My Ántonia Read online

  VIII

  WHILE the autumn color was growing pale on the grass and cornfields,things went badly with our friends the Russians. Peter told his troublesto Mr. Shimerda: he was unable to meet a note which fell due on the firstof November; had to pay an exorbitant bonus on renewing it, and to give amortgage on his pigs and horses and even his milk cow. His creditor wasWick Cutter, the merciless Black Hawk money-lender, a man of evil namethroughout the county, of whom I shall have more to say later. Peter couldgive no very clear account of his transactions with Cutter. He only knewthat he had first borrowed two hundred dollars, then another hundred, thenfifty--that each time a bonus was added to the principal, and the debt grewfaster than any crop he planted. Now everything was plastered withmortgages.

  Soon after Peter renewed his note, Pavel strained himself lifting timbersfor a new barn, and fell over among the shavings with such a gush of bloodfrom the lungs that his fellow-workmen thought he would die on the spot.They hauled him home and put him into his bed, and there he lay, very illindeed. Misfortune seemed to settle like an evil bird on the roof of thelog house, and to flap its wings there, warning human beings away. TheRussians had such bad luck that people were afraid of them and liked toput them out of mind.

  One afternoon Antonia and her father came over to our house to getbuttermilk, and lingered, as they usually did, until the sun was low. Justas they were leaving, Russian Peter drove up. Pavel was very bad, he said,and wanted to talk to Mr. Shimerda and his daughter; he had come to fetchthem. When Antonia and her father got into the wagon, I entreatedgrandmother to let me go with them: I would gladly go without my supper, Iwould sleep in the Shimerdas' barn and run home in the morning. My planmust have seemed very foolish to her, but she was often large-minded abouthumoring the desires of other people. She asked Peter to wait a moment,and when she came back from the kitchen she brought a bag of sandwichesand doughnuts for us.

  Mr. Shimerda and Peter were on the front seat; Antonia and I sat in thestraw behind and ate our lunch as we bumped along. After the sun sank, acold wind sprang up and moaned over the prairie. If this turn in theweather had come sooner, I should not have got away. We burrowed down inthe straw and curled up close together, watching the angry red die out ofthe west and the stars begin to shine in the clear, windy sky. Peter keptsighing and groaning. Tony whispered to me that he was afraid Pavel wouldnever get well. We lay still and did not talk. Up there the stars grewmagnificently bright. Though we had come from such different parts of theworld, in both of us there was some dusky superstition that those shininggroups have their influence upon what is and what is not to be. PerhapsRussian Peter, come from farther away than any of us, had brought from hisland, too, some such belief.

  The little house on the hillside was so much the color of the night thatwe could not see it as we came up the draw. The ruddy windows guidedus--the light from the kitchen stove, for there was no lamp burning.

  We entered softly. The man in the wide bed seemed to be asleep. Tony and Isat down on the bench by the wall and leaned our arms on the table infront of us. The firelight flickered on the hewn logs that supported thethatch overhead. Pavel made a rasping sound when he breathed, and he keptmoaning. We waited. The wind shook the doors and windows impatiently, thenswept on again, singing through the big spaces. Each gust, as it boredown, rattled the panes, and swelled off like the others. They made methink of defeated armies, retreating; or of ghosts who were tryingdesperately to get in for shelter, and then went moaning on. Presently, inone of those sobbing intervals between the blasts, the coyotes tuned upwith their whining howl; one, two, three, then all together--to tell usthat winter was coming. This sound brought an answer from the bed,--a longcomplaining cry,--as if Pavel were having bad dreams or were waking to someold misery. Peter listened, but did not stir. He was sitting on the floorby the kitchen stove. The coyotes broke out again; yap, yap, yap--then thehigh whine. Pavel called for something and struggled up on his elbow.

  "He is scared of the wolves," Antonia whispered to me. "In his countrythere are very many, and they eat men and women." We slid closer togetheralong the bench.

  I could not take my eyes off the man in the bed. His shirt was hangingopen, and his emaciated chest, covered with yellow bristle, rose and fellhorribly. He began to cough. Peter shuffled to his feet, caught up thetea-kettle and mixed him some hot water and whiskey. The sharp smell ofspirits went through the room.

  Pavel snatched the cup and drank, then made Peter give him the bottle andslipped it under his pillow, grinning disagreeably, as if he had outwittedsome one. His eyes followed Peter about the room with a contemptuous,unfriendly expression. It seemed to me that he despised him for being sosimple and docile.

  Presently Pavel began to talk to Mr. Shimerda, scarcely above a whisper.He was telling a long story, and as he went on, Antonia took my hand underthe table and held it tight. She leaned forward and strained her ears tohear him. He grew more and more excited, and kept pointing all around hisbed, as if there were things there and he wanted Mr. Shimerda to see them.

  "It's wolves, Jimmy," Antonia whispered. "It's awful, what he says!"

  The sick man raged and shook his fist. He seemed to be cursing people whohad wronged him. Mr. Shimerda caught him by the shoulders, but couldhardly hold him in bed. At last he was shut off by a coughing fit whichfairly choked him. He pulled a cloth from under his pillow and held it tohis mouth. Quickly it was covered with bright red spots--I thought I hadnever seen any blood so bright. When he lay down and turned his face tothe wall, all the rage had gone out of him. He lay patiently fighting forbreath, like a child with croup. Antonia's father uncovered one of hislong bony legs and rubbed it rhythmically. From our bench we could seewhat a hollow case his body was. His spine and shoulder-blades stood outlike the bones under the hide of a dead steer left in the fields. Thatsharp backbone must have hurt him when he lay on it.

  Gradually, relief came to all of us. Whatever it was, the worst was over.Mr. Shimerda signed to us that Pavel was asleep. Without a word Peter gotup and lit his lantern. He was going out to get his team to drive us home.Mr. Shimerda went with him. We sat and watched the long bowed back underthe blue sheet, scarcely daring to breathe.

  On the way home, when we were lying in the straw, under the jolting andrattling Antonia told me as much of the story as she could. What she didnot tell me then, she told later; we talked of nothing else for daysafterward.