My Antonia

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Jake and Otto served us to the last. They moved us into town,
put down the carpets in our new house, made shelves and cupboards
for grandmother's kitchen, and seemed loath to leave us.
But at last they went, without warning. Those two fellows
had been faithful to us through sun and storm, had given us
things that cannot be bought in any market in the world.
With me they had been like older brothers; had restrained their
speech and manners out of care for me, and given me so much
good comradeship. Now they got on the westbound train one morning,
in their Sunday clothes, with their oilcloth valises--and I
never saw them again. Months afterward we got a card from Otto,
saying that Jake had been down with mountain fever, but now they
were both working in the Yankee Girl Mine, and were doing well.
I wrote to them at that address, but my letter was returned to me,
`Unclaimed.' After that we never heard from them.

Black Hawk, the new world in which we had come to live,
was a clean, well-planted little prairie town, with white fences
and good green yards about the dwellings, wide, dusty streets,
and shapely little trees growing along the wooden sidewalks.
In the centre of the town there were two rows of new brick
`store' buildings, a brick schoolhouse, the court-house,
and four white churches. Our own house looked down over
the town, and from our upstairs windows we could see
the winding line of the river bluffs, two miles south of us.
That river was to be my compensation for the lost freedom
of the farming country.

We came to Black Hawk in March, and by the end of April we felt
like town people. Grandfather was a deacon in the new Baptist Church,
grandmother was busy with church suppers and missionary societies,
and I was quite another boy, or thought I was. Suddenly put down
among boys of my own age, I found I had a great deal to learn.
Before the spring term of school was over, I could fight, play `keeps,' tease
the little girls, and use forbidden words as well as any boy in my class.
I was restrained from utter savagery only by the fact that Mrs. Harling,
our nearest neighbour, kept an eye on me, and if my behaviour went beyond
certain bounds I was not permitted to come into her yard or to play
with her jolly children.

We saw more of our country neighbours now than when we lived on the farm.
Our house was a convenient stopping-place for them. We had a big barn
where the farmers could put up their teams, and their womenfolk more
often accompanied them, now that they could stay with us for dinner,
and rest and set their bonnets right before they went shopping.
The more our house was like a country hotel, the better I liked it.
I was glad, when I came home from school at noon, to see a farm-wagon
standing in the back yard, and I was always ready to run downtown
to get beefsteak or baker's bread for unexpected company.
All through that first spring and summer I kept hoping that
Ambrosch would bring Antonia and Yulka to see our new house.
I wanted to show them our red plush furniture, and the trumpet-blowing
cherubs the German paperhanger had put on our parlour ceiling.

When Ambrosch came to town, however, he came alone, and though
he put his horses in our barn, he would never stay for dinner,
or tell us anything about his mother and sisters. If we ran
out and questioned him as he was slipping through the yard,
he would merely work his shoulders about in his coat and say,
`They all right, I guess.'

Mrs. Steavens, who now lived on our farm, grew as fond of Antonia as we
had been, and always brought us news of her. All through the wheat season,
she told us, Ambrosch hired his sister out like a man, and she went
from farm to farm, binding sheaves or working with the threshers.
The farmers liked her and were kind to her; said they would rather
have her for a hand than Ambrosch. When fall came she was to husk corn
for the neighbours until Christmas, as she had done the year before;
but grandmother saved her from this by getting her a place to work
with our neighbours, the Harlings.

II

GRANDMOTHER OFTEN SAID THAT if she had to live in town, she thanked
God she lived next the Harlings. They had been farming people,
like ourselves, and their place was like a little farm, with a big
barn and a garden, and an orchard and grazing lots--even a windmill.
The Harlings were Norwegians, and Mrs. Harling had lived in Christiania
until she was ten years old. Her husband was born in Minnesota.
He was a grain merchant and cattle-buyer, and was generally
considered the most enterprising business man in our county.
He controlled a line of grain elevators in the little towns along
the railroad to the west of us, and was away from home a great deal.
In his absence his wife was the head of the household.

Mrs. Harling was short and square and sturdy-looking, like
her house. Every inch of her was charged with an energy
that made itself felt the moment she entered a room.
Her face was rosy and solid, with bright, twinkling eyes
and a stubborn little chin. She was quick to anger,
quick to laughter, and jolly from the depths of her soul.
How well I remember her laugh; it had in it the same sudden
recognition that flashed into her eyes, was a burst of humour,
short and intelligent. Her rapid footsteps shook her own floors,
and she routed lassitude and indifference wherever she came.
She could not be negative or perfunctory about anything.
Her enthusiasm, and her violent likes and dislikes,
asserted themselves in all the everyday occupations of life.
Wash-day was interesting, never dreary, at the Harlings'.
Preserving-time was a prolonged festival, and house-cleaning was
like a revolution. When Mrs. Harling made garden that spring,
we could feel the stir of her undertaking through the willow
hedge that separated our place from hers.

