My Antonia Read online

  VIII

  WHILE THE AUTUMN COLOUR was growing pale on the grass and cornfields,things went badly with our friends the Russians. Peter told his troublesto Mr. Shimerda: he was unable to meet a note which fell due on thefirst of November; had to pay an exorbitant bonus on renewing it, andto give a mortgage on his pigs and horses and even his milk cow. Hiscreditor was Wick Cutter, the merciless Black Hawk money-lender, a manof evil name throughout the county, of whom I shall have more to saylater. Peter could give no very clear account of his transactions withCutter. He only knew that he had first borrowed two hundred dollars,then another hundred, then fifty--that each time a bonus was added tothe principal, and the debt grew faster than any crop he planted. Noweverything was plastered with mortgages.

  Soon after Peter renewed his note, Pavel strained himself liftingtimbers for a new barn, and fell over among the shavings with such agush of blood from the lungs that his fellow workmen thought he woulddie on the spot. They hauled him home and put him into his bed, andthere he lay, very ill indeed. Misfortune seemed to settle like an evilbird on the roof of the log house, and to flap its wings there, warninghuman beings away. The Russians had such bad luck that people wereafraid of them and liked to put them out of mind.

  One afternoon Antonia and her father came over to our house to getbuttermilk, and lingered, as they usually did, until the sun was low.Just as they were leaving, Russian Peter drove up. Pavel was very bad,he said, and wanted to talk to Mr. Shimerda and his daughter; he hadcome to fetch them. When Antonia and her father got into the wagon, Ientreated grandmother to let me go with them: I would gladly go withoutmy supper, I would sleep in the Shimerdas' barn and run home in themorning. My plan must have seemed very foolish to her, but she was oftenlarge-minded about humouring the desires of other people. She askedPeter to wait a moment, and when she came back from the kitchen shebrought a bag of sandwiches and doughnuts for us.

  Mr. Shimerda and Peter were on the front seat; Antonia and I sat in thestraw behind and ate our lunch as we bumped along. After the sun sank,a cold wind sprang up and moaned over the prairie. If this turn in theweather had come sooner, I should not have got away. We burrowed down inthe straw and curled up close together, watching the angry red die outof the west and the stars begin to shine in the clear, windy sky. Peterkept sighing and groaning. Tony whispered to me that he was afraid Pavelwould never get well. We lay still and did not talk. Up there the starsgrew magnificently bright. Though we had come from such different partsof the world, in both of us there was some dusky superstition that thoseshining groups have their influence upon what is and what is not tobe. Perhaps Russian Peter, come from farther away than any of us, hadbrought from his land, too, some such belief.

  The little house on the hillside was so much the colour of the nightthat we could not see it as we came up the draw. The ruddy windowsguided us--the light from the kitchen stove, for there was no lampburning.

  We entered softly. The man in the wide bed seemed to be asleep. Tony andI sat down on the bench by the wall and leaned our arms on the table infront of us. The firelight flickered on the hewn logs that supportedthe thatch overhead. Pavel made a rasping sound when he breathed, andhe kept moaning. We waited. The wind shook the doors and windowsimpatiently, then swept on again, singing through the big spaces. Eachgust, as it bore down, rattled the panes, and swelled off like theothers. They made me think of defeated armies, retreating; or of ghostswho were trying desperately to get in for shelter, and then went moaningon. Presently, in one of those sobbing intervals between the blasts,the coyotes tuned up with their whining howl; one, two, three, thenall together--to tell us that winter was coming. This sound brought ananswer from the bed--a long complaining cry--as if Pavel were having baddreams or were waking to some old misery. Peter listened, but did notstir. He was sitting on the floor by the kitchen stove. The coyotesbroke out again; yap, yap, yap--then the high whine. Pavel called forsomething and struggled up on his elbow.

  'He is scared of the wolves,' Antonia whispered to me. 'In his countrythere are very many, and they eat men and women.' We slid closertogether along the bench.

