selected for him Merrick was strong and Ambrosh worked him hard but he could never teach him to cultivate corn, I remember The one idea that had ever got through poor Merrick's thick head was that all exertion was meritorious He always bore down on the handles of the cultivator and drove the blades so deep into the earth that the horses were soon exhausted In June Ambrosh went to work at Mr. Bushy's for a week and took Merrick with him at full wages Mrs. Shemurda then drove the second cultivator She and Antonia worked in the fields all day and did the chores at night While the two women were running the place alone one of the new horses got colic and gave them a terrible fright Antonia had gone down to the barn one night to see that all was well before she went to bed and she noticed that one of the rones was swollen about the middle and stood with its head hanging She mounted another horse without waiting to saddle him and hammered on our door just as we were going to bed Grandfather answered her knock He did not send one of his men but rode back with her himself Taking a syringe and an old piece of carpet he kept for hot applications when our horses were sick He found Mrs. Shemurda sitting by the horse with her lantern groaning and ringing her hands It took but a few moments to release the gases pent up in the poor beast and the two women heard the rush of wind and saw the ron visibly diminishing girth If I lose that horse Mr. Burden Antonia exclaimed I never stay here till Ambrosh come home I go drum myself in the pond before morning When Ambrosh came back from Mr. Bushy's we learned that he had given Maric's wages to the priest at Blackhawk for masses for their father's soul Grandmother thought Antonia needed shoes more than Mr. Shemurda needed prayers but grandfather said tolerantly If he can spare six dollars pinched as he is it shows he believes what he professes It was grandfather who brought about a reconciliation with the Shemurdas When morning he told us that the small grain was coming on so well he thought he would begin to cut his wheat on the first of July He would need more men and if it were agreeable to everyone he would engage Ambrosh for the reaping and thrashing as the Shemurdas had no small grain of their own I think Emeline he concluded I will ask Antonia to come over and help you in the kitchen She will be glad to earn something and it will be a good time to end I may as well write over this morning and make arrangements Do you want to go with me, Jim? His tone told me that he had already decided for me After breakfast we set off together When Mrs. Shemurda saw us coming she ran from her door down into the draw behind the stable as if she did not want to meet us Grandfather smiled to himself while he tied his horse and we followed her Behind the barn we came upon a funny sight The cow had evidently been grazing in the draw Mrs. Shemurda had run to the animal pulled up the lariat pin and when we came upon her she was trying to hide the cow in an old cave in the bank As the hole was narrow and dark the cow held back and the old woman was slapping and pushing at her hind quarters trying to spank her into the draw side Grandfather ignored her singular occupation and greeted her politely Good morning, Mrs. Shemurda Can you tell me where I will find his saud corn? She pointed toward the north still standing in front of the cow as if she hoped to conceal it His saud corn will be good for fodder this winter, said Grandfather encouragingly And where is Antonia? She goeth Mrs. Shemurda kept wiggling her bare feet about nervously in the dust Very well, I will write up there I want them to come over and help me cut my oats and wheat next month By the way, Mrs. Shemurda he said as he turned up the path I think we may as well call it square about the cow She started and clutched the rope tighter seeing that she did not understand Grandfather turned back You need not pay me anything more No more money The cow is yours Pay no more Keep cow she asked in a bewildered tone her narrow eyes snapping at us in the sunlight Exactly Pay no more Mrs. Shemurda dropped the rope ran after us and crouching down beside Grandfather she took his hand and kissed it I doubt if he had ever been so much embarrassed before I was a little startled too somehow that seemed to bring the old world very close We wrote away laughing and Grandfather said I expect she thought we had come to take her certain, Jim. I wonder if she wouldn't have scratched a little if we'd laid a hold of that lariat rope Our neighbors seemed glad to make peace with us The next Sunday Mrs. Shemurda came over and brought Jake a pair of socks she had knitted She presented them with an air of great magnanimity saying Now you not come anymore for knock my ambrosh down Jake laughed sheepishly I don't want to have no troubled ambrosh Tell me alone I'll let him alone If he slap you we ain't got no pig for pay the fine she said insinuatingly If he slap you we ain't got no pig for pay the fine she said insinuatingly Jake was not at all disconcerted Have the last word ma'am he said cheerfully it's a lady's privilege End of Chapter 18 Recording by Stephanie Dupal de Martin Book 1 Chapter 19 of My Antonia This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Stephanie Dupal de Martin My Antonia by Willa Cather Book 1 The Shemurdas Chapter 19 July came on with that breathless brilliant heat which makes the planes of Kansas and Nebraska the best corn country in the world. It seemed as if we could hear the corn growing in the