My Antonia Read online

  III

  ON SUNDAY MORNING Otto Fuchs was to drive us over to make theacquaintance of our new Bohemian neighbours. We were taking them someprovisions, as they had come to live on a wild place where there was nogarden or chicken-house, and very little broken land. Fuchs brought upa sack of potatoes and a piece of cured pork from the cellar, andgrandmother packed some loaves of Saturday's bread, a jar of butter, andseveral pumpkin pies in the straw of the wagon-box. We clambered up tothe front seat and jolted off past the little pond and along the roadthat climbed to the big cornfield.

  I could hardly wait to see what lay beyond that cornfield; but therewas only red grass like ours, and nothing else, though from the highwagon-seat one could look off a long way. The road ran about like a wildthing, avoiding the deep draws, crossing them where they were wide andshallow. And all along it, wherever it looped or ran, the sunflowersgrew; some of them were as big as little trees, with great rough leavesand many branches which bore dozens of blossoms. They made a gold ribbonacross the prairie. Occasionally one of the horses would tear off withhis teeth a plant full of blossoms, and walk along munching it, theflowers nodding in time to his bites as he ate down toward them.

  The Bohemian family, grandmother told me as we drove along, had boughtthe homestead of a fellow countryman, Peter Krajiek, and had paid himmore than it was worth. Their agreement with him was made before theyleft the old country, through a cousin of his, who was also a relativeof Mrs. Shimerda. The Shimerdas were the first Bohemian family to cometo this part of the county. Krajiek was their only interpreter, andcould tell them anything he chose. They could not speak enough Englishto ask for advice, or even to make their most pressing wants known. Oneson, Fuchs said, was well-grown, and strong enough to work the land; butthe father was old and frail and knew nothing about farming. He was aweaver by trade; had been a skilled workman on tapestries and upholsterymaterials. He had brought his fiddle with him, which wouldn't be of muchuse here, though he used to pick up money by it at home.

  'If they're nice people, I hate to think of them spending the winter inthat cave of Krajiek's,' said grandmother. 'It's no better than a badgerhole; no proper dugout at all. And I hear he's made them pay twentydollars for his old cookstove that ain't worth ten.'

  'Yes'm,' said Otto; 'and he's sold 'em his oxen and his two bony oldhorses for the price of good workteams. I'd have interfered about thehorses--the old man can understand some German--if I'd I a' thought itwould do any good. But Bohemians has a natural distrust of Austrians.'

  Grandmother looked interested. 'Now, why is that, Otto?'

  Fuchs wrinkled his brow and nose. 'Well, ma'm, it's politics. It wouldtake me a long while to explain.'

  The land was growing rougher; I was told that we were approaching SquawCreek, which cut up the west half of the Shimerdas' place and made theland of little value for farming. Soon we could see the broken,grassy clay cliffs which indicated the windings of the stream, and theglittering tops of the cottonwoods and ash trees that grew down inthe ravine. Some of the cottonwoods had already turned, and the yellowleaves and shining white bark made them look like the gold and silvertrees in fairy tales.

  As we approached the Shimerdas' dwelling, I could still see nothing butrough red hillocks, and draws with shelving banks and long roots hangingout where the earth had crumbled away. Presently, against one of thosebanks, I saw a sort of shed, thatched with the same wine-coloured grassthat grew everywhere. Near it tilted a shattered windmill frame, thathad no wheel. We drove up to this skeleton to tie our horses, and thenI saw a door and window sunk deep in the drawbank. The door stoodopen, and a woman and a girl of fourteen ran out and looked up at ushopefully. A little girl trailed along behind them. The woman had on herhead the same embroidered shawl with silk fringes that she wore when shehad alighted from the train at Black Hawk. She was not old, but she wascertainly not young. Her face was alert and lively, with a sharp chinand shrewd little eyes. She shook grandmother's hand energetically.

  'Very glad, very glad!' she ejaculated. Immediately she pointed to thebank out of which she had emerged and said, 'House no good, house nogood!'

  Grandmother nodded consolingly. 'You'll get fixed up comfortable afterwhile, Mrs. Shimerda; make good house.'

  My grandmother always spoke in a very loud tone to foreigners, as ifthey were deaf. She made Mrs. Shimerda understand the friendly intentionof our visit, and the Bohemian woman handled the loaves of breadand even smelled them, and examined the pies with lively curiosity,exclaiming, 'Much good, much thank!'--and again she wrung grandmother'shand.

  The oldest son, Ambroz--they called it Ambrosch--came out of the caveand stood beside his mother. He was nineteen years old, short andbroad-backed, with a close-cropped, flat head, and a wide, flat face.His hazel eyes were little and shrewd, like his mother's, but more slyand suspicious; they fairly snapped at the food. The family had beenliving on corncakes and sorghum molasses for three days.