  I could not take my eyes off the man in the bed. His shirt was hangingopen, and his emaciated chest, covered with yellow bristle, rose andfell horribly. He began to cough. Peter shuffled to his feet, caught upthe teakettle and mixed him some hot water and whiskey. The sharp smellof spirits went through the room.

  Pavel snatched the cup and drank, then made Peter give him the bottleand slipped it under his pillow, grinning disagreeably, as if hehad outwitted someone. His eyes followed Peter about the room with acontemptuous, unfriendly expression. It seemed to me that he despisedhim for being so simple and docile.

  Presently Pavel began to talk to Mr. Shimerda, scarcely above a whisper.He was telling a long story, and as he went on, Antonia took my handunder the table and held it tight. She leaned forward and strained herears to hear him. He grew more and more excited, and kept pointing allaround his bed, as if there were things there and he wanted Mr. Shimerdato see them.

  'It's wolves, Jimmy,' Antonia whispered. 'It's awful, what he says!'

  The sick man raged and shook his fist. He seemed to be cursing peoplewho had wronged him. Mr. Shimerda caught him by the shoulders, but couldhardly hold him in bed. At last he was shut off by a coughing fit whichfairly choked him. He pulled a cloth from under his pillow and held itto his mouth. Quickly it was covered with bright red spots--I thought Ihad never seen any blood so bright. When he lay down and turned his faceto the wall, all the rage had gone out of him. He lay patiently fightingfor breath, like a child with croup. Antonia's father uncovered one ofhis long bony legs and rubbed it rhythmically. From our bench we couldsee what a hollow case his body was. His spine and shoulder-blades stoodout like the bones under the hide of a dead steer left in the fields.That sharp backbone must have hurt him when he lay on it.

  Gradually, relief came to all of us. Whatever it was, the worst wasover. Mr. Shimerda signed to us that Pavel was asleep. Without a wordPeter got up and lit his lantern. He was going out to get his team todrive us home. Mr. Shimerda went with him. We sat and watched the longbowed back under the blue sheet, scarcely daring to breathe.

  On the way home, when we were lying in the straw, under the jolting andrattling Antonia told me as much of the story as she could. What shedid not tell me then, she told later; we talked of nothing else for daysafterward.

  When Pavel and Peter were young men, living at home in Russia, they wereasked to be groomsmen for a friend who was to marry the belle of anothervillage. It was in the dead of winter and the groom's party went over tothe wedding in sledges. Peter and Pavel drove in the groom's sledge, andsix sledges followed with all his relatives and friends.

  After the ceremony at the church, the party went to a dinner givenby the parents of the bride. The dinner lasted all afternoon; then itbecame a supper and continued far into the night. There was much dancingand drinking. At midnight the parents of the bride said good-bye to herand blessed her. The groom took her up in his arms and carried her outto his sledge and tucked her under the blankets. He sprang in besideher, and Pavel and Peter (our Pavel and Peter!) took the frontseat. Pavel drove. The party set out with singing and the jingle ofsleigh-bells, the groom's sledge going first. All the drivers were moreor less the worse for merry-making, and the groom was absorbed in hisbride.

  The wolves were bad that winter, and everyone knew it, yet when theyheard the first wolf-cry, the drivers were not much alarmed. They hadtoo much good food and drink inside them. The first howls were takenup and echoed and with quickening repetitions. The wolves were comingtogether. There was no moon, but the starlight was clear on the snow. Ablack drove came up over the hill behind the wedding party. The wolvesran like streaks of shadow; they looked no bigger than dogs, but therewere hundreds of them.

  Something happened to the hindmost sledge: the driver lost control--hewas probably very drunk--the horses left the road, the sledge was caughtin a clump of trees, and ove
rturned. The occupants rolled out over thesnow, and the fleetest of the wolves sprang upon them. The shrieks thatfollowed made everybody sober. The drivers stood up and lashed theirhorses. The groom had the best team and his sledge was lightest--all theothers carried from six to a dozen people.

  Another driver lost control. The screams of the horses were moreterrible to hear than the cries of the men and women. Nothing seemed tocheck the wolves. It was hard to tell what was happening in the rear;the people who were falling behind shrieked as piteously as those whowere already lost. The little bride hid her face on the groom's shoulderand sobbed. Pavel sat still and watched his horses. The road was clearand white, and the groom's three blacks went like the wind. It was onlynecessary to be calm and to guide them carefully.