night under the stars one caught a faint crackling in the dewy heavy odored corn fields where the feathered stalks stood so juicy and green If all the great plain from the Missouri to the Rocky mountains had been under glass and the heat regulated by a thermometer they could not have been better for the yellow tassels that were ripening and fertilizing each other day by day The corn fields were far apart in those times with miles of wild grazing land between. It took a clear meditative eye like my grandfathers to foresee that they would enlarge and multiply until they would be not the Shemurdas corn fields or Mr. Bushy's but the world's corn fields that their yield would be one of the great economic facts like the weak crop of Russia which underlie all the activities of men in peace or war The burning sun of those few weeks with occasional rains at night secured the corn After the milky years were once formed we had little to fear from dry weather. The men were working so hard in the wheat fields that they did not notice the heat though I was kept busy carrying water for them and grandmother and Antonia had so much to do in the kitchen that they could not have told whether one day was hotter than another Each morning while the dew was still in the grass Antonia went with me up to the garden to get early vegetables for dinner Grandmother made her wear a sun bonnet but as soon as we reached the garden she threw it on the grass and let her hair fly in the breeze I remember how as we bent over the pea vines beads of perspiration used to gather on her upper lip like a little mustache Oh better I like to work out of doors than in a house she used to sing joyfully I not care that your grandmother say it makes me like a man I like to be like a man she would toss her head and ask me to feel the muscles swell in her brown arm we were glad to have her in the house she was so gay and responsive that one did not mind her heavy running step or her clattery way with pans grandmother was in high spirits during the weeks that Antonia worked for us all the nights were close and hot during that harvest season the harvester slept in the hayloft because it was cooler there than in the house I used to lie in my bed by the open window watching the heat lightening play softly along the horizon or looking up at the gaunt frame of the windmill against the blue night sky one night there was a beautiful electric storm though not enough rain fell to damage the cut grain the men went down to the barn immediately after supper and when the dishes were washed Antonia and I climbed up on the slanting roof of the chicken house to watch the clouds the thunder was loud and metallic like the rattle of sheet iron and the lightning broke in great zigzags across the heavens making everything stand out and come close to us for a moment half the sky was checkered with black thunderheads but all the west was luminous and clear in the lightning flashes it looked like deep blue water with a sheen of moonlight on it and the mottled part of the sky was like marble pavement like the cave of some splendid sea coast city doomed to destruction great warm splashes of rain fell on her upturned faces one black cloud no bigger than a little boat drifted out into the clear space unattended and kept moving westward all about us we could hear the felty beat of the raindrops on the soft dust of the farm yard grandmother came to the door and said it was late and we would get wet out there in a minute we come Antonia called back to her I like your grandmother and all things here she sighed I wish my papa lived to see the summer I wish no winter ever come again it will be summer long while yet I reassured her why aren't you always nice like this Tony how nice why just like this like yourself why do you all the time try to be like ambrosh she put her arms under her head and lay back up at the sky if I live here like you that is different things will be easy for you but they will be hard for us end of chapter 19 recording by Stephanie Dupal de Martin book 2 chapter 1 of my Antonia this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org recording by Katie Gibbany Arkansas November 2007 my Antonia by Willa Cather book 2 The Hired Girls chapter 1 I had been living with my grandfather for nearly three years when he decided to move to Black Hawk he and grandmother were getting old for the heavy work of a farm and as I was now 13 they thought I ought to be going to school accordingly our homestead was rented to that good woman the widow Stevens and her bachelor brother and we bought preacher white's house at the north end of Black Hawk this was the first townhouse one passed driving in from the farm a landmark which told country people their long ride was over we were to move to Black Hawk in March and as soon as grandfather had fixed the date he let Jake and Otto know of his intention Otto said he would not be likely to find another place that suited him so well that he was tired of farming and thought he would go back to what he called the Wild West Jake Marpole lured by Otto's stories of adventure decided to go with him we did our best to dissuade Jake he was so handicapped by a literacy and by his trusting disposition that he would be an easy prey for the farmers grandmother begged him to stay among kindly Christian people where he was known but there was no reasoning with him he wanted to be a prospector he thought a silver mine was waiting for him in Colorado Jake and Otto served us to the last they moved us into town put down