  The little girl was pretty, but Antonia--they accented the name thus,strongly, when they spoke to her--was still prettier. I remembered whatthe conductor had said about her eyes. They were big and warm and fullof light, like the sun shining on brown pools in the wood. Her skin wasbrown, too, and in her cheeks she had a glow of rich, dark colour. Herbrown hair was curly and wild-looking. The little sister, whom theycalled Yulka (Julka), was fair, and seemed mild and obedient. While Istood awkwardly confronting the two girls, Krajiek came up from the barnto see what was going on. With him was another Shimerda son. Even from adistance one could see that there was something strange about this boy.As he approached us, he began to make uncouth noises, and held up hishands to show us his fingers, which were webbed to the first knuckle,like a duck's foot. When he saw me draw back, he began to crowdelightedly, 'Hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo!' like a rooster. His mother scowledand said sternly, 'Marek!' then spoke rapidly to Krajiek in Bohemian.

  'She wants me to tell you he won't hurt nobody, Mrs. Burden. He wasborn like that. The others are smart. Ambrosch, he make good farmer.' Hestruck Ambrosch on the back, and the boy smiled knowingly.

  At that moment the father came out of the hole in the bank. He wore nohat, and his thick, iron-grey hair was brushed straight back from hisforehead. It was so long that it bushed out behind his ears, and madehim look like the old portraits I remembered in Virginia. He wastall and slender, and his thin shoulders stooped. He looked at usunderstandingly, then took grandmother's hand and bent over it. Inoticed how white and well-shaped his own hands were. They looked calm,somehow, and skilled. His eyes were melancholy, and were set backdeep under his brow. His face was ruggedly formed, but it looked likeashes--like something from which all the warmth and light had died out.Everything about this old man was in keeping with his dignified manner.He was neatly dressed. Under his coat he wore a knitted grey vest, and,instead of a collar, a silk scarf of a dark bronze-green, carefullycrossed and held together by a red coral pin. While Krajiek wastranslating for Mr. Shimerda, Antonia came up to me and held out herhand coaxingly. In a moment we were running up the steep drawsidetogether, Yulka trotting after us.

  When we reached the level and could see the gold tree-tops, I pointedtoward them, and Antonia laughed and squeezed my hand as if to tell mehow glad she was I had come. We raced off toward Squaw Creek and did notstop until the ground itself stopped--fell away before us so abruptlythat the next step would have been out into the tree-tops. We stoodpanting on the edge of the ravine, looking down at the trees and bushesthat grew below us. The wind was so strong that I had to hold my hat on,and the girls' skirts were blown out before them. Antonia seemed to likeit; she held her little sister by the hand and chattered away in thatlanguage which seemed to me spoken so much more rapidly than mine. Shelooked at me, her eyes fairly blazing with things she could not say.

  'Name? What name?' she asked, touching me on the shoulder. I told hermy name, and she repeated it after me and made Yulka say it. She pointedinto the gold cottonwood tree behind whose top we stood and said again,'What nam
e?'

  We sat down and made a nest in the long red grass. Yulka curled up likea baby rabbit and played with a grasshopper. Antonia pointed up to thesky and questioned me with her glance. I gave her the word, but she wasnot satisfied and pointed to my eyes. I told her, and she repeated theword, making it sound like 'ice.' She pointed up to the sky, then to myeyes, then back to the sky, with movements so quick and impulsive thatshe distracted me, and I had no idea what she wanted. She got up on herknees and wrung her hands. She pointed to her own eyes and shook herhead, then to mine and to the sky, nodding violently.

  'Oh,' I exclaimed, 'blue; blue sky.'

  She clapped her hands and murmured, 'Blue sky, blue eyes,' as if itamused her. While we snuggled down there out of the wind, she learneda score of words. She was alive, and very eager. We were so deep in thegrass that we could see nothing but the blue sky over us and the goldtree in front of us. It was wonderfully pleasant. After Antonia hadsaid the new words over and over, she wanted to give me a little chasedsilver ring she wore on her middle finger. When she coaxed and insisted,I repulsed her quite sternly. I didn't want her ring, and I felt therewas something reckless and extravagant about her wishing to give it awayto a boy she had never seen before. No wonder Krajiek got the better ofthese people, if this was how they behaved.

  While we were disputing 'about the ring, I heard a mournful voicecalling, 'Antonia, Antonia!' She sprang up like a hare. 'Tatinek!Tatinek!' she shouted, and we ran to meet the old man who was comingtoward us. Antonia reached him first, took his hand and kissed it. WhenI came up, he touched my shoulder and looked searchingly down into myface for several seconds. I became somewhat embarrassed, for I was usedto being taken for granted by my elders.

  We went with Mr. Shimerda back to the dugout, where grandmother waswaiting for me. Before I got into the wagon, he took a book out of hispocket, opened it, and showed me a page with two alphabets, one Englishand the other Bohemian. He placed this book in my grandmother's hands,looked at her entreatingly, and said, with an earnestness which I shallnever forget, 'Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my Antonia!'