My Ántonia
‘Always too fresh, Leo,’ Ambrosch remarked with a shrug.
Leo dived behind his mother and grinned out at me.
We turned to leave the cave; Ántonia and I went up the stairs first,
and the children waited. We were standing outside talking, when they
all came running up the steps together, big and little, tow heads and
gold heads and brown, and flashing little naked legs; a veritable
explosion of life out of the dark cave into the sunlight. It made me
dizzy for a moment.
The boys escorted us to the front of the house, which I hadn’t yet
seen; in farm-houses, somehow, life comes and goes by the back door.
The roof was so steep that the eaves were not much above the forest of
tall hollyhocks, now brown and in seed. Through July, Ántonia said, the
house was buried in them; the Bohemians, I remembered, always planted
hollyhocks. The front yard was enclosed by a thorny locust hedge, and
at the gate grew two silvery, moth-like trees of the mimosa family.
From here one looked down over the cattle-yards, with their two long
ponds, and over a wide stretch of stubble which they told me was a
ryefield in summer.
At some distance behind the house were an ash grove and two orchards: a
cherry orchard, with gooseberry and currant bushes between the rows,
and an apple orchard, sheltered by a high hedge from the hot winds. The
older children turned back when we reached the hedge, but Jan and Nina
and Lucie crept through it by a hole known only to themselves and hid
under the low-branching mulberry bushes.
As we walked through the apple orchard, grown up in tall bluegrass,
Ántonia kept stopping to tell me about one tree and another. ‘I love
them as if they were people,’ she said, rubbing her hand over the bark.
‘There wasn’t a tree here when we first came. We planted every one, and
used to carry water for them, too—after we’d been working in the fields
all day. Anton, he was a city man, and he used to get discouraged. But
I couldn’t feel so tired that I wouldn’t fret about these trees when
there was a dry time. They were on my mind like children. Many a night
after he was asleep I’ve got up and come out and carried water to the
poor things. And now, you see, we have the good of them. My man worked
in the orange groves in Florida, and he knows all about grafting. There
ain’t one of our neighbours has an orchard that bears like ours.’
In the middle of the orchard we came upon a grape arbour, with seats
built along the sides and a warped plank table. The three children were
waiting for us there. They looked up at me bashfully and made some
request of their mother.
‘They want me to tell you how the teacher has the school picnic here
every year. These don’t go to school yet, so they think it’s all like
the picnic.’
After I had admired the arbour sufficiently, the youngsters ran away to
an open place where there was a rough jungle of French pinks, and
squatted down among them, crawling about and measuring with a string.
‘Jan wants to bury his dog there,’ Ántonia explained. ‘I had to tell
him he could. He’s kind of like Nina Harling; you remember how hard she
used to take little things? He has funny notions, like her.’
We sat down and watched them. Ántonia leaned her elbows on the table.
There was the deepest peace in that orchard. It was surrounded by a
triple enclosure; the wire fence, then the hedge of thorny locusts,
then the mulberry hedge which kept out the hot winds of summer and held
fast to the protecting snows of winter. The hedges were so tall that we
could see nothing but the blue sky above them, neither the barn roof
nor the windmill. The afternoon sun poured down on us through the
drying grape leaves. The orchard seemed full of sun, like a cup, and we
could smell the ripe apples on the trees. The crabs hung on the
branches as thick as beads on a string, purple-red, with a thin silvery
glaze over them. Some hens and ducks had crept through the hedge and
were pecking at the fallen apples. The drakes were handsome fellows,
with pinkish grey bodies, their heads and necks covered with iridescent
green feathers which grew close and full, changing to blue like a
peacock’s neck. Ántonia said they always reminded her of soldiers—some
uniform she had seen in the old country, when she was a child.
‘Are there any quail left now?’ I asked. I reminded her how she used to
go hunting with me the last summer before we moved to town. ‘You
weren’t a bad shot, Tony. Do you remember how you used to want to run
away and go for ducks with Charley Harling and me?’
‘I know, but I’m afraid to look at a gun now.’ She picked up one of the
drakes and ruffled his green capote with her fingers. ‘Ever since I’ve
had children, I don’t like to kill anything. It makes me kind of faint
to wring an old goose’s neck. Ain’t that strange, Jim?’
‘I don’t know. The young Queen of Italy said the same thing once, to a
friend of mine. She used to be a great huntswoman, but now she feels as
you do, and only shoots clay pigeons.’
‘Then I’m sure she’s a good mother,’ Ántonia said warmly.
She told me how she and her husband had come out to this new country
when the farm-land was cheap and could be had on easy payments. The
first ten years were a hard struggle. Her husband knew very little
about farming and often grew discouraged. ‘We’d never have got through
if I hadn’t been so strong. I’ve always had good health, thank God, and
I was able to help him in the fields until right up to the time before
my babies came. Our children were good about taking care of each other.
Martha, the one you saw when she was a baby, was such a help to me, and
she trained Anna to be just like her. My Martha’s married now, and has
a baby of her own. Think of that, Jim!
