My Ántonia Page 16

  XIII

  THE week following Christmas brought in a thaw, and by New Year's Day allthe world about us was a broth of gray slush, and the guttered slopebetween the windmill and the barn was running black water. The soft blackearth 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 thebarn, watching Jake shell corn with a hand-sheller.

  One morning, during this interval of fine weather, Antonia and her motherrode over on one of their shaggy old horses to pay us a visit. It was thefirst time Mrs. Shimerda had been to our house, and she ran aboutexamining our carpets and curtains and furniture, all the while commentingupon them to her daughter in an envious, complaining tone. In the kitchenshe caught up an iron pot that stood on the back of the stove and said:"You got many, Shimerdas no got." I thought it weak-minded of grandmotherto 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 for dance.Here never. When I beg him for play, he shake his head no. Some days hetake 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 kawn-tree."

  "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, nev-er!" she burst out. "My mamenka make him come.All the time she say: 'America big country; much money, much land for myboys, 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 play thelong horn like this"--she indicated a slide trombone. "They go to schooltogether and are friends from boys. But my mama, she want Ambrosch for berich, 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. Shimerdaand Antonia always deferred to him, though he was often surly with themand contemptuous toward his father. Ambrosch and his mother had everythingtheir own way. Though Antonia loved her father more than she did any oneelse, she stood in awe of her elder brother.

  After I watched Antonia and her mother go over the hill on their miserablehorse, carrying our iron pot with them, I turned to grandmother, who hadtaken up her darning, and said I hoped that snooping old woman would n'tcome 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, Iwould n'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 Prince ofthe 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 with theirhoofs, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads. Each withdrew to a farcorner 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 theirbellowing 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 20th ofJanuary. When I went down to breakfast that morning, Jake and Otto came inwhite as snow-men, beating their hands and stamping their feet. They beganto laugh boisterously when they saw me, calling:--

  "You've got a birthday present this time, Jim, and no mistake. They was afull-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 feather-beds being emptied. Thatafternoon the kitchen was a carpenter-shop; the men brought in their toolsand made two great wooden shovels with long handles. Neither grandmothernor I could go out in the storm, so Jake fed the chickens and brought in apitiful contribution of eggs.

  Next day our men had to shovel until noon to reach the barn--and the snowwas still falling! There had not been such a storm in the ten years mygrandfather had lived in Nebraska. He said at dinner that we would not tryto reach the cattle--they were fat enough to go without their corn for aday or two; but to-morrow we must feed them and thaw out their water-tapso that they could drink. We could not so much as see the corrals, but weknew the steers were over there, huddled together under the north bank.Our ferocious bulls, subdued enough by this time, were probably warmingeach other's backs. "This'll take the bile out of 'em!" Fuchs remarkedgleefully.

  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 arms andplunged again into the drifts. They made a tunnel under the snow to thehenhouse, with walls so solid that grandmother and I could walk back andforth in it. We found the chickens asleep; perhaps they thought night hadcome to stay. One old rooster was stirring about, pecking at the solidlump 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, scatteringdown-feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea-hens, always resentful ofcaptivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried to poke theirugly, painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clock the choreswere done--just when it was time to begin them all over again! That was astrange, unnatural sort of day.