The First Willa Cather Megapack Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFO

  A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  LOU, THE PROPHET

  PETER

  A TALE OF THE WHITE PYRAMID.

  A SON OF THE CELESTIAL.

  THE ELOPEMENT OF ALLEN POOLE

  THE CLEMENCY OF THE COURT

  “THE FEAR THAT WALKS BY NOONDAY.”

  ON THE DIVIDE

  A NIGHT AT GREENWAY COURT.

  THE PRINCESS BALADINA—HER ADVENTURE

  TOMMY, THE UNSENTIMENTAL

  THE COUNT OF CROW’S NEST.

  WEE WINKIE’S WANDERINGS.

  THE BURGLAR’S CHRISTMAS

  THE STRATEGY OF THE WEREWOLF DOG

  A RESURRECTION.

  THE PRODIGIES

  NANETTE: AN ASIDE

  THE WAY OF THE WORLD.

  THE WEST BOUND TRAIN

  ERIC HERMANNSON’S SOUL

  THE DANCE AT CHEVALIER’S

  THE SENTIMENTALITY OF WILLIAM TAVENER

  A SINGER’S ROMANCE

  THE CONVERSION OF SUM LOO

  JACK-A-BOY

  EL DORADO: A KANSAS RECESSIONAL.

  THE PROFESSOR’S COMMENCEMENT

  THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

  A DEATH IN THE DESERT

  A WAGNER MATINÉE

  THE SCULPTOR’S FUNERAL

  PAUL’S CASE

  THE NAMESAKE

  THE PROFILE

  THE WILLING MUSE

  ELEANOR’S HOUSE

  ON THE GULLS’ ROAD

  THE ENCHANTED BLUFF

  THE JOY OF NELLY DEANE

  BEHIND THE SINGER TOWER

  THE BOHEMIAN GIRL

  CONSEQUENCES

  THE BOOKKEEPER’S WIFE

  THE DIAMOND MINE

  A GOLD SLIPPER

  ARDESSA

  SCANDAL

  HER BOSS

  COMING, EDEN BOWER!

  The MEGAPACK® Ebook Series

  COPYRIGHT INFO

  The First Willa Cather MEGAPACK® is copyright © 2016 by Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.

  * * * *

  The MEGAPACK® ebook series name is a trademark of Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.

  * * * *

  “Lou, the Prophet” was originally published in The Hesperian, (October 15, 1892): 7-10.

  “Peter” was originally published in The Hesperian, 22 (November 24, 1892): 10-12.

  “A Tale of the White Pyramid” was originally published in The Hesperian, 22 (December 22, 1892): 8-11.

  “The Son of the Celestial” was originally published in The Hesperian, 22 (January 15, 1893): 7-10.

  “The Elopement of Allen Poole” was originally published in The Hesperian, 22 (April 15, 1893): 4-7.

  “The Clemency of the Court” was originally published in The Hesperian, 22 (October 26, 1893): 3-7.

  “’The Fear that Walks by Noonday’” was originally published in The Sombrero, (1895): 224-231.

  “On the Divide” was originally published in Overland Monthly, 27 (January 1896): 65-75.

  “A Night at Greenway Court” was originally published in Nebraska Literary Magazine, I (June 1896): 215-224.

  “The Princess Baladina—Her Adventure” was originally published in The Home Monthly, August 1896.

  “Tommy, the Unsentimental” was originally published in The Home Monthly, August 1896.

  “The Count of Crow’s Nest” was originally published in The Home Monthly, September 1896 and October 1896.

  “Wee Winkie’s Wanderings” was originally published in The National Stockman and Farmer, November 26, 1896.

  “The Burglar’s Christmas” was originally published in The Home Monthly, December 1896.

  “The Strategy of the Were-Wolf Dog” was originally published in The Home Monthly, December 1896.

  “A Resurrection” was originally published in The Home Monthly, April 1897.

  “The Prodigies” was originally published in The Home Monthly, July 1897.

  “Nanette: An Aside” was originally published in The Home Monthly, August 1897.

  “The Way of the World” was originally published in The Home Monthly, April 1898.

  “The West Bound Train” was originally published in The Courier, September 30, 1898.

  “Eric Hermannson’s Soul” was originally published in The Cosmopolitan, April 1900.

  “The Dance at Chevalier’s” was originally published in The Library, April 28, 1900.

  “The Sentimentality of William Tavener” was originally published in The Library, May 12, 1900.

  “A Singer’s Romance” was originally published in The Library, July 28, 1900.

  “The Conversion of Sum Loo” was originally published in The Library, 11 August 1900.

  “Jack-a-Boy” was originally published in The Saturday Evening Post, March 30, 1901.

  “El Dorado: A Kansas Recessional” was originally published in New England Magazine, June 1901.

  “The Professor’s Commencement” was originally published in New England Magazine, June 1902.

  “The Treasure of Far Island” was originally published in New England Magazine, October 1902.