the carpets in our new house made shelves and cupboards for grandmother's kitchen and seemed loath to leave us silent without warning those two fellows had been faithful to us through sun and storm had given us things that cannot be bought in any market in the world with me they had been like older brothers had restrained their speech and manners out of care for me and given me so much good comradeship now they got on the westbound train one morning in their Sunday clothes with their oil cloth the leases and I never saw them again afterwards we got a card from Otto saying that Jake had been down with mountain fever but now they were both working in the Yankee girl mine and were doing well I wrote to them at that address but my letter was returned to me unclaimed after that we never heard from them Black Hawk the new world in which we had come to live was a clean well planted little prairie town with white fences and good green yards about the dwellings wide dusty streets and shapely little trees growing along the wooden sidewalks in the center of the town there were two rows of new brick store buildings a brick school house the courthouse and four white churches our own house looked down over the town and from our upstairs windows we could see the winding line of the river bluffs two miles south of us that river was to be my compensation for the lost freedom of the farming country we came to Black Hawk in March and by the end of April we felt like town people grandfather was a deacon in the new Baptist church grandmother was busy with church suppers and missionary societies and I was quite another boy or thought I was suddenly put down among boys of my own age I found I had a great deal to learn before the spring term of school was over I could fight play keeps tease the little girls and use forbidden words as well as any boy in my class I was restrained from utter savagery only by the fact that Mrs. Harling our nearest neighbor kept an eye on me and if my behavior went beyond certain bounds I was not permitted to come into her yard or to play with her jolly children we saw more of our country neighbors now than when we'd lived on the farm our house was a convenient stopping place for them we had a big barn where the farmers could put up their teams and their women folk more often accompanied them now that they could stay with us for dinner and rest and set their bonnets right before they went shopping the more our house was like a country hotel the better I liked it I was glad when I came home from school at noon to see a farm wagon standing in the backyard and I was always ready to run downtown to get a beef steak or baker's bread for unexpected company that first spring and summer I kept hoping that Ambrose would bring Antonia and Yulka to see our new house I wanted to show them our red plush furniture and the trumpet blowing cherubs the German paper hanger had put on our parlor ceiling when Ambrose came to town however he came alone and though he put his horses in our barn he would never stay for dinner or tell us anything about his mother and sisters if we ran out and questioned him by slipping through the yard he would merely work his shoulders about in his coat and say they all right I guess Mrs. Stevens, who now lived on our farm grew as fond of Antonia as we had been and always brought us news of her all through the wheat season she told us Ambrose hired his sister out like a man and she went from farm to farm binding sheaves or working with the thrashers the farmers liked her and were kind to her and said they would rather have her for a hand than Ambrose when fall came she was to husk corn for the neighbors until Christmas as she had done the year before but grandmother saved her from this by getting her a place to work with our neighbors the Harlings End of Chapter 1 Book 2, Chapter 2 of My Antonia This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Katie Gibbony Arkansas November 2007 My Antonia by Willa Cather Book 2, The Hired Girls Chapter 2 Grandmother often said that if she had to live in town she thanked God she lived next to the Harlings they had been farming people like ourselves and their place was like a little farm with a big barn and a garden and an orchard and grazing lots even a windmill The Harlings were Norwegians and Mrs. Harling had lived in Christiana until she was ten years old her husband was born in Minnesota he was a grain merchant and cattle buyer and was generally considered the most enterprising businessmen in our county he controlled a line of grain elevators in the little towns along the railroad to the west of us and was away from home a great deal in his absence his wife was the head of the household Mrs. Harling was short and square and sturdy looking like her house every inch of her was charged with an energy that made itself felt the moment she entered a room her face was rosy and solid with bright twinkling eyes and a stubborn little chin she was quick to anger quick to laughter how well I remember her laugh it had in it the same sudden recognition that flashed into her eyes was a burst of humor short and intelligent her rapid footsteps shook her own floors and she routed lassitude and indifference wherever she came she could not be negative or perfunctory about anything her enthusiasm and her violent likes and dislikes asserted themselves into all the everyday occupations of life Wash Day was interesting never dreary at the Harlings preserving time was a prolonged festival and house cleaning was like a revolution