Bab Bab 32 · Chapter XIII

I noticed one afternoon that grandmother had been crying. Her feet

seemed to drag as she moved about the house, and I got up from the

table where I was studying and went to her, asking if she didn’t feel

well, and if I couldn’t help her with her work.

‘No, thank you, Jim. I’m troubled, but I guess I’m well enough. Getting

a little rusty in the bones, maybe,’ she added bitterly.

I stood hesitating. ‘What are you fretting about, grandmother? Has

grandfather lost any money?’

‘No, it ain’t money. I wish it was. But I’ve heard things. You must ‘a’

known it would come back to me sometime.’ She dropped into a chair,

and, covering her face with her apron, began to cry. ‘Jim,’ she said,

‘I was never one that claimed old folks could bring up their

grandchildren. But it came about so; there wasn’t any other way for

you, it seemed like.’

I put my arms around her. I couldn’t bear to see her cry.

‘What is it, grandmother? Is it the Firemen’s dances?’

She nodded.

‘I’m sorry I sneaked off like that. But there’s nothing wrong about the

dances, and I haven’t done anything wrong. I like all those country

girls, and I like to dance with them. That’s all there is to it.’

‘But it ain’t right to deceive us, son, and it brings blame on us.

People say you are growing up to be a bad boy, and that ain’t just to

us.’

‘I don’t care what they say about me, but if it hurts you, that settles

it. I won’t go to the Firemen’s Hall again.’

I kept my promise, of course, but I found the spring months dull

enough. I sat at home with the old people in the evenings now, reading

Latin that was not in our high-school course. I had made up my mind to

do a lot of college requirement work in the summer, and to enter the

freshman class at the university without conditions in the fall. I

wanted to get away as soon as possible.

Disapprobation hurt me, I found—even that of people whom I did not

admire. As the spring came on, I grew more and more lonely, and fell

back on the telegrapher and the cigar-maker and his canaries for

companionship. I remember I took a melancholy pleasure in hanging a

May-basket for Nina Harling that spring. I bought the flowers from an

old German woman who always had more window plants than anyone else,

and spent an afternoon trimming a little workbasket. When dusk came on,

and the new moon hung in the sky, I went quietly to the Harlings’ front

door with my offering, rang the bell, and then ran away as was the

custom. Through the willow hedge I could hear Nina’s cries of delight,

and I felt comforted.

On those warm, soft spring evenings I often lingered downtown to walk

home with Frances, and talked to her about my plans and about the

reading I was doing. One evening she said she thought Mrs. Harling was

not seriously offended with me.

‘Mama is as broad-minded as mothers ever are, I guess. But you know she

was hurt about Ántonia, and she can’t understand why you like to be

with Tiny and Lena better than with the girls of your own set.’

‘Can you?’ I asked bluntly.

Frances laughed. ‘Yes, I think I can. You knew them in the country, and

you like to take sides. In some ways you’re older than boys of your

age. It will be all right with mama after you pass your college

examinations and she sees you’re in earnest.’

‘If you were a boy,’ I persisted, ‘you wouldn’t belong to the Owl Club,

either. You’d be just like me.’

She shook her head. ‘I would and I wouldn’t. I expect I know the

country girls better than you do. You always put a kind of glamour over

them. The trouble with you, Jim, is that you’re romantic. Mama’s going

to your Commencement. She asked me the other day if I knew what your

oration is to be about. She wants you to do well.’

I thought my oration very good. It stated with fervour a great many

things I had lately discovered. Mrs. Harling came to the Opera House to

hear the Commencement exercises, and I looked at her most of the time

while I made my speech. Her keen, intelligent eyes never left my face.

Afterward she came back to the dressing-room where we stood, with our

diplomas in our hands, walked up to me, and said heartily: ‘You

surprised me, Jim. I didn’t believe you could do as well as that. You

didn’t get that speech out of books.’ Among my graduation presents

there was a silk umbrella from Mrs. Harling, with my name on the

handle.

I walked home from the Opera House alone. As I passed the Methodist

Church, I saw three white figures ahead of me, pacing up and down under

the arching maple trees, where the moonlight filtered through the lush

June foliage. They hurried toward me; they were waiting for me—Lena and

Tony and Anna Hansen.

‘Oh, Jim, it was splendid!’ Tony was breathing hard, as she always did

when her feelings outran her language. ‘There ain’t a lawyer in Black

Hawk could make a speech like that. I just stopped your grandpa and

said so to him. He won’t tell you, but he told us he was awful

surprised himself, didn’t he, girls?’

Lena sidled up to me and said teasingly, ‘What made you so solemn? I

thought you were scared. I was sure you’d forget.’

Anna spoke wistfully.

‘It must make you very happy, Jim, to have fine thoughts like that in

your mind all the time, and to have words to put them in. I always

wanted to go to school, you know.’

‘Oh, I just sat there and wished my papa could hear you! Jim’—Ántonia

took hold of my coat lapels—‘there was something in your speech that

made me think so about my papa!’

‘I thought about your papa when I wrote my speech, Tony,’ I said. ‘I

dedicated it to him.’

She threw her arms around me, and her dear face was all wet with tears.

I stood watching their white dresses glimmer smaller and smaller down

the sidewalk as they went away. I have had no other success that pulled

at my heartstrings like that one.