  “A Death in the Desert” was originally published in Scribner’s Magazine, January 1903.

  “A Wagner Matinée” was originally published in Everybody’s Magazine, March 1904.

  “The Sculptor’s Funeral” was originally published in McClure’s Magazine, January 1905.

  “Paul’s Case” was originally published in McClure’s Magazine, May 1905.

  “The Namesake” was originally published in McClure’s Magazine, March 1907.

  “The Profile” was originally published in McClure’s Magazine, June 1907.

  “The Willing Muse” was originally published in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, August 1907.

  “Eleanor’s House” McClure’s Magazine, October 1907.

  “On the Gulls’ Road” was originally published in McClure’s Magazine, December 1908.

  “The Enchanted Bluff” was originally published in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, April 1909.

  “The Joy of Nelly Deane” was originally published in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, October 1911.

  “Behind the Singer Tower” was originally published in Collier’s, May 18, 1912.

  “The Bohemian Girl” was originally published in McClure’s Magazine, August 1912.

  “Consequences” was originally published in McClure’s Magazine, November 1915.

  “The Bookkeeper’s Wife” was originally published in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, May 1916.

  “The Diamond Mine” was originally published in McClure’s Magazine, October 1916.

  “The Gold Slipper” was originally published in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, January 1917.

  “Ardessa” was originally published in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, May 1918.

  “Scandal” was originally published in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, August 1919.

  “Her Boss” was originally published in Smart Set, October 1919.

  “Coming, Eden Bower!” was originally published in Smart Set, August 1920.

  A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  Willa Sibert Cather (1873– 1947) was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains
, including O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918). Through the 1910s and 1920s, Cather was firmly established as a major American writer. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922), a novel set during World War I. By the 1930s, however, critics began to dismiss her as a “romantic, nostalgic writer who could not cope with the present.” Critics such as Granville Hicks charged Cather with failing to confront “contemporary life as it is” and escaping into an idealized past. During the hardships of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, her work was seen as lacking social relevance.

  Cather’s conservative politics and the same subject matter that appealed to Mencken, Randolph Bourne, and Carl Van Doren soured her reputation with younger, often left-leaning critics such as Hicks and Edmund Wilson.

  Despite this critical opposition to her work, Cather remained a popular writer whose novels and short story collections continued to sell well. In 1931 Shadows on the Rock was the most widely read novel in the US, and Lucy Gayheart became a bestseller in 1935.

  Discouraged by the negative criticism of her work, however, Cather became defensive. She destroyed some of her correspondence and included a provision in her will that forbade the publication of her letters. However, in April 2013, The Selected Letters of Willa Cather—a collection of 566 letters Cather wrote to friends, family, and literary acquaintances such as Thornton Wilder and F. Scott Fitzgerald—was published, two years following the death of Cather’s nephew and second literary executor, Charles Cather. Willa Cather’s correspondence revealed complexity of her character and inner world.

  This collection focuses on her short fiction. Future volumes will collect her novels.

  Enjoy!

  —John Betancourt

  Publisher, Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidepress.com

  ABOUT THE SERIES

  Over the last few years, our MEGAPACK® ebook series has grown to be our most popular endeavor. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, “Who’s the editor?”

  The MEGAPACK® ebook series (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt (me), Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Shawn Garrett, Helen McGee, Bonner Menking, Sam Cooper, Helen McGee and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!)

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  LOU, THE PROPHET

  It had been a very trying summer to every one, and most of all to Lou. He had been in the West for seven years, but he had never quite gotten over his homesickness for Denmark. Among the northern people who emigrate to the great west, only the children and the old people ever long much for the lands they have left over the water. The men only know that in this new land their plow runs across the field tearing up the fresh, warm earth, with never a stone to stay its course. That if they dig and delve the land long enough, and if they are not compelled to mortgage it to keep body and soul together, some day it will be theirs, their very own. They are not like the southern people; they loose their love for their fatherland quicker and have less of sentiment about them. They have to think too much about how they shall get bread to care much what soil gives it to them. But among even the most blunted, mechanical people, the youths and the aged always have a touch of romance in them.

  Lou was only twenty-two; he had been but a boy when his family left Denmark, and had never ceased to remember it. He was a rather simple fellow, and was always considered less promising than his brothers; but last year he had taken up a claim of his own and made a rough dugout upon it and he lived there all alone. His life was that of many another young man in our country. He rose early in the morning, in the summer just before daybreak; in the winter, long before. First he fed his stock, then himself, which was a much less important matter. He ate the same food at dinner that he ate at breakfast, and the same at supper that he ate at dinner. His bill of fare never changed the year round; bread, coffee, beans and sorgum molasses, sometimes a little salt pork. After breakfast he worked until dinner time, ate, and then worked again. He always went to bed soon after the sun set, for he was always tired, and it saved oil. Sometimes, on Sundays, he would go over home after he had done his washing and house cleaning, and sometimes he hunted. His life was as same and as uneventful as the life of his plow horses, and it was as hard and thankless. He was thrifty for a simple, thick-headed fellow, and in the spring he was to have married Nelse Sorenson’s daughter, but he had lost all his cattle during the winter, and was not so prosperous as he had hoped to be; so, instead she married her cousin, who had an “eighty” of his own. That hurt Lou more than anyone ever dreamed.