when Mrs. Harling made garden that spring we could feel the stir of her undertaking through the willow hedge that separated our place from hers three of the Harling children were near me in age Charlie, the only son they had lost an older boy was sixteen Julia, who was known as the musical one was fourteen when I was and Sally the tomboy with short hair was a year younger she was nearly as strong as I and uncannily clever at all boys' sports Sally was a wild thing with sunburned yellow hair bobbed about her ears and a brown skin for she never wore a hat she raced all over town on one roller skate often cheated at keeps but was such a quick shot the grown-up daughter Francis was a very important person in our world she was her father's chief clerk and virtually managed his black hawk office during his frequent absences because of her unusual business ability he was stern and exacting with her he paid her a good salary but she had few holidays and never got away from her responsibilities even on Sundays she went to the office to open the mail and read the markets with Charlie who was not interested in business but was already preparing for anapolis Mr. Harling was very indulgent bought him guns and tools and electric batteries and never asked what he did with them Francis was dark like her father and quite as tall in winter she wore a seal skin coat and cap and she and Mr. Harling used to walk home together in the evening talking about grain cars and cattle like two men sometimes she came over to see Grandfather after supper and her visits flattered him more than once they put their wits together to rescue some unfortunate farmer from the clutches of Wick Cutter the black hawk moneylender Grandfather said Francis Harling was as good a judge of credits as any banker in the county the two or three men who had tried to take advantage of her in a deal acquired celebrity by their defeat she knew every farmer for miles about how much land he had under cultivation how many cattle he was feeding what his liabilities were her interest in these people was more than a business interest she carried them all in her mind as if they were characters in a book or a play when Francis drove out into the country on business she would go miles out of her way to call on some of the old people or to see the women who seldom got to town she was quick at understanding the grandmothers who spoke no English and the most reticent and distrustful of them would tell her their story without realizing they were doing so she went to country funerals and weddings in all weathers a farmer's daughter who was to be married could count on a wedding present from Francis Harling in August the Harling's Danish cook had to leave them grandmother entreated them to try Antonia she cornered Ambrose the next time he came to town and pointed out to him that any connection with Christian Harling would strengthen his credit and be of advantage to him one Sunday Mrs. Harling took the long ride out to the Shimurtas with Francis she said she wanted to see what the girl came from and to have a clear understanding with her mother I was in our yard when they came driving home just before sunset they laughed and waved to me as they passed and I could see they were in great good humor after supper when grandfather set off to church grandmother and I took my short cut through the willow hedge and went over to hear about the visit to the Shimurtas we found Mrs. Harling with Charlie and Sally on the front porch resting after her hard drive Julia was in the hammock she was fond of repose and Francis was at the piano playing without a light and talking to her mother through the open window Mrs. Harling laughed when she saw us coming I expect you left your dishes on the table tonight Mrs. Burden she called Francis shut the piano and came out to join us they had liked Antonia from their first glimpse of her felt they knew exactly what kind of girl she was as for Mrs. Shimurta they found her very amusing Mrs. Harling chuckled whenever she spoke of her I expect I am more at home with that sort of bird than you are Mrs. Burden they're a pair, Ambrose and that old woman they had had a long argument with Ambrose about Antonia's allowances for clothes and pocket money it was his plan that every cent of his sister's wages should be paid over to him each month and he would provide her with such clothing as he thought necessary when Mrs. Harling told him firmly that she would keep $50 a year for Antonia's own use he declared they wanted to take his sister to town and dress her up and make a fool of her Mrs. Harling gave us a lively account of Ambrose's behavior throughout the interview he kept jumping up and putting on his cap as if he were through with the whole business and how his mother tweaked his coat-tail and prompted him in Bohemian Mrs. Harling finally agreed to pay $3 a week for Antonia's services good wages in those days and to keep her in shoes there had been hot dispute about the shoes Mrs. Shimurta finally saying persuasively that she would send Mrs. Harling three fat geese every year to make even Ambrose was to bring his sister to town next Saturday she'll be awkward and rough at first like enough, grandmother said anxiously but unless she's been spoiled by the hard life she's led she has it in her to be a real helpful girl Mrs. Harling laughed her quick decided laugh oh I'm not worrying Mrs. Burden I can bring something out of that girl she's barely 17 not too old to learn new ways she's good looking too she added warmly Francis