Three of the Harling children were near me in age. Charley, the only son--
they had lost an older boy--was sixteen; Julia, who was known as the
musical one, was fourteen when I was; and Sally, the tomboy with short hair,
was a year younger. She was nearly as strong as I, and uncannily clever
at all boys' sports. Sally was a wild thing, with sunburned yellow hair,
bobbed about her ears, and a brown skin, for she never wore a hat.
She raced all over town on one roller skate, often cheated at `keeps,'
but was such a quick shot one couldn't catch her at it.

The grown-up daughter, Frances, was a very important person in our world.
She was her father's chief clerk, and virtually managed his Black Hawk office
during his frequent absences. Because of her unusual business ability,
he was stern and exacting with her. He paid her a good salary,
but she had few holidays and never got away from her responsibilities.
Even on Sundays she went to the office to open the mail and read the markets.
With Charley, who was not interested in business, but was already preparing
for Annapolis, Mr. Harling was very indulgent; bought him guns and tools
and electric batteries, and never asked what he did with them.

Frances was dark, like her father, and quite as tall.
In winter she wore a sealskin coat and cap, and she and Mr. Harling
used to walk home together in the evening, talking about
grain-cars and cattle, like two men. Sometimes she came over
to see grandfather after supper, and her visits flattered him.
More than once they put their wits together to rescue
some unfortunate farmer from the clutches of Wick Cutter,
the Black Hawk money-lender. Grandfather said Frances Harling
was as good a judge of credits as any banker in the county.
The two or three men who had tried to take advantage of her
in a deal acquired celebrity by their defeat. She knew every
farmer for miles about: how much land he had under cultivation,
how many cattle he was feeding, what his liabilities were.
Her interest in these people was more than a business interest.
She carried them all in her mind as if they were characters
in a book or a play.

When Frances drove out into the country on business,
she would go miles out of her way to call on some of the
old people, or to see the women who seldom got to town.
She was quick at understanding the grandmothers who spoke
no English, and the most reticent and distrustful of them would
tell her their story without realizing they were doing so.
She went to country funerals and weddings in all weathers.
A farmer's daughter who was to be married could count on
a wedding present from Frances Harling.

In August the Harlings' Danish cook had to leave them.
Grandmother entreated them to try Antonia. She cornered
Ambrosch the next time he came to town, and pointed
out to him that any connection with Christian Harling
would strengthen his credit and be of advantage to him.
One Sunday Mrs. Harling took the long ride out to the Shimerdas'
with Frances. She said she wanted to see `what the girl
came from' and to have a clear understanding with her mother.
I was in our yard when they came driving home, just before sunset.
They laughed and waved to me as they passed, and I could see
they were in great good humour. After supper, when grandfather
set off to church, grandmother and I took my short cut
through the willow hedge and went over to hear about the visit
to the Shimerdas'.

We found Mrs. Harling with Charley and Sally on the front porch,
resting after her hard drive. Julia was in the hammock--
she was fond of repose--and Frances was at the piano,
playing without a light and talking to her mother through
the open window.

Mrs. Harling laughed when she saw us coming. `I expect you left
your dishes on the table tonight, Mrs. Burden,' she called.
Frances shut the piano and came out to join us.

They had liked Antonia from their first glimpse of her;
felt they knew exactly what kind of girl she was.
As for Mrs. Shimerda, they found her very amusing.
Mrs. Harling chuckled whenever she spoke of her. `I expect I am
more at home with that sort of bird than you are, Mrs. Burden.
They're a pair, Ambrosch and that old woman!'

They had had a long argument with Ambrosch about Antonia's allowance
for clothes and pocket-money. It was his plan that every cent
of his sister's wages should be paid over to him each month,
and he would provide her with such clothing as he thought necessary.
When Mrs. Harling told him firmly that she would keep fifty dollars
a year for Antonia's own use, he declared they wanted to take
his sister to town and dress her up and make a fool of her.
Mrs. Harling gave us a lively account of Ambrosch's behaviour
throughout the interview; how he kept jumping up and putting
on his cap as if he were through with the whole business, and how
his mother tweaked his coat-tail and prompted him in Bohemian.
Mrs. Harling finally agreed to pay three dollars a week
for Antonia's services--good wages in those days--and to keep
her in shoes. There had been hot dispute about the shoes,
Mrs. Shimerda finally saying persuasively that she would send
Mrs. Harling three fat geese every year to `make even.'
Ambrosch was to bring his sister to town next Saturday.

