My Antonia Read online

  IV

  'I won't have none of your weevily wheat, and I won't have none of your barley, But I'll take a measure of fine white flour, to make a cake for Charley.'

  WE WERE SINGING rhymes to tease Antonia while she was beating up one ofCharley's favourite cakes in her big mixing-bowl.

  It was a crisp autumn evening, just cold enough to make one glad to quitplaying tag in the yard, and retreat into the kitchen. We had begun toroll popcorn balls with syrup when we heard a knock at the back door,and Tony dropped her spoon and went to open it.

  A plump, fair-skinned girl was standing in the doorway. She lookeddemure and pretty, and made a graceful picture in her blue cashmeredress and little blue hat, with a plaid shawl drawn neatly about hershoulders and a clumsy pocket-book in her hand.

  'Hello, Tony. Don't you know me?' she asked in a smooth, low voice,looking in at us archly.

  Antonia gasped and stepped back.

  'Why, it's Lena! Of course I didn't know you, so dressed up!'

  Lena Lingard laughed, as if this pleased her. I had not recognized herfor a moment, either. I had never seen her before with a hat on herhead--or with shoes and stockings on her feet, for that matter. And hereshe was, brushed and smoothed and dressed like a town girl, smiling atus with perfect composure.

  'Hello, Jim,' she said carelessly as she walked into the kitchen andlooked about her. 'I've come to town to work, too, Tony.'

  'Have you, now? Well, ain't that funny!' Antonia stood ill at ease, anddidn't seem to know just what to do with her visitor.

  The door was open into the dining-room, where Mrs. Harling satcrocheting and Frances was reading. Frances asked Lena to come in andjoin them.

  'You are Lena Lingard, aren't you? I've been to see your mother, but youwere off herding cattle that day. Mama, this is Chris Lingard's oldestgirl.'

  Mrs. Harling dropped her worsted and examined the visitor with quick,keen eyes. Lena was not at all disconcerted. She sat down in the chairFrances pointed out, carefully arranging her pocket-book and greycotton gloves on her lap. We followed with our popcorn, but Antonia hungback--said she had to get her cake into the oven.

  'So you have come to town,' said Mrs. Harling, her eyes still fixed onLena. 'Where are you working?'

  'For Mrs. Thomas, the dressmaker. She is going to teach me to sew. Shesays I have quite a knack. I'm through with the farm. There ain't anyend to the work on a farm, and always so much trouble happens. I'm goingto be a dressmaker.'

  'Well, there have to be dressmakers. It's a good trade. But I wouldn'trun down the farm, if I were you,' said Mrs. Harling rather severely.'How is your mother?'

  'Oh, mother's never very well; she has too much to do. She'd get awayfrom the farm, too, if she could. She was willing for me to come. AfterI learn to do sewing, I can make money and help her.'

  'See that you don't forget to,' said Mrs. Harling sceptically, as shetook up her crocheting again and sent the hook in and out with nimblefingers.

  'No, 'm, I won't,' said Lena blandly. She took a few grains of thepopcorn we pressed upon her, eating them discreetly and taking care notto get her fingers sticky.

  Frances drew her chair up nearer to the visitor. 'I thought you weregoing to be married, Lena,' she said teasingly. 'Didn't I hear that NickSvendsen was rushing you pretty hard?'

  Lena looked up with her curiously innocent smile. 'He did go with mequite a while. But his father made a fuss about it and said he wouldn'tgive Nick any land if he married me, so he's going to marry AnnieIverson. I wouldn't like to be her; Nick's awful sullen, and he'll takeit out on her. He ain't spoke to his father since he promised.'

  Frances laughed. 'And how do you feel about it?'

  'I don't want to marry Nick, or any other man,' Lena murmured. 'I'veseen a good deal of married life, and I don't care for it. I want to beso I can help my mother and the children at home, and not have to asklief of anybody.'

  'That's right,' said Frances. 'And Mrs. Thomas thinks you can learndressmaking?'

  'Yes, 'm. I've always liked to sew, but I never had much to do with.Mrs. Thomas makes lovely things for all the town ladies. Did you knowMrs. Gardener is having a purple velvet made? The velvet came fromOmaha. My, but it's lovely!' Lena sighed softly and stroked her cashmerefolds. 'Tony knows I never did like out-of-door work,' she added.

  Mrs. Harling glanced at her. 'I expect you'll learn to sew all right,Lena, if you'll only keep your head and not go gadding about to dancesall the time and neglect your work, the way some country girls do.'

  'Yes, 'm. Tiny Soderball is coming to town, too. She's going to workat the Boys' Home Hotel. She'll see lots of strangers,' Lena addedwistfully.

  'Too many, like enough,' said Mrs. Harling. 'I don't think a hotel is agood place for a girl; though I guess Mrs. Gardener keeps an eye on herwaitresses.'

  Lena's candid eyes, that always looked a little sleepy under their longlashes, kept straying about the cheerful rooms with naive admiration.Presently she drew on her cotton gloves. 'I guess I must be leaving,'she said irresolutely.

  Frances told her to come again, whenever she was lonesome or wantedadvice about anything. Lena replied that she didn't believe she wouldever get lonesome in Black Hawk.

  She lingered at the kitchen door and begged Antonia to come and see heroften. 'I've got a room of my own at Mrs. Thomas's, with a carpet.'

  Tony shuffled uneasily in her cloth slippers. 'I'll come sometime, butMrs. Harling don't like to have me run much,' she said evasively.

  'You can do what you please when you go out, can't you?' Lena asked ina guarded whisper. 'Ain't you crazy about town, Tony? I don't carewhat anybody says, I'm done with the farm!' She glanced back over hershoulder toward the dining-room, where Mrs. Harling sat.