turned to grandmother oh yes Mrs. Burden you didn't tell us that she was working in the garden when we got there barefoot and ragged but she has such fine brown legs and arms and splendid color in her cheeks like those big dark red plums we were pleased at this praise grandmother spoke feelingly when she first came to this country Francis and had that gentile old man to watch over her she was as pretty a girl as I ever saw but dear me what a life she's led out in the fields with those rough thrashers things would have been very different with poor Antonia if her father had lived the Harlings begged us to tell them about Mr. Chimerta's death and the big snow storm by the time we saw grandfather coming home from church we had told them pretty much all we knew of the Chimerta's the girl will be happy here and she'll forget those things said Mrs. Harling confidently End of Book 2, Chapter 2 Book 2, Chapter 3 of My Antonia this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Katie Gibbany Arkansas, November 2007 My Antonia by Willa Cather The Hired Girls Chapter 3 On Saturday Ambrose drove up to the back gate and Antonia jumped down from the wagon and ran into our kitchen just as she used to do she was wearing shoes and stockings and was breathless and excited she gave me a playful shake by the shoulders you ain't forget about me, Jim grandmother kissed her God bless you child now you've come you must try to do right Antonia looked eagerly about the house and admired everything maybe I'd be the kind of girl you like better now I come to town she suggested hopefully how good it was to have Antonia near us again to see her every day and almost every night her greatest fault, Mrs. Harling found was that she so often stopped her work and fell to playing with the children she would race about the orchard with us or take sides in our hayfights in the barn a little bear that came down from the mountain and carried off Nina Tony learned English so quickly that by the time school began she could speak as well as any of us I was jealous of Tony's admiration for Charlie Harling because he was always first in his classes at school and could mend the water pipes or the doorbell and take the clock to pieces she seemed to think him a sort of prince nothing that Charlie wanted was too much trouble for her she loved to put up lunches for him when he went hunting to mend his ball gloves and sew buttons on his shooting coat baked the kind of nutcakes he liked and fed his setter dog when he was away on trips with his father Antonia had made herself cloth working slippers out of Mr. Harling's old coats and in these she went patting about after Charlie fairly panting with eagerness to please him next to Charlie I think she loved Nina best Nina was only six and she was rather more complex than the other children she was fanciful had all sorts of unspoken preferences and was easily offended at the slightest disappointment or displeasure her velvety brown eyes filled with tears and she would lift her chin and walk silently away if we ran after her and tried to appease her it did no good she walked on unmolefied I used to think that no eyes in the world could grow so large or hold so many tears as Nina's Mrs. Harling and Antonia invariably took her part we were never given a chance to explain the charge was simply you have made Nina cry now Jimmy can go home and Sally must get her arithmetic I liked Nina too she was so quaint and unexpected and her eyes were lovely but I often wanted to shake her we had jolly evenings at the Harlings when father was away if he was at home the children had to go to bed early over to my house to play Mr. Harling not only demanded a quiet house he demanded all his wife's attention he used to take her away to their room in the West L and talk over his business with her all evening though we did not realize it then Mrs. Harling was our audience when we played and we always looked to her for suggestions nothing flattered one like her quick laugh Mr. Harling had a desk in his bedroom and his own easy chair by the window no one else ever sat on the nights when he was at home I could see his shadow on the blind and it seemed to me an arrogant shadow Mrs. Harling paid no heed to anyone else if he was there before he went to sleep she always got him a lunch of smoked salmon or anchovies and beer he kept an alcohol lamp in his room and a French coffee pot and his wife made coffee for him at any hour of the night he happened to want it most Black Hawk fathers had no personal habits outside their domestic ones they paid the bills pushed the baby carriage after office hours moved the sprinkler about over the lawn and took the family driving on Sunday Mr. Harling therefore seemed to me autocratic and imperial in his ways he walked, talked put on his gloves, shook hands like a man who felt that he had power he was not tall but he carried his head so hotly that he looked like a commanding figure and there was something daring and challenging in his eyes I used to imagine that the nobles of whom Antonia was always talking probably looked very much like Christian Harling wore caped overcoats like his and just such a glittering diamond upon the little finger except when the father was at home the Harling house was never quiet Mrs. Harling and Nina and Antonia made as much noise as a house full of children and there was usually somebody at the piano Julia was the only one who held down to regular hours of practicing but they all played when Francis came home at noon she played until