`She'll be awkward and rough at first, like enough,' grandmother said
anxiously, `but unless she's been spoiled by the hard life she's led,
she has it in her to be a real helpful girl.'

Mrs. Harling laughed her quick, decided laugh. `Oh, I'm
not worrying, Mrs. Burden! I can bring something out of that girl.
She's barely seventeen, not too old to learn new ways.
She's good-looking, too!' she added warmly.

Frances turned to grandmother. `Oh, yes, Mrs. Burden, you didn't
tell us that! She was working in the garden when we got there,
barefoot and ragged. But she has such fine brown legs and arms,
and splendid colour in her cheeks--like those big dark red plums.'

We were pleased at this praise. Grandmother spoke feelingly.
`When she first came to this country, Frances, and had that genteel old man
to watch over her, she was as pretty a girl as ever I saw. But, dear me,
what a life she's led, out in the fields with those rough threshers!
Things would have been very different with poor Antonia if her
father had lived.'

The Harlings begged us to tell them about Mr. Shimerda's death
and the big snowstorm. By the time we saw grandfather coming
home from church, we had told them pretty much all we knew
of the Shimerdas.

`The girl will be happy here, and she'll forget those things,'
said Mrs. Harling confidently, as we rose to take our leave.

III

ON SATURDAY AMBROSCH drove up to the back gate, and Antonia jumped
down from the wagon and ran into our kitchen just as she used to do.
She was wearing shoes and stockings, and was breathless and excited.
She gave me a playful shake by the shoulders. `You ain't forget
about me, Jim?'

Grandmother kissed her. `God bless you, child! Now you've come,
you must try to do right and be a credit to us.'

Antonia looked eagerly about the house and admired everything.
`Maybe I be the kind of girl you like better; now I come to town,'
she suggested hopefully.

How good it was to have Antonia near us again; to see her every day
and almost every night! Her greatest fault, Mrs. Harling found,
was that she so often stopped her work and fell to playing
with the children. She would race about the orchard with us,
or take sides in our hay-fights in the barn, or be the old
bear that came down from the mountain and carried off Nina.
Tony learned English so quickly that by the time school began
she could speak as well as any of us.

I was jealous of Tony's admiration for Charley Harling.
Because he was always first in his classes at school,
and could mend the water-pipes or the doorbell and take
the clock to pieces, she seemed to think him a sort of prince.
Nothing that Charley wanted was too much trouble for her.
She loved to put up lunches for him when he went hunting,
to mend his ball-gloves and sew buttons on his shooting-coat,
baked the kind of nut-cake he liked, and fed his setter dog
when he was away on trips with his father. Antonia had made
herself cloth working-slippers out of Mr. Harling's old coats,
and in these she went padding about after Charley, fairly panting
with eagerness to please him.

Next to Charley, I think she loved Nina best. Nina was only six,
and she was rather more complex than the other children.
She was fanciful, had all sorts of unspoken preferences,
and was easily offended. At the slightest disappointment
or displeasure, her velvety brown eyes filled with tears,
and she would lift her chin and walk silently away.
If we ran after her and tried to appease her, it did no good.
She walked on unmollified. I used to think that no eyes
in the world could grow so large or hold so many tears as
Nina's. Mrs. Harling and Antonia invariably took her part.
We were never given a chance to explain. The charge was simply:
`You have made Nina cry. Now, Jimmy can go home, and Sally
must get her arithmetic.' I liked Nina, too; she was so quaint
and unexpected, and her eyes were lovely; but I often wanted
to shake her.

We had jolly evenings at the Harlings' when the father was away.
If he was at home, the children had to go to bed early,
or they came over to my house to play. Mr. Harling not only
demanded a quiet house, he demanded all his wife's attention.
He used to take her away to their room in the west ell,
and talk over his business with her all evening.
Though we did not realize it then, Mrs. Harling was our audience
when we played, and we always looked to her for suggestions.
Nothing flattered one like her quick laugh.

Mr. Harling had a desk in his bedroom, and his own
easy-chair by the window, in which no one else ever sat.
On the nights when he was at home, I could see his shadow
on the blind, and it seemed to me an arrogant shadow.
Mrs. Harling paid no heed to anyone else if he was there.
Before he went to bed she always got him a lunch of smoked salmon
or anchovies and beer. He kept an alcohol lamp in his room,
and a French coffee-pot, and his wife made coffee for him
at any hour of the night he happened to want it.

