My Antonia Page 14

  XIII

  THE WEEK FOLLOWING Christmas brought in a thaw, and by New Year's Dayall the world about us was a broth of grey slush, and the guttered slopebetween the windmill and the barn was running black water. The softblack earth stood out in patches along the roadsides. I resumed all mychores, carried in the cobs and wood and water, and spent the afternoonsat the barn, watching Jake shell corn with a hand-sheller.

  One morning, during this interval of fine weather, Antonia and hermother 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 ranabout examining our carpets and curtains and furniture, all the whilecommenting upon them to her daughter in an envious, complaining tone.In the kitchen she caught up an iron pot that stood on the back ofthe stove and said: 'You got many, Shimerdas no got.' I thought itweak-minded of grandmother to give the pot to her.

  After dinner, when she was helping to wash the dishes, she said, tossingher head: 'You got many things for cook. If I got all things like you, Imake much better.'

  She was a conceited, boastful old thing, and even misfortune could nothumble her. I was so annoyed that I felt coldly even toward Antonia andlistened unsympathetically when she told me her father was not well.

  'My papa sad for the old country. He not look good. He never make musicany more. At home he play violin all the time; for weddings and fordance. Here never. When I beg him for play, he shake his head no. Somedays he take his violin out of his box and make with his fingers onthe strings, like this, but never he make the music. He don't like thiskawntree.'

  'People who don't like this country ought to stay at home,' I saidseverely. 'We don't make them come here.'

  'He not want to come, never!' she burst out. 'My mamenka make him come.All the time she say: "America big country; much money, much land formy boys, much husband for my girls." My papa, he cry for leave his oldfriends what make music with him. He love very much the man what playthe long horn like this'--she indicated a slide trombone. "They goto school together and are friends from boys. But my mama, she wantAmbrosch 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 mypapa? Ambrosch be rich, too, after while, and he pay back. He is verysmart boy. For Ambrosch my mama come here.'

  Ambrosch was considered the important person in the family. Mrs.Shimerda and Antonia always deferred to him, though he was often surlywith them and contemptuous toward his father. Ambrosch and his motherhad everything their own way. Though Antonia loved her father more thanshe did anyone else, she stood in awe of her elder brother.

  After I watched Antonia and her mother go over the hill on theirmiserable horse, carrying our iron pot with them, I turned tograndmother, who had taken up her darning, and said I hoped thatsnooping old woman wouldn't come to see us any more.

  Grandmother chuckled and drove her bright needle across a hole in Otto'ssock. 'She's not old, Jim, though I expect she seems old to you. No, Iwouldn't mourn if she never came again. But, you see, a body never knowswhat traits poverty might bring out in 'em. It makes a woman grasping tosee her children want for things. Now read me a chapter in "The Princeof the House of David." Let's forget the Bohemians.'

  We had three weeks of this mild, open weather. The cattle in the corralate corn almost as fast as the men could shell it for them, and we hopedthey would be ready for an early market. One morning the two big bulls,Gladstone and Brigham Young, thought spring had come, and they began totease and butt at each other across the barbed wire that separated them.Soon they got angry. They bellowed and pawed up the soft earth withtheir hoofs, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads. Each withdrewto a far corner of his own corral, and then they made for each other ata gallop. Thud, thud, we could hear the impact of their great heads, andtheir bellowing shook the pans on the kitchen shelves. Had they not beendehorned, they would have torn each other to pieces. Pretty soon the fatsteers took it up and began butting and horning each other. Clearly, theaffair had to be stopped. We all stood by and watched admiringly whileFuchs rode into the corral with a pitchfork and prodded the bulls againand again, finally driving them apart.

  The big storm of the winter began on my eleventh birthday, the twentiethof January. When I went down to breakfast that morning, Jake and Ottocame in white as snow-men, 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 wasa full-grown blizzard ordered for you.'

  All day the storm went on. The snow did not fall this time, it simplyspilled out of heaven, like thousands of featherbeds being emptied. Thatafternoon the kitchen was a carpenter-shop; the men brought in theirtools and made two great wooden shovels with long handles. Neithergrandmother nor I could go out in the storm, so Jake fed the chickensand brought in a pitiful contribution of eggs.

  Next day our men had to shovel until noon to reach the barn--and thesnow was still falling! There had not been such a storm in the ten yearsmy grandfather had lived in Nebraska. He said at dinner that we wouldnot try to reach the cattle--they were fat enough to go without theircorn for a day or two; but tomorrow we must feed them and thaw out theirwater-tap so that they could drink. We could not so much as see thecorrals, but we knew the steers were over there, huddled together underthe north bank. Our ferocious bulls, subdued enough by this time, wereprobably warming each other's backs. 'This'll take the bile out of 'em!'Fuchs remarked gleefully.

  At noon that day the hens had not been heard from. After dinner Jake andOtto, their damp clothes now dried on them, stretched their stiff armsand plunged again into the drifts. They made a tunnel through the snowto the hen-house, with walls so solid that grandmother and I could walkback and forth in it. We found the chickens asleep; perhaps they thoughtnight had come to stay. One old rooster was stirring about, pecking atthe solid lump of ice in their water-tin. When we flashed the lanternin their eyes, the hens set up a great cackling and flew about clumsily,scattering down-feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea-hens, alwaysresentful of captivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried topoke their ugly, painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clockthe chores were done just when it was time to begin them all over again!That was a strange, unnatural sort of day.