dinner was ready when Sally got back from school she sat down in her hat and coat and drummed the plantation melodies that Negro minstrel troops brought to town even Nina played the Swedish wedding march Mrs. Harling had studied the piano under a good teacher and somehow she managed to practice every day I soon learned that if I were sent over on an errand and found Mrs. Harling at the piano I must sit down and wait quietly until she turned to me I can see her at this moment her short, square person planted firmly on the stool her little fat hands moving quickly and neatly over the keys her eyes fixed upon the music with intelligent concentration Book 2, Chapter 4 of My Antonia This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Katie Giveny Arkansas, November 2007 My Antonia by Willa Cather Book 2, The Hired Girls Chapter 4 I won't have none of your weevilly wheat and I won't have none of your barley but I'll take a measure of fine white flour to make a cake for Charlie We were singing rhymes to tease Antonia while she was beating up one of Charlie's favorite cakes in her big mixing bowl It was a crisp autumn evening just cold enough to make one glad to clit playing tag in the yard and retreat into the kitchen We had begun to roll popcorn balls with syrup when we heard a knock at the back door and Tony dropped her spoon and went to open it A lump-fair-haired girl was standing in the doorway She looked demure and pretty and made a graceful picture in her blue cashmere dress and little blue hat with a plaid shawl drawn neatly about her shoulders and a clumsy pocketbook in her hand Hello Tony, don't you know me? She asked in a smooth low voice looking in at us archly Antonia gasped and stepped back Why, it's Lena Of course I didn't know you, so dressed up and Lengard laughed as if this pleased her I had not recognized her for a moment either I had never seen her before with a hat on her head or with shoes and stockings on her feet for that matter and here she was brushed and smoothed and dressed like a little town girl smiling at us with perfect composure Hello Jim, she said carelessly as she walked into the kitchen and looked about her I've come to town to work too, Tony Have you now? Well, ain't that funny? Antonia stood ill at ease and didn't seem to know just what to do with her visitor The door was open into the dining room where Mrs. Harling sat crocheting and Frances was reading Frances asked Lena to come in and join them You are Lena Lengard, aren't you? I've been to see your mother but you were off herding cattle that day Mama, this is Chris Lengard's oldest girl Mrs. Harling dropped her worsted and examined the visitor with quick keen eyes Lena was not at all disconcerted She sat down in the chair Frances pointed out carefully arranging her pocketbook and gray cotton gloves on her lap We followed with our popcorn but Antonia hung back said she had to get her cake into the oven So you have come to town, said Mrs. Harling her eyes still fixed on Lena Where are you working? For Mrs. Thomas, the dressmaker she is going to teach me to sew She says I have quite a knack at the farm there ain't any end to the work on a farm and always so much trouble happens I'm going to be a dressmaker Well, there have to be dressmakers it's a good trade but I wouldn't run down the farm if I were you said Mrs. Harling rather severely How is your mother? Oh, mother's never very well she has too much to do she'd get away from the farm too if she could she was willing for me to come after I learned to do sewing I can make money and help her see that you don't forget to, said Mrs. Harling skeptically as she took up her crocheting again and sent the hook in and out with nimble fingers Noam, I won't, said Lena blandly she took a few grains of the popcorn we pressed upon her eating them discreetly and taking care not to get her fingers sticky Francis drew her chair up nearer to the visitor I thought you were going to be married, Lena, she said teasingly didn't I hear that Nick's Vinson was rushing you pretty hard? Lena looked up with her curiously innocent smile he did go with me quite a while but his father made a fuss about it and said he wouldn't give Nick any land if he married me so he's going to marry Annie Iverson I wouldn't like to be her Nick's awful sullen and he'll take it out on her he ain't spoke to his father since he promised Francis laughed and how do you feel about it? I don't want to marry Nick or any other man, Lena murmured I've seen a good deal of married life and I don't care for it I want to be so I can help my mother and the children at home and not have to ask leave of anybody That's right, said Francis and Mrs. Thomas thinks you can learn dressmaking? Yes, I've always liked to sew but I never had much to do with Mrs. Thomas makes lovely things for all the town ladies Did you know Mrs. Gardner is having a purple velvet made? The velvet came from Omaha, my but it's lovely Lena sighed softly and stroked her cashmere folds Tony knows I never did like out-of-door work, she added Mrs. Harling glanced at her I expect you'll learn to sew all right, Lena if you'll only keep your head and not go gating about to dances all the time and neglect your work the way some country girls do Yes, I'm. Tiny Sotterball is coming to town too She's going to work at the boys' home hotel She'll see lots of strangers, Lena added wistfully Too many, like enough, said Mrs. Harling I don't think a hotel is a good place for a girl though I guess Mrs. Gardner keeps an eye on her waitresses