Most Black Hawk fathers had no personal habits outside their
domestic ones; they paid the bills, pushed the baby-carriage
after office hours, moved the sprinkler about over the lawn,
and took the family driving on Sunday. Mr. Harling,
therefore, seemed to me autocratic and imperial in his ways.
He walked, talked, put on his gloves, shook hands, like a man
who felt that he had power. He was not tall, but he carried
his head so haughtily that he looked a commanding figure,
and there was something daring and challenging in his eyes.
I used to imagine that the ,nobles' of whom Antonia was always
talking probably looked very much like Christian Harling,
wore caped overcoats like his, and just such a glittering
diamond upon the little finger.

Except when the father was at home, the Harling house was never quiet.
Mrs. Harling and Nina and Antonia made as much noise as a houseful
of children, and there was usually somebody at the piano. Julia was the only
one who was held down to regular hours of practising, but they all played.
When Frances came home at noon, she played until dinner was ready.
When Sally got back from school, she sat down in her hat and coat and drummed
the plantation melodies that Negro minstrel troupes brought to town.
Even Nina played the Swedish Wedding March.

Mrs. Harling had studied the piano under a good teacher,
and somehow she managed to practise every day.
I soon learned that if I were sent over on an errand and found
Mrs. Harling at the piano, I must sit down and wait quietly
until she turned to me. I can see her at this moment:
her short, square person planted firmly on the stool,
her little fat hands moving quickly and neatly over the keys,
her eyes fixed on the music with intelligent concentration.

IV

`I won't have none of your weevily wheat,
and I won't have none of your barley,
But I'll take a measure of fine white
flour, to make a cake for Charley.'

WE WERE SINGING rhymes to tease Antonia while she was beating up
one of Charley's favourite cakes in her big mixing-bowl.

It was a crisp autumn evening, just cold enough to make one glad
to quit playing tag in the yard, and retreat into the kitchen.
We had begun to roll popcorn balls with syrup when we heard a knock
at the back door, and Tony dropped her spoon and went to open it.

A plump, fair-skinned girl was standing in the doorway.
She looked demure and pretty, and made a graceful picture
in her blue cashmere dress and little blue hat, with a plaid
shawl drawn neatly about her shoulders and a clumsy pocket-book
in her hand.

`Hello, Tony. Don't you know me?' she asked in a smooth, low voice,
looking in at us archly.

Antonia gasped and stepped back.

`Why, it's Lena! Of course I didn't know you, so dressed up!'

Lena Lingard laughed, as if this pleased her. I had not recognized
her for a moment, either. I had never seen her before with a hat on
her head--or with shoes and stockings on her feet, for that matter.
And here she was, brushed and smoothed and dressed like a town girl,
smiling at us with perfect composure.

`Hello, Jim,' she said carelessly as she walked into the kitchen and looked
about her. `I've come to town to work, too, Tony.'

`Have you, now? Well, ain't that funny" Antonia stood ill at ease,
and didn't seem to know just what to do with her visitor.

The door was open into the dining-room, where Mrs. Harling sat crocheting
and Frances was reading. Frances asked Lena to come in and join them.

`You are Lena Lingard, aren't you? I've been to see your mother,
but you were off herding cattle that day. Mama, this is Chris
Lingard's oldest girl.'

Mrs. Harling dropped her worsted and examined the visitor
with quick, keen eyes. Lena was not at all disconcerted.
She sat down in the chair Frances pointed out, carefully
arranging her pocket-book and grey cotton gloves on her lap.
We followed with our popcorn, but Antonia hung back--
said she had to get her cake into the oven.

`So you have come to town,' said Mrs. Harling, her eyes still fixed on Lena.
`Where are you working?'

`For Mrs. Thomas, the dressmaker. She is going to teach me to sew.
She says I have quite a knack. I'm through with the farm. There ain't
any end to the work on a farm, and always so much trouble happens.
I'm going to be a dressmaker.'

`Well, there have to be dressmakers. It's a good trade. But I wouldn't
run down the farm, if I were you,' said Mrs. Harling rather severely.
`How is your mother?'

`Oh, mother's never very well; she has too much to do.
She'd get away from the farm, too, if she could.
She was willing for me to come. After I learn to do sewing,
I can make money and help her.'

`See that you don't forget to,' said Mrs. Harling sceptically,
as she took up her crocheting again and sent the hook in and out
with nimble fingers.