‘No, I never got down-hearted. Anton’s a good man, and I loved my
children and always believed they would turn out well. I belong on a
farm. I’m never lonesome here like I used to be in town. You remember
what sad spells I used to have, when I didn’t know what was the matter
with me? I’ve never had them out here. And I don’t mind work a bit, if
I don’t have to put up with sadness.’ She leaned her chin on her hand
and looked down through the orchard, where the sunlight was growing
more and more golden.
‘You ought never to have gone to town, Tony,’ I said, wondering at her.
She turned to me eagerly.
‘Oh, I’m glad I went! I’d never have known anything about cooking or
housekeeping if I hadn’t. I learned nice ways at the Harlings’, and
I’ve been able to bring my children up so much better. Don’t you think
they are pretty well-behaved for country children? If it hadn’t been
for what Mrs. Harling taught me, I expect I’d have brought them up like
wild rabbits. No, I’m glad I had a chance to learn; but I’m thankful
none of my daughters will ever have to work out. The trouble with me
was, Jim, I never could believe harm of anybody I loved.’
While we were talking, Ántonia assured me that she could keep me for
the night. ‘We’ve plenty of room. Two of the boys sleep in the haymow
till cold weather comes, but there’s no need for it. Leo always begs to
sleep there, and Ambrosch goes along to look after him.’
I told her I would like to sleep in the haymow, with the boys.
‘You can do just as you want to. The chest is full of clean blankets,
put away for winter. Now I must go, or my girls will be doing all the
work, and I want to cook your supper myself.’
As we went toward the house, we met Ambrosch and Anton, starting off
with their milking-pails to hunt the cows. I joined them, and Leo
accompanied us at some distance, running ahead and starting up at us
out of clumps of ironweed, calling, ‘I’m a jack rabbit,’ or, ‘I’m a big
bull-snake.’
I walked between the two older boys—straight, well-made fellows, with
good heads and clear eyes. They talked about their school and the new
teacher, told me about the crops and the harvest, and how many steers
they would feed that winter. They were easy and confidential with me,
as if I were an old friend of the family—and not too old. I felt like a
boy in their company, and all manner of forgotten interests revived in
me. It seemed, after all, so natural to be walking along a barbed-wire
fence beside the sunset, toward a red pond, and to see my shadow moving
along at my right, over the close-cropped grass.
‘Has mother shown you the pictures you sent her from the old country?’
Ambrosch asked. ‘We’ve had them framed and they’re hung up in the
parlour. She was so glad to get them. I don’t believe I ever saw her so
pleased about anything.’ There was a note of simple gratitude in his
voice that made me wish I had given more occasion for it.
I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Your mother, you know, was very much
loved by all of us. She was a beautiful girl.’
‘Oh, we know!’ They both spoke together; seemed a little surprised that
I should think it necessary to mention this. ‘Everybody liked her,
didn’t they? The Harlings and your grandmother, and all the town
people.’
‘Sometimes,’ I ventured, ‘it doesn’t occur to boys that their mother
was ever young and pretty.’
‘Oh, we know!’ they said again, warmly. ‘She’s not very old now,’
Ambrosch added. ‘Not much older than you.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you weren’t nice to her, I think I’d take a club
and go for the whole lot of you. I couldn’t stand it if you boys were
inconsiderate, or thought of her as if she were just somebody who
looked after you. You see I was very much in love with your mother
once, and I know there’s nobody like her.’
The boys laughed and seemed pleased and embarrassed.
‘She never told us that,’ said Anton. ‘But she’s always talked lots
about you, and about what good times you used to have. She has a
picture of you that she cut out of the Chicago paper once, and Leo says
he recognized you when you drove up to the windmill. You can’t tell
about Leo, though; sometimes he likes to be smart.’
We brought the cows home to the corner nearest the barn, and the boys
milked them while night came on. Everything was as it should be: the
strong smell of sunflowers and ironweed in the dew, the clear blue and
gold of the sky, the evening star, the purr of the milk into the pails,
the grunts and squeals of the pigs fighting over their supper. I began
to feel the loneliness of the farm-boy at evening, when the chores seem
everlastingly the same, and the world so far away.
What a tableful we were at supper: two long rows of restless heads in
the lamplight, and so many eyes fastened excitedly upon Ántonia as she
sat at the head of the table, filling the plates and starting the
dishes on their way. The children were seated according to a system; a
little one next an older one, who was to watch over his behaviour and
to see that he got his food. Anna and Yulka left their chairs from time
to time to bring fresh plates of kolaches and pitchers of milk.
After supper we went into the parlour, so that Yulka and Leo could play
for me. Ántonia went first, carrying the lamp. There were not nearly
chairs enough to go round, so the younger children sat down on the bare
floor. Little Lucie whispered to me that they were going to have a
parlour carpet if they got ninety cents for their wheat. Leo, with a
good deal of fussing, got out his violin. It was old Mr. Shimerda’s
instrument, which Ántonia had always kept, and it was too big for him.
But he played very well for a self-taught boy. Poor Yulka’s efforts
were not so successful. While they were playing, little Nina got up
from her corner, came out into the middle of the floor, and began to do
a pretty little dance on the boards with her bare feet. No one paid the
least attention to her, and when she was through she stole back and sat
down by her brother.
Ántonia spoke to Leo in Bohemian. He frowned and wrinkled up his face.