My Antonia Read online

  IX

  THE FIRST SNOWFALL came early in December. I remember how the worldlooked from our sitting-room window as I dressed behind the stove thatmorning: the low sky was like a sheet of metal; the blond cornfields hadfaded out into ghostliness at last; the little pond was frozen under itsstiff willow bushes. Big white flakes were whirling over everything anddisappearing in the red grass.

  Beyond the pond, on the slope that climbed to the cornfield, there was,faintly marked in the grass, a great circle where the Indians used toride. Jake and Otto were sure that when they galloped round that ringthe Indians tortured prisoners, bound to a stake in the centre; butgrandfather thought they merely ran races or trained horses there.Whenever one looked at this slope against the setting sun, the circleshowed like a pattern in the grass; and this morning, when thefirst light spray of snow lay over it, it came out with wonderfuldistinctness, like strokes of Chinese white on canvas. The old figurestirred me as it had never done before and seemed a good omen for thewinter.

  As soon as the snow had packed hard, I began to drive about the countryin a clumsy sleigh that Otto Fuchs made for me by fastening a woodengoods-box on bobs. Fuchs had been apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in theold country and was very handy with tools. He would have done a betterjob if I hadn't hurried him. My first trip was to the post-office, andthe next day I went over to take Yulka and Antonia for a sleigh-ride.

  It was a bright, cold day. I piled straw and buffalo robes into thebox, and took two hot bricks wrapped in old blankets. When I got to theShimerdas', I did not go up to the house, but sat in my sleigh at thebottom of the draw and called. Antonia and Yulka came running out,wearing little rabbit-skin hats their father had made for them. Theyhad heard about my sledge from Ambrosch and knew why I had come. Theytumbled in beside me and we set off toward the north, along a road thathappened to be broken.

  The sky was brilliantly blue, and the sunlight on the glittering whitestretches of prairie was almost blinding. As Antonia said, the wholeworld was changed by the snow; we kept looking in vain for familiarlandmarks. The deep arroyo through which Squaw Creek wound was now onlya cleft between snowdrifts--very blue when one looked down into it. Thetree-tops that had been gold all the autumn were dwarfed and twisted, asif they would never have any life in them again. The few little cedars,which were so dull and dingy before, now stood out a strong, duskygreen. The wind had the burning taste of fresh snow; my throat andnostrils smarted as if someone had opened a hartshorn bottle. The coldstung, and at the same time delighted one. My horse's breath rose likesteam, and whenever we stopped he smoked all over. The cornfields gotback a little of their colour under the dazzling light, and stood thepalest possible gold in the sun and snow. All about us the snow wascrusted in shallow terraces, with tracings like ripple-marks at theedges, curly waves that were the actual impression of the stinging lashin the wind.

  The girls had on cotton dresses under their shawls; they kept shiveringbeneath the buffalo robes and hugging each other for warmth. Butthey were so glad to get away from their ugly cave and their mother'sscolding that they begged me to go on and on, as far as Russian Peter'shouse. The great fresh open, after the stupefying warmth indoors, madethem behave like wild things. They laughed and shouted, and said theynever wanted to go home again. Couldn't we settle down and live inRussian Peter's house, Yulka asked, and couldn't I go to town and buythings for us to keep house with?

  All the way to Russian Peter's we were extravagantly happy, but when weturned back--it must have been about four o'clock--the east wind grewstronger and began to howl; the sun lost its heartening power and thesky became grey and sombre. I took off my long woollen comforter andwound it around Yulka's throat. She got so cold that we made her hideher head under the buffalo robe. Antonia and I sat erect, but I held thereins clumsily, and my eyes were blinded by the wind a good deal of thetime. It was growing dark when we got to their house, but I refused togo in with them and get warm. I knew my hands would ache terribly if Iwent near a fire. Yulka forgot to give me back my comforter, and I hadto drive home directly against the wind. The next day I came down withan attack of quinsy, which kept me in the house for nearly two weeks.

  The basement kitchen seemed heavenly safe and warm in those days--likea tight little boat in a winter sea. The men were out in the fields allday, husking corn, and when they came in at noon, with long caps pulleddown over their ears and their feet in red-lined overshoes, I usedto think they were like Arctic explorers. In the afternoons, whengrandmother sat upstairs darning, or making husking-gloves, I read 'TheSwiss Family Robinson' aloud to her, and I felt that the Swiss familyhad no advantages over us in the way of an adventurous life. I wasconvinced that man's strongest antagonist is the cold. I admired thecheerful zest with which grandmother went about keeping us warm andcomfortable and well-fed. She often reminded me, when she was preparingfor the return of the hungry men, that this country was not likeVirginia; and that here a cook had, as she said, 'very little to dowith.' On Sundays she gave us as much chicken as we could eat, and onother days we had ham or bacon or sausage meat. She baked either piesor cake for us every day, unless, for a change, she made my favouritepudding, striped with currants and boiled in a bag.