`No, 'm, I won't,' said Lena blandly. She took a few grains
of the popcorn we pressed upon her, eating them discreetly
and taking care not to get her fingers sticky.

Frances drew her chair up nearer to the visitor. `I thought
you were going to be married, Lena,' she said teasingly.
`Didn't I hear that Nick Svendsen was rushing you pretty hard?'

Lena looked up with her curiously innocent smile. `He did go with me quite
a while. But his father made a fuss about it and said he wouldn't give
Nick any land if he married me, so he's going to marry Annie Iverson.
I wouldn't like to be her; Nick's awful sullen, and he'll take it out on her.
He ain't spoke to his father since he promised.'

Frances laughed. `And how do you feel about it?'

`I don't want to marry Nick, or any other man,' Lena murmured.
`I've seen a good deal of married life, and I don't care for it.
I want to be so I can help my mother and the children at home,
and not have to ask lief of anybody.'

`That's right,' said Frances. `And Mrs. Thomas thinks you
can learn dressmaking?'

`Yes, 'm. I've always liked to sew, but I never had much to do with.
Mrs. Thomas makes lovely things for all the town ladies.
Did you know Mrs. Gardener is having a purple velvet made?
The velvet came from Omaha. My, but it's lovely!'
Lena sighed softly and stroked her cashmere folds.
`Tony knows I never did like out-of-door work,' she added.

Mrs. Harling glanced at her. `I expect you'll learn to sew
all right, Lena, if you'll only keep your head and not go
gadding about to dances all the time and neglect your work,
the way some country girls do.'

`Yes, 'm. Tiny Soderball is coming to town, too. She's going
to work at the Boys' Home Hotel. She'll see lots of strangers,'
Lena added wistfully.

`Too many, like enough,' said Mrs. Harling. `I don't think a hotel
is a good place for a girl; though I guess Mrs. Gardener keeps an eye
on her waitresses.'

Lena's candid eyes, that always looked a little sleepy under their
long lashes, kept straying about the cheerful rooms with naive admiration.
Presently she drew on her cotton gloves. `I guess I must be leaving,'
she said irresolutely.

Frances told her to come again, whenever she was lonesome or wanted
advice about anything. Lena replied that she didn't believe she
would ever get lonesome in Black Hawk.

She lingered at the kitchen door and begged Antonia to come
and see her often. `I've got a room of my own at Mrs. Thomas's,
with a carpet.'

Tony shuffled uneasily in her cloth slippers. `I'll come sometime,
but Mrs. Harling don't like to have me run much,' she said evasively.

`You can do what you please when you go out, can't you?'
Lena asked in a guarded whisper. `Ain't you crazy about town, Tony?
I don't care what anybody says, I'm done with the farm!'
She glanced back over her shoulder toward the dining-room,
where Mrs. Harling sat.

When Lena was gone, Frances asked Antonia why she hadn't been a little
more cordial to her.

`I didn't know if your mother would like her coming here,' said Antonia,
looking troubled. `She was kind of talked about, out there.'

`Yes, I know. But mother won't hold it against her if she behaves
well here. You needn't say anything about that to the children.
I guess Jim has heard all that gossip?'

When I nodded, she pulled my hair and told me I knew too much, anyhow.
We were good friends, Frances and I.

I ran home to tell grandmother that Lena Lingard had come to town.
We were glad of it, for she had a hard life on the farm.

Lena lived in the Norwegian settlement west of Squaw Creek, and she
used to herd her father's cattle in the open country between his place
and the Shimerdas'. Whenever we rode over in that direction we saw
her out among her cattle, bareheaded and barefooted, scantily dressed
in tattered clothing, always knitting as she watched her herd.
Before I knew Lena, I thought of her as something wild, that always
lived on the prairie, because I had never seen her under a roof.
Her yellow hair was burned to a ruddy thatch on her head; but her legs
and arms, curiously enough, in spite of constant exposure to the sun,
kept a miraculous whiteness which somehow made her seem more undressed
than other girls who went scantily clad. The first time I stopped to talk
to her, I was astonished at her soft voice and easy, gentle ways.
The girls out there usually got rough and mannish after they went to herding.
But Lena asked Jake and me to get off our horses and stay awhile, and behaved
exactly as if she were in a house and were accustomed to having visitors.
She was not embarrassed by her ragged clothes, and treated us as if we
were old acquaintances. Even then I noticed the unusual colour of her eyes--
a shade of deep violet--and their soft, confiding expression.

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