My Ántonia Read online

  XVII

  WHEN spring came, after that hard winter, one could not get enough of thenimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winterwas over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watchin Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only--springitself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of iteverywhere; in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and inthe warm, high wind--rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive andplayful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. IfI had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have knownthat it was spring.

  Everywhere now there was the smell of burning grass. Our neighbors burnedoff their pasture before the new grass made a start, so that the freshgrowth would not be mixed with the dead stand of last year. Those light,swift fires, running about the country, seemed a part of the same kindlingthat was in the air.

  The Shimerdas were in their new log house by then. The neighbors hadhelped them to build it in March. It stood directly in front of their oldcave, which they used as a cellar. The family were now fairly equipped tobegin their struggle with the soil. They had four comfortable rooms tolive in, a new windmill,--bought on credit,--a chicken-house and poultry.Mrs. Shimerda had paid grandfather ten dollars for a milk cow, and was togive him fifteen more as soon as they harvested their first crop.

  When I rode up to the Shimerdas' one bright windy afternoon in April,Yulka ran out to meet me. It was to her, now, that I gave reading lessons;Antonia was busy with other things. I tied my pony and went into thekitchen where Mrs. Shimerda was baking bread, chewing poppy seeds as sheworked. By this time she could speak enough English to ask me a great manyquestions about what our men were doing in the fields. She seemed to thinkthat my elders withheld helpful information, and that from me she mightget valuable secrets. On this occasion she asked me very craftily whengrandfather expected to begin planting corn. I told her, adding that hethought we should have a dry spring and that the corn would not be heldback by too much rain, as it had been last year.

  She gave me a shrewd glance. "He not Jesus," she blustered; "he not knowabout the wet and the dry."

  I did not answer her; what was the use? As I sat waiting for the hour whenAmbrosch and Antonia would return from the fields, I watched Mrs. Shimerdaat her work. She took from the oven a coffee-cake which she wanted to keepwarm for supper, and wrapped it in a quilt stuffed with feathers. I haveseen her put even a roast goose in this quilt to keep it hot. When theneighbors were there building the new house they saw her do this, and thestory got abroad that the Shimerdas kept their food in their feather beds.

  When the sun was dropping low, Antonia came up the big south draw with herteam. How much older she had grown in eight months! She had come to us achild, and now she was a tall, strong young girl, although her fifteenthbirthday had just slipped by. I ran out and met her as she brought herhorses up to the windmill to water them. She wore the boots her father hadso thoughtfully taken off before he shot himself, and his old fur cap. Heroutgrown cotton dress switched about her calves, over the boot-tops. Shekept her sleeves rolled up all day, and her arms and throat were burned asbrown as a sailor's. Her neck came up strongly out of her shoulders, likethe bole of a tree out of the turf. One sees that draft-horse neck amongthe peasant women in all old countries.

  She greeted me gayly, and began at once to tell me how much ploughing shehad done that day. Ambrosch, she said, was on the north quarter, breakingsod with the oxen.

  "Jim, you ask Jake how much he ploughed to-day. I don't want that Jake getmore done in one day than me. I want we have very much corn this fall."

  While the horses drew in the water, and nosed each other, and then drankagain, Antonia sat down on the windmill step and rested her head on herhand. "You see the big prairie fire from your place last night? I hopeyour grandpa ain't lose no stacks?"

  "No, we did n't. I came to ask you something, Tony. Grandmother wants toknow if you can't go to the term of school that begins next week over atthe sod schoolhouse. She says there's a good teacher, and you'd learn alot."

  Antonia stood up, lifting and dropping her shoulders as if they werestiff. "I ain't got time to learn. I can work like mans now. My mothercan't say no more how Ambrosch do all and nobody to help him. I can workas much as him. School is all right for little boys. I help make this landone good farm."

  She clucked to her team and started for the barn. I walked beside her,feeling vexed. Was she going to grow up boastful like her mother, Iwondered? Before we reached the stable, I felt something tense in hersilence, and glancing up I saw that she was crying. She turned her facefrom me and looked off at the red streak of dying light, over the darkprairie.

  I climbed up into the loft and threw down the hay for her, while sheunharnessed her team. We walked slowly back toward the house. Ambrosch hadcome in from the north quarter, and was watering his oxen at the tank.

  Antonia took my hand. "Sometime you will tell me all those nice things youlearn at the school, won't you, Jimmy?" she asked with a sudden rush offeeling in her voice. "My father, he went much to school. He know a greatdeal; how to make the fine cloth like what you not got here. He play hornand violin, and he read so many books that the priests in Bohemie come totalk to him. You won't forget my father, Jim?"

  "No," I said, "I will never forget him."

  Mrs. Shimerda asked me to stay for supper. After Ambrosch and Antonia hadwashed the field dust from their hands and faces at the wash-basin by thekitchen door, we sat down at the oilcloth-covered table. Mrs. Shimerdaladled meal mush out of an iron pot and poured milk on it. After the mushwe had fresh bread and sorghum molasses, and coffee with the cake that hadbeen kept warm in the feathers. Antonia and Ambrosch were talking inBohemian; disputing about which of them had done more ploughing that day.Mrs. Shimerda egged them on, chuckling while she gobbled her food.

  Antonia ploughing in the field]

  Presently Ambrosch said sullenly in English: "You take them ox to-morrowand try the sod plough. Then you not be so smart."

  His sister laughed. "Don't be mad. I know it's awful hard work for breaksod. I milk the cow for you to-morrow, if you want."

  Mrs. Shimerda turned quickly to me. "That cow not give so much milk likewhat your grandpa say. If he make talk about fifteen dollars, I send himback the cow."

  "He does n't talk about the fifteen dollars," I exclaimed indignantly. "Hedoes n't find fault with people."

  "He say I break his saw when we build, and I never," grumbled Ambrosch.

  I knew he had broken the saw, and then hid it and lied about it. I beganto wish I had not stayed for supper. Everything was disagreeable to me.Antonia ate so noisily now, like a man, and she yawned often at the tableand kept stretching her arms over her head, as if they ached. Grandmotherhad said, "Heavy field work'll spoil that girl. She'll lose all her niceways and get rough ones." She had lost them already.

  After supper I rode home through the sad, soft spring twilight. Sincewinter I had seen very little of Antonia. She was out in the fields fromsun-up until sun-down. If I rode over to see her where she was ploughing,she stopped at the end of a row to chat for a moment, then gripped herplough-handles, clucked to her team, and waded on down the furrow, makingme feel that she was now grown up and had no time for me. On Sundays shehelped her mother make garden or sewed all day. Grandfather was pleasedwith Antonia. When we complained of her, he only smiled and said, "Shewill help some fellow get ahead in the world."

  Nowadays Tony could talk of nothing but the prices of things, or how muchshe could lift and endure. She was too proud of her strength. I knew, too,that Ambrosch put upon her some chores a girl ought not to do, and thatthe farmhands around the country joked in a nasty way about it. Whenever Isaw her come up the furrow, shouting to her beasts, sunburned, sweaty, herdress open at the neck, and her throat and chest dust-plastered, I used tothink of the tone in which poor Mr. Shimerda, who could say so little, yetmanage
d to say so much when he exclaimed, "My An-tonia!"