Bab Bab 25 · Chapter VI

Winter comes down savagely over a little town on the prairie. The wind

that sweeps in from the open country strips away all the leafy screens

that hide one yard from another in summer, and the houses seem to draw

closer together. The roofs, that looked so far away across the green

tree-tops, now stare you in the face, and they are so much uglier than

when their angles were softened by vines and shrubs.

In the morning, when I was fighting my way to school against the wind,

I couldn’t see anything but the road in front of me; but in the late

afternoon, when I was coming home, the town looked bleak and desolate

to me. The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify—it

was like the light of truth itself. When the smoky clouds hung low in

the west and the red sun went down behind them, leaving a pink flush on

the snowy roofs and the blue drifts, then the wind sprang up afresh,

with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: ‘This is reality, whether

you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and

shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they

were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth.’ It was

as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer.

If I loitered on the playground after school, or went to the

post-office for the mail and lingered to hear the gossip about the

cigar-stand, it would be growing dark by the time I came home. The sun

was gone; the frozen streets stretched long and blue before me; the

lights were shining pale in kitchen windows, and I could smell the

suppers cooking as I passed. Few people were abroad, and each one of

them was hurrying toward a fire. The glowing stoves in the houses were

like magnets. When one passed an old man, one could see nothing of his

face but a red nose sticking out between a frosted beard and a long

plush cap. The young men capered along with their hands in their

pockets, and sometimes tried a slide on the icy sidewalk. The children,

in their bright hoods and comforters, never walked, but always ran from

the moment they left their door, beating their mittens against their

sides. When I got as far as the Methodist Church, I was about halfway

home. I can remember how glad I was when there happened to be a light

in the church, and the painted glass window shone out at us as we came

along the frozen street. In the winter bleakness a hunger for colour

came over people, like the Laplander’s craving for fats and sugar.

Without knowing why, we used to linger on the sidewalk outside the

church when the lamps were lighted early for choir practice or

prayer-meeting, shivering and talking until our feet were like lumps of

ice. The crude reds and greens and blues of that coloured glass held us

there.

On winter nights, the lights in the Harlings’ windows drew me like the

painted glass. Inside that warm, roomy house there was colour, too.

After supper I used to catch up my cap, stick my hands in my pockets,

and dive through the willow hedge as if witches were after me. Of

course, if Mr. Harling was at home, if his shadow stood out on the

blind of the west room, I did not go in, but turned and walked home by

the long way, through the street, wondering what book I should read as

I sat down with the two old people.

Such disappointments only gave greater zest to the nights when we acted

charades, or had a costume ball in the back parlour, with Sally always

dressed like a boy. Frances taught us to dance that winter, and she

said, from the first lesson, that Ántonia would make the best dancer

among us. On Saturday nights, Mrs. Harling used to play the old operas

for us—‘Martha,’ ‘Norma,’ ‘Rigoletto’—telling us the story while she

played. Every Saturday night was like a party. The parlour, the back

parlour, and the dining-room were warm and brightly lighted, with

comfortable chairs and sofas, and gay pictures on the walls. One always

felt at ease there. Ántonia brought her sewing and sat with us—she was

already beginning to make pretty clothes for herself. After the long

winter evenings on the prairie, with Ambrosch’s sullen silences and her

mother’s complaints, the Harlings’ house seemed, as she said, ‘like

Heaven’ to her. She was never too tired to make taffy or chocolate

cookies for us. If Sally whispered in her ear, or Charley gave her

three winks, Tony would rush into the kitchen and build a fire in the

range on which she had already cooked three meals that day.

While we sat in the kitchen waiting for the cookies to bake or the

taffy to cool, Nina used to coax Ántonia to tell her stories—about the

calf that broke its leg, or how Yulka saved her little turkeys from

drowning in the freshet, or about old Christmases and weddings in

Bohemia. Nina interpreted the stories about the creche fancifully, and

in spite of our derision she cherished a belief that Christ was born in

Bohemia a short time before the Shimerdas left that country. We all

liked Tony’s stories. Her voice had a peculiarly engaging quality; it

was deep, a little husky, and one always heard the breath vibrating

behind it. Everything she said seemed to come right out of her heart.

One evening when we were picking out kernels for walnut taffy, Tony

told us a new story.

‘Mrs. Harling, did you ever hear about what happened up in the

Norwegian settlement last summer, when I was threshing there? We were

at Iversons’, and I was driving one of the grain-wagons.’