  When Lena was gone, Frances asked Antonia why she hadn't been a littlemore cordial to her.

  'I didn't know if your mother would like her coming here,' said Antonia,looking troubled. 'She was kind of talked about, out there.'

  'Yes, I know. But mother won't hold it against her if she behaves wellhere. You needn't say anything about that to the children. I guess Jimhas heard all that gossip?'

  When I nodded, she pulled my hair and told me I knew too much, anyhow.We were good friends, Frances and I.

  I ran home to tell grandmother that Lena Lingard had come to town. Wewere glad of it, for she had a hard life on the farm.

  Lena lived in the Norwegian settlement west of Squaw Creek, and she usedto herd her father's cattle in the open country between his place andthe Shimerdas'. Whenever we rode over in that direction we saw herout among her cattle, bareheaded and barefooted, scantily dressed intattered clothing, always knitting as she watched her herd. Before Iknew Lena, I thought of her as something wild, that always lived on theprairie, because I had never seen her under a roof. Her yellow hair wasburned to a ruddy thatch on her head; but her legs and arms, curiouslyenough, in spite of constant exposure to the sun, kept a miraculouswhiteness which somehow made her seem more undressed than other girlswho went scantily clad. The first time I stopped to talk to her, I wasastonished at her soft voice and easy, gentle ways. The girls out thereusually got rough and mannish after they went to herding. But Lena askedJake and me to get off our horses and stay awhile, and behaved exactlyas if she were in a house and were accustomed to having visitors. Shewas not embarrassed by her ragged clothes, and treated us as if we wereold acquaintances. Even then I noticed the unusual colour of her eyes--ashade of deep violet--and their soft, confiding expression.

  Chris Lingard was not a very successful farmer, and he had a largefamily. Lena was always knitting stockings for little brothers andsisters, and even the Norwegian women, who disapproved of her, admittedthat she was a good daughter to her mother. As Tony said, she had beentalked about. She was accused of making Ole Benson lose the little sensehe had--and that at an age when she should still have been in pinafores.

  Ole lived in a leaky dugout somewhere at the edge of the settlement. Hewas fat and lazy an
d discouraged, and bad luck had become a habit withhim. After he had had every other kind of misfortune, his wife, 'CrazyMary,' tried to set a neighbour's barn on fire, and was sent to theasylum at Lincoln. She was kept there for a few months, then escaped andwalked all the way home, nearly two hundred miles, travelling by nightand hiding in barns and haystacks by day. When she got back to theNorwegian settlement, her poor feet were as hard as hoofs. She promisedto be good, and was allowed to stay at home--though everyone realizedshe was as crazy as ever, and she still ran about barefooted through thesnow, telling her domestic troubles to her neighbours.

  Not long after Mary came back from the asylum, I heard a young Dane, whowas helping us to thresh, tell Jake and Otto that Chris Lingard's oldestgirl had put Ole Benson out of his head, until he had no more sense thanhis crazy wife. When Ole was cultivating his corn that summer, he usedto get discouraged in the field, tie up his team, and wander off towherever Lena Lingard was herding. There he would sit down on thedrawside and help her watch her cattle. All the settlement was talkingabout it. The Norwegian preacher's wife went to Lena and told her sheought not to allow this; she begged Lena to come to church on Sundays.Lena said she hadn't a dress in the world any less ragged than the oneon her back. Then the minister's wife went through her old trunks andfound some things she had worn before her marriage.

  The next Sunday Lena appeared at church, a little late, with her hairdone up neatly on her head, like a young woman, wearing shoes andstockings, and the new dress, which she had made over for herselfvery becomingly. The congregation stared at her. Until that morning noone--unless it were Ole--had realized how pretty she was, or that shewas growing up. The swelling lines of her figure had been hidden underthe shapeless rags she wore in the fields. After the last hymn hadbeen sung, and the congregation was dismissed, Ole slipped out to thehitch-bar and lifted Lena on her horse. That, in itself, was shocking;a married man was not expected to do such things. But it was nothing tothe scene that followed. Crazy Mary darted out from the group of womenat the church door, and ran down the road after Lena, shouting horriblethreats.

  'Look out, you Lena Lingard, look out! I'll come over with a corn-knifeone day and trim some of that shape off you. Then you won't sail roundso fine, making eyes at the men!...'

  The Norwegian women didn't know where to look. They were formalhousewives, most of them, with a severe sense of decorum. But LenaLingard only laughed her lazy, good-natured laugh and rode on, gazingback over her shoulder at Ole's infuriated wife.

  The time came, however, when Lena didn't laugh. More than once CrazyMary chased her across the prairie and round and round the Shimerdas'cornfield. Lena never told her father; perhaps she was ashamed; perhapsshe was more afraid of his anger than of the corn-knife. I was at theShimerdas' one afternoon when Lena came bounding through the red grassas fast as her white legs could carry her. She ran straight into thehouse and hid in Antonia's feather-bed. Mary was not far behind: shecame right up to the door and made us feel how sharp her blade was,showing us very graphically just what she meant to do to Lena. Mrs.Shimerda, leaning out of the window, enjoyed the situation keenly,and was sorry when Antonia sent Mary away, mollified by an apronful ofbottle-tomatoes. Lena came out from Tony's room behind the kitchen,very pink from the heat of the feathers, but otherwise calm. She beggedAntonia and me to go with her, and help get her cattle together; theywere scattered and might be gorging themselves in somebody's cornfield.

  'Maybe you lose a steer and learn not to make somethings with your eyesat married men,' Mrs. Shimerda told her hectoringly.

  Lena only smiled her sleepy smile. 'I never made anything to him with myeyes. I can't help it if he hangs around, and I can't order him off. Itain't my prairie.'