  At length, as they breasted a long hill, Peter rose cautiously andlooked back. 'There are only three sledges left,' he whispered.

  'And the wolves?' Pavel asked.

  'Enough! Enough for all of us.'

  Pavel reached the brow of the hill, but only two sledges followed himdown the other side. In that moment on the hilltop, they saw behind thema whirling black group on the snow. Presently the groom screamed. He sawhis father's sledge overturned, with his mother and sisters. He sprangup as if he meant to jump, but the girl shrieked and held him back. Itwas even then too late. The black ground-shadows were already crowdingover the heap in the road, and one horse ran out across the fields, hisharness hanging to him, wolves at his heels. But the groom's movementhad given Pavel an idea.

  They were within a few miles of their village now. The only sledge leftout of six was not very far behind them, and Pavel's middle horse wasfailing. Beside a frozen pond something happened to the other sledge;Peter saw it plainly. Three big wolves got abreast of the horses, andthe horses went crazy. They tried to jump over each other, got tangledup in the harness, and overturned the sledge.

  When the shrieking behind them died away, Pavel realized that he wasalone upon the familiar road. 'They still come?' he asked Peter.

  'Yes.'

  'How many?'

  'Twenty, thirty--enough.'

  Now his middle horse was being almost dragged by the other two. Pavelgave Peter the reins and stepped carefully into the back of the sledge.He called to the groom that they must lighten--and pointed to the bride.The young man cursed him and held her tighter. Pavel tried to drag heraway. In the struggle, the groom rose. Pavel knocked him over the sideof the sledge and threw the girl after him. He said he never rememberedexactly how he did it, or what happened afterward. Peter, crouching inthe front seat, saw nothing. The first thing either of them noticed wasa new sound that broke into the clear air, louder than they had everheard it before--the bell of the monastery of their own village, ringingfor early prayers.

  Pavel and Peter drove into the village alone, and they had been aloneever since. They were run out of their village. Pavel's own motherwould not look at him. They went away to strange towns, but when peoplelearned where they came from, they were always asked if they knew thetwo men who had fed the bride to the wolves. Wherever they went, thestory followed them. It took them five years to save money enough tocome to America. They worked in Chicago, Des Moines, Fort Wayne, butthey were always unfortunate. When Pavel's health grew so bad, theydecided to try farming.

  Pavel died a few days after he unburdened his mind to Mr. Shimerda, andwas buried in the Norwegian graveyard. Peter sold off everything, andleft the country--went to be cook in a railway construction camp wheregangs of Russians were employed.

  At his sale we bought Peter's wheelbarrow and some of his harness.During the auction he went about with his head down, and neverlifted his eyes. He seemed not to care about anything. The Black Hawkmoney-lender who held mortgages on Peter's livestock was there, and hebought in the sale notes at about fifty cents on the dollar. Everyonesaid Peter kissed the cow before she was led away by her new owner. Idid not see him do it, but this I know: after all his furniture and hiscookstove and pots and pans had been hauled off by the purchasers,when his house was stripped and bare, he sat down on the floor with hisclasp-knife and ate all the melons that he had put away for winter. WhenMr. Shimerda and Krajiek drove up in their wagon to take Peter to thetrain, they found him with a dripping beard, surrounded by heaps ofmelon rinds.

  The loss of his two friends had a depressing effect upon old Mr.Shimerda. When he was out hunting, he used to go into the empty loghouse and sit there, brooding. This cabin was his hermitage until thewinter snows penned him in his cave. For Antonia and me, the story ofthe wedding party was never at an end. We did not tell Pavel's secretto anyone, but guarded it jealously--as if the wolves of the Ukraine hadgathered that night long ago, and the wedding party been sacrificed,to give us a painful and peculiar pleasure. At night, before I went tosleep, I often found myself in a sledge drawn by three horses, dashingthrough a country that looked something like Nebraska and something likeVirginia.