Lena's candid eyes that always looked a little sleepy under their long lashes kept straying about the cheerful rooms with naive admiration Presently she drew on her cotton gloves I guess I must be leaving, she said, irresolutely Frances told her to come again whenever she was lonesome or wanted advice about anything Lena replied that she didn't believe she would ever get lonesome in Blackhawk She lingered at the kitchen door and begged Antonia to come and see her often I've got a room of my own at Mrs. Thomas' with a carpet Tony shuffled uneasily in her cloth slippers I'll come some time, but Mrs. Harling don't like to have me run much, she said evasively You can do what you please when you go out, can't you? Lena asked in a guarded whisper Ain't you crazy about town, Tony? I don't care what anybody says, I'm done with the farm She glanced back over her shoulder toward the dining room where Mrs. Harling sat When Lena was gone, Frances asked Antonia why she hadn't been a little more cordial to her I didn't know if your mother would like her coming here, said Antonia, looking troubled She was kind of talked about out there Yes, I know, but mother won't hold it against her if she behaves well here You needn't say anything about that to the children I guess Jim has heard all that gossip When I nodded, she pulled my hair and told me I knew too much anyhow We were good friends, Frances and I I ran home to tell grandmother that Lena Lindgard had come to town We were glad of it, for she had a hard life on the farm Lena lived in the Norwegian settlement west of Squaw Creek And she used to herd her father's cattle in the open country between his place and the Shimurtis Whenever we rode over in that direction we saw her out among her cattle, bareheaded and barefooted, scantily dressed in tattered clothing, always knitting as she watched her herd Before I knew Lena, I thought of her as something wild that always lived on the prairie Because I had never seen her under a roof, her yellow hair was burned to a ruddy thatch But her legs and arms curiously enough, in spite of constant exposure to the sun, kept a miraculous whiteness Which somehow made her seem more undressed than the other girls who went scantily clad The first time I stopped to talk to her I was astonished at her soft voice and easy gentle ways The girls out there usually got rough and mannish after they went to herding But Lena asked Jake and me to get off our horses and stay awhile And behaved exactly as if she were in a house and were accustomed to having visitors She was not embarrassed by her ragged clothes and treated us as if we were old acquaintances Even then I noticed the unusual color of her eyes, a shade of deep violet and their soft confiding expression Chris Lindgard was not a very successful farmer and he had a large family Lena was always needing stockings for little brothers and sisters And even the Norwegian women who disapproved of her admitted that she was a good daughter to her mother As Toni said, she had been talked about She was accused of making old Benson lose the little sense he had And that at an age when she should still have been in pinafores Old lived in a leaky dugout somewhere at the edge of the settlement He was fat and lazy and discouraged and bad luck had become a habit with him After he had had every other kind of misfortune, his wife, Crazy Mary, tried to set a neighbor's barn on fire And was sent to the asylum at Lincoln She was kept there for a few months, then escaped and walked all the way home, nearly two hundred miles Traveling by night and hiding in barns and haystacks by day When she got back to the Norwegian settlement her poor feet were as hard as hoofs She promised to be good and was allowed to stay at home, though everyone realized she was as crazy as ever And she still ran about barefooted through the snow, telling her domestic troubles to her neighbors Not long after Mary came back from the asylum, I heard a young Dane, who was helping us to thrash Tell Jake and Otto that Chris Lindgard's oldest girl had put Old Benson out of his head Until he had no more sense than his crazy wife When Old was cultivating his corn that summer, he used to get discouraged in the fields Tie up his team and wander off to wherever Lena Lindgard was herding There he would sit down on the draw side and help her watch her cattle All the settlement was talking about it The Norwegian preacher's wife went to Lena and told her that she ought not to allow this She begged Lena to come to church on Sundays Lena said she hadn't a dress in the world any less ragged than the one on her back Then the minister's wife went through her old trunks and found some things she had worn before her marriage The next Sunday Lena appeared at church, a little late with her hair done up neatly on her head Like a young woman wearing shoes and stockings and the new dress which she had made over for herself very becomingly The congregation stared at her until that morning no one, unless it were old Had realized how pretty she was or that she was growing up The swelling lines of her figure had been hidden under the shapeless rags she wore in the fields After the last hymn had been sung and the congregation was dismissed, Old slipped out to the hitch bar and lifted Lena on her horse That in itself was shocking, a married man was not expected to do such things, but it was nothing to the scene that followed Crazy Mary darted out from the group of women at the church door and ran down the road after Lena shouting horrible