  Next to getting warm and keeping warm, dinner and supper were the mostinteresting things we had to think about. Our lives centred aroundwarmth and food and the return of the men at nightfall. I used towonder, when they came in tired from the fields, their feet numb andtheir hands cracked and sore, how they could do all the chores soconscientiously: feed and water and bed the horses, milk the cows, andlook after the pigs. When supper was over, it took them a long whileto get the cold out of their bones. While grandmother and I washed thedishes and grandfather read his paper upstairs, Jake and Otto sat onthe long bench behind the stove, 'easing' their inside boots, or rubbingmutton tallow into their cracked hands.

  Every Saturday night we popped corn or made taffy, and Otto Fuchs usedto sing, 'For I Am a Cowboy and Know I've Done Wrong,' or, 'Bury Me Noton the Lone Prairee.' He had a good baritone voice and always led thesinging when we went to church services at the sod schoolhouse.

  I can still see those two men sitting on the bench; Otto's close-clippedhead and Jake's shaggy hair slicked flat in front by a wet comb. I cansee the sag of their tired shoulders against the whitewashed wall. Whatgood fellows they were, how much they knew, and how many things they hadkept faith with!

  Fuchs had been a cowboy, a stage-driver, a bartender, a miner; hadwandered all over that great Western country and done hard workeverywhere, though, as grandmother said, he had nothing to show for it.Jake was duller than Otto. He could scarcely read, wrote even his namewith difficulty, and he had a violent temper which sometimes made himbehave like a crazy man--tore him all to pieces and actually made himill. But he was so soft-hearted that anyone could impose upon him. Ifhe, as he said, 'forgot himself' and swore before grandmother, he wentabout depressed and shamefaced all day. They were both of them jovialabout the cold in winter and the heat in summer, always ready to workovertime and to meet emergencies. It was a matter of pride with themnot to spare themselves. Yet they were the sort of men who never get on,somehow, or do anything but work hard for a dollar or two a day.

  On those bitter, starlit nights, as we sat around the old stove that fedus and warmed us and kept us cheerful, we could hear the coyotes howlingdown by the corrals, and their hungry, wintry cry used to remind theboys of wonderful animal stories; about grey wolves and bears in theRockies, wildcats and panthers in the Virginia mountains. SometimesFuchs could be persuaded to talk about the outlaws and desperatecharacters he had known. I remember one funny story about himself thatmade grandmother, who was working her bread on the bread-board, laughuntil she wiped her eyes with her bare arm, her hands being floury. Itwas like this:

  When Otto left Austria to come to America, he was asked by one of hisrelatives to look after a woman who was crossing on the same boat, tojoin her husband in Chicago. The woman started off with two children,but it
was clear that her family might grow larger on the journey. Fuchssaid he 'got on fine with the kids,' and liked the mother, though sheplayed a sorry trick on him. In mid-ocean she proceeded to have notone baby, but three! This event made Fuchs the object of undeservednotoriety, since he was travelling with her. The steerage stewardesswas indignant with him, the doctor regarded him with suspicion. Thefirst-cabin passengers, who made up a purse for the woman, took anembarrassing interest in Otto, and often enquired of him about hischarge. When the triplets were taken ashore at New York, he had, as hesaid, 'to carry some of them.' The trip to Chicago was even worse thanthe ocean voyage. On the train it was very difficult to get milk for thebabies and to keep their bottles clean. The mother did her best, butno woman, out of her natural resources, could feed three babies. Thehusband, in Chicago, was working in a furniture factory for modestwages, and when he met his family at the station he was rather crushedby the size of it. He, too, seemed to consider Fuchs in some fashion toblame. 'I was sure glad,' Otto concluded, 'that he didn't take his hardfeeling out on that poor woman; but he had a sullen eye for me, allright! Now, did you ever hear of a young feller's having such hard luck,Mrs. Burden?'

  Grandmother told him she was sure the Lord had remembered these thingsto his credit, and had helped him out of many a scrape when he didn'trealize that he was being protected by Providence.