  A few weeks later his mother died. He had always loved his mother. She had been kind to him and used to come over to see him sometimes, and shake up his hard bed for him, and sweep, and make his bread. She had a strong affection for the boy, he was her youngest, and she always felt sorry for him; she had danced a great deal before his birth, and an old woman in Denmark had told her that was the cause of the boy’s weak head.

  Perhaps the greatest calamity of all was the threatened loss of his corn crop. He had bought a new corn planter on time that spring, and had intended that his corn should pay for it. Now, it looked as though he would not have corn enough to feed his horses. Unless rain fell within the next two weeks, his entire crop would be ruined; it was half gone now. All these things together were too much for poor Lou, and one morning he felt a strange loathing for the bread and sorgum which he usually ate as mechanically as he slept. He kept thinking about the strawberries he used to gather on the mountains after the snows were gone, and the cold water in the mountain streams. He felt hot someway, and wanted cold water. He had no well, and he hauled his water from a neighbor’s well every Sunday, and it got warm in the barrels those hot summer days. He worked at his haying all day; at night, when he was through feeding, he stood a long time by the pig stye with a basket on his arm. When the moon came up, he sighed restlessly and tore the buffalo pea flowers with his bare toes. After a while, he put his basket away, and went into his hot, close, little dugout. He did not sleep well, and he dreamed a horrible dream. He thought he saw the Devil and all his angels in the air holding back the rain clouds, and they loosed all the damned in Hell, and they came, poor tortured things, and drank up whole clouds of rain. Then he thought a strange light shown from the south, just over the river bluffs, and the clouds parted, and Christ and all his angels were descending. They were coming, coming, myriads and myriads of them, in a great blaze of glory. Then he felt something give way in his poor, weak head, and with a cry of pain he awoke. He lay shuddering a long time in the dark, then got up and lit his lantern and took from the shelf his mother’s bible. It opened of itself at Revelations, and Lou began to read, slowly indeed, for it was hard work for him. Page by page, he read those burning, blinding, blasting words, and they seemed to shrivel up his poor brain altogether. At last the book slipped from his hands and he sank down upon his knees in prayer, and sta
yed so until the dull gray dawn stole over the land and he heard the pigs clamoring for their feed.

  He worked about the place until noon, and then prayed and read again. So he went on several days, praying and reading and fasting, until he grew thin and haggard. Nature did not comfort him any, he knew nothing about nature, he had never seen her; he had only stared into a black plow furrow all his life. Before, he had only seen in the wide, green lands and the open blue the possibilities of earning his bread; now, he only saw in them a great world ready for the judgment, a funeral pyre ready for the torch.

  One morning, he went over to the big prairie dog town, where several little Danish boys herded their fathers’s cattle. The boys were very fond of Lou; he never teased them as the other men did, but used to help them with their cattle, and let them come over to his dugout to make sorghum taffy. When they saw him coming, they ran to meet him and asked him where he had been all these days. He did not answer their questions, but said: “Come into the cave, I want to see you.”

  Some six or eight boys herded near the dog town every summer, and by their combined efforts they had dug a cave in the side of a high bank. It was large enough to hold them all comfortably, and high enough to stand in. There the boys used to go when it rained or when it was cold in the fall. They followed Lou silently and sat down on the floor. Lou stood up and looked tenderly down into the little faces before him. They were old-faced little fellows, though they were not over twelve or thirteen years old; hard work matures boys quickly.

  “Boys,” he said earnestly, “I have found out why it don’t rain, its because of the sins of the world. You don’t know how wicked the world is, it’s all bad, all, even Denmark. People have been sinning a long time, but they won’t much longer. God has been watching and watching for thousands of years, and filling up the phials of wrath, and now he is going to pour out his vengeance and let Hell loose upon the world. He is burning up our corn now, and worse things will happen; for the sun shall be as sackcloth, and the moon shall be like blood, and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the heavens shall part like a scroll, and the mountains shall be moved out of their places, and the great day of his wrath shall come, against which none may stand. Oh, boys! The floods and the flames shall come down upon us together and the whole world shall perish.” Lou paused for breath, and the little boys gazed at him in wonder. The sweat was running down his haggard face, and his eyes were staring wildly. Presently, he resumed in a softer tone, “Boys, if you want rain, there is only one way to get it, by prayer. The people of the world won’t pray, perhaps if they did God would not hear them, for they are so wicked; but he will hear you, for you are little children and are likened unto the kingdom of heaven, and he loved ye.”