Mrs. Harling came out and sat down among us. ‘Could you throw the wheat

into the bin yourself, Tony?’ She knew what heavy work it was.

‘Yes, ma’m, I did. I could shovel just as fast as that fat Andern boy

that drove the other wagon. One day it was just awful hot. When we got

back to the field from dinner, we took things kind of easy. The men put

in the horses and got the machine going, and Ole Iverson was up on the

deck, cutting bands. I was sitting against a straw-stack, trying to get

some shade. My wagon wasn’t going out first, and somehow I felt the

heat awful that day. The sun was so hot like it was going to burn the

world up. After a while I see a man coming across the stubble, and when

he got close I see it was a tramp. His toes stuck out of his shoes, and

he hadn’t shaved for a long while, and his eyes was awful red and wild,

like he had some sickness. He comes right up and begins to talk like he

knows me already. He says: ‘The ponds in this country is done got so

low a man couldn’t drownd himself in one of ‘em.’

‘I told him nobody wanted to drownd themselves, but if we didn’t have

rain soon we’d have to pump water for the cattle.

‘“Oh, cattle,” he says, “you’ll all take care of your cattle! Ain’t you

got no beer here?” I told him he’d have to go to the Bohemians for

beer; the Norwegians didn’t have none when they threshed. “My God!” he

says, “so it’s Norwegians now, is it? I thought this was Americy.”

‘Then he goes up to the machine and yells out to Ole Iverson, “Hello,

partner, let me up there. I can cut bands, and I’m tired of trampin’. I

won’t go no farther.”

‘I tried to make signs to Ole, ‘cause I thought that man was crazy and

might get the machine stopped up. But Ole, he was glad to get down out

of the sun and chaff—it gets down your neck and sticks to you something

awful when it’s hot like that. So Ole jumped down and crawled under one

of the wagons for shade, and the tramp got on the machine. He cut bands

all right for a few minutes, and then, Mrs. Harling, he waved his hand

to me and jumped head-first right into the threshing machine after the

wheat.

‘I begun to scream, and the men run to stop the horses, but the belt

had sucked him down, and by the time they got her stopped, he was all

beat and cut to pieces. He was wedged in so tight it was a hard job to

get him out, and the machine ain’t never worked right since.’

‘Was he clear dead, Tony?’ we cried.

‘Was he dead? Well, I guess so! There, now, Nina’s all upset. We won’t

talk about it. Don’t you cry, Nina. No old tramp won’t get you while

Tony’s here.’

Mrs. Harling spoke up sternly. ‘Stop crying, Nina, or I’ll always send

you upstairs when Ántonia tells us about the country. Did they never

find out where he came from, Ántonia?’

‘Never, ma’m. He hadn’t been seen nowhere except in a little town they

call Conway. He tried to get beer there, but there wasn’t any saloon.

Maybe he came in on a freight, but the brakeman hadn’t seen him. They

couldn’t find no letters nor nothing on him; nothing but an old

penknife in his pocket and the wishbone of a chicken wrapped up in a

piece of paper, and some poetry.’

‘Some poetry?’ we exclaimed.

‘I remember,’ said Frances. ‘It was “The Old Oaken Bucket,” cut out of

a newspaper and nearly worn out. Ole Iverson brought it into the office

and showed it to me.’

‘Now, wasn’t that strange, Miss Frances?’ Tony asked thoughtfully.

‘What would anybody want to kill themselves in summer for? In threshing

time, too! It’s nice everywhere then.’

‘So it is, Ántonia,’ said Mrs. Harling heartily. ‘Maybe I’ll go home

and help you thresh next summer. Isn’t that taffy nearly ready to eat?

I’ve been smelling it a long while.’

There was a basic harmony between Ántonia and her mistress. They had

strong, independent natures, both of them. They knew what they liked,

and were not always trying to imitate other people. They loved children

and animals and music, and rough play and digging in the earth. They

liked to prepare rich, hearty food and to see people eat it; to make up

soft white beds and to see youngsters asleep in them. They ridiculed

conceited people and were quick to help unfortunate ones. Deep down in

each of them there was a kind of hearty joviality, a relish of life,

not over-delicate, but very invigorating. I never tried to define it,

but I was distinctly conscious of it. I could not imagine Ántonia’s

living for a week in any other house in Black Hawk than the Harlings’.