threats Look out you Lena Lindgard, look out, I'll come over with a corn knife one day and trim some of that shape off you Then you won't sail round so fine, making eyes at men The Norwegian women didn't know where to look, they were formal housewives most of them with a severe sense of decorum But Lena Lindgard only laughed her lazy good-natured laugh and rode on gazing back over her shoulder at Old's infuriated wife The time came, however, when Lena didn't laugh More than once Crazy Mary chased her across the prairie and round and round the Shamirda's cornfield Lena never told her father, perhaps she was ashamed, perhaps she was more afraid of his anger than of the corn knife I was at the Shamirda's one afternoon when Lena came bounding through the red grass fast as her white legs could carry her She ran straight into the house and hid in Antonia's feather bed Mary was not far behind, she came right up to the door and made us feel how sharp her blade was, showing us very graphically just what she meant to do to Lena Mrs. Shamirda, leaning out of the window, enjoyed the situation keenly and was sorry when Antonia sent Mary away, mollified by an apron full of bottle tomatoes Lena came out from Tony's room behind the kitchen, very pink from the heat of the feathers, but otherwise calm She begged Antonia and me to go with her and help get her cattle together, they were scattered and might be gorging themselves in somebody's cornfield Maybe you lose a steer and learn not to make somethings happen with your eyes at married men, Mrs. Shamirda told her hectoringly Lena only smiled her sleepy smile, I never made anything to him with my eyes, I can't help it if he hangs around and I can't order him off, it ain't my prairie End of Book 2, Chapter 4 Book 2, Chapter 5 of My Antonia This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Katie Giveny, Arkansas, November 2007 My Antonia by Willa Cather, Book 2, The Hired Girls, Chapter 5 After Lena came to Blackhawk, I often met her downtown, where she would be matching sewing silk or buying findings for Mrs. Thomas If I happened to walk home with her, she told me all about the dresses she was helping to make, or about what she saw and heard when she was with tiny solder ball at the hotel on Saturday nights The boys' home was the best hotel on our branch of the Burlington, and all the commercial travelers in that territory tried to get into Blackhawk for Sunday They used to assemble in the parlor after supper on Saturday nights Marshall Fieldsman, Anson Kirkpatrick, played the piano and sang all the latest sentimental songs After Tiny had helped the cook wash the dishes, she and Lena sat on the other side of the double doors between the parlor and the dining room, listening to the music and giggling at the jokes and stories Lena often said she hoped I would be a travelling man when I grew up They had a gay life of it, nothing to do but ride about on trains all day and go to theatres when they were in big cities Behind the hotel there was an old store building where the salesman opened their big trunks and spread out their samples on the counters The Blackhawk merchants went to look at these things and order goods, and Mrs. Thomas, though she was retail trade, was permitted to see them and to get ideas They were all generous, these travelling men. They gave tiny solder-ball handkerchiefs and gloves and ribbons and striped stockings and so many bottles of perfume and cakes of scented soap that she bestowed some of them on Lena One afternoon in the week before Christmas I came upon Lena and her funny, square-headed little brother, Chris, standing before the drugstore, gazing in at the wax dolls and blocks and Noah's arcs arranged in the Frosty Show window The boy had come to town with a neighbour to do his Christmas shopping, for he had money of his own this year. He was only twelve, but that winter he had got the job of sweeping out the Norwegian church and making the fire in it every Sunday morning A cold job it must have been too. We went into Duckford's dry goods store and Chris unwrapped all his presents and showed them to me, something for each of the six younger than himself, even a rubber pig for the baby Lena had given him one of tiny solder-balls bottles of perfume for his mother and he thought he would get some handkerchiefs to go with it. They were cheap and he hadn't much money left. We found a table full of handkerchiefs spread out for view at Duckford's Chris wanted those with initial letters in the corner because he had never seen any before. He studied them seriously while Lena looked over his shoulder, telling him she thought the red letters would hold their colour best He seemed so perplexed that I thought perhaps he hadn't enough money after all. Presently he said gravely Sister, you know Mother's name is Bertha. I don't know if I ought to get B for Bertha or M for Mother Lena patted his bristly head. I'd get the B, Chrissy. It will please her for you to think about her name. Nobody ever calls her by it now That satisfied him. His face cleared at once and he took three reds and three blues. When the neighbour came in to say that it was time to start, Lena wound Chris's comforter about his neck and turned up his jacket collar. He had no overcoat and we watched him climb into the wagon and start on his long cold drive As we walked together up the windy street Lena wiped her eyes with the back of her woolen glove. I get awful homesick for them all the same, she murmured, as if she were answering some remembered reproach