by Willa Cather
XIV
ON the morning of the 22d I wakened with a start. Before I opened my eyes,I seemed to know that something had happened. I heard excited voices inthe kitchen--grandmother's was so shrill that I knew she must be almostbeside herself. I looked forward to any new crisis with delight. Whatcould it be, I wondered, as I hurried into my clothes. Perhaps the barnhad burned; perhaps the cattle had frozen to death; perhaps a neighbor waslost in the storm.
Down in the kitchen grandfather was standing before the stove with hishands behind him. Jake and Otto had taken off their boots and were rubbingtheir woolen socks. Their clothes and boots were steaming, and they bothlooked exhausted. On the bench behind the stove lay a man, covered up witha blanket. Grandmother motioned me to the dining-room. I obeyedreluctantly. I watched her as she came and went, carrying dishes. Her lipswere tightly compressed and she kept whispering to herself: "Oh, dearSaviour!" "Lord, Thou knowest!"
Presently grandfather came in and spoke to me: "Jimmy, we will not haveprayers this morning, because we have a great deal to do. Old Mr. Shimerdais dead, and his family are in great distress. Ambrosch came over here inthe middle of the night, and Jake and Otto went back with him. The boyshave had a hard night, and you must not bother them with questions. Thatis Ambrosch, asleep on the bench. Come in to breakfast, boys."
After Jake and Otto had swallowed their first cup of coffee, they began totalk excitedly, disregarding grandmother's warning glances. I held mytongue, but I listened with all my ears.
"No, sir," Fuchs said in answer to a question from grandfather, "nobodyheard the gun go off. Ambrosch was out with the ox team, trying to break aroad, and the women folks was shut up tight in their cave. When Ambroschcome in it was dark and he did n't see nothing, but the oxen acted kind ofqueer. One of 'em ripped around and got away from him--bolted clean out ofthe stable. His hands is blistered where the rope run through. He got alantern and went back and found the old man, just as we seen him."
"Poor soul, poor soul!" grandmother groaned. "I'd like to think he neverdone it. He was always considerate and un-wishful to give trouble. Howcould he forget himself and bring this on us!"
"I don't think he was out of his head for a minute, Mrs. Burden," Fuchsdeclared. "He done everything natural. You know he was always sort offixy, and fixy he was to the last. He shaved after dinner, and washedhisself all over after the girls was done the dishes. Antonia heated thewater for him. Then he put on a clean shirt and clean socks, and after hewas dressed he kissed her and the little one and took his gun and said hewas going out to hunt rabbits. He must have gone right down to the barnand done it then. He layed down on that bunk-bed, close to the ox stalls,where he always slept. When we found him, everything was decentexcept,"--Fuchs wrinkled his brow and hesitated,--"except what he could n'tnowise foresee. His coat was hung on a peg, and his boots was under thebed. He'd took off that silk neckcloth he always wore, and folded itsmooth and stuck his pin through it. He turned back his shirt at the neckand rolled up his sleeves."
"I don't see how he could do it!" grandmother kept saying.
Otto misunderstood her. "Why, mam, it was simple enough; he pulled thetrigger with his big toe. He layed over on his side and put the end of thebarrel in his mouth, then he drew up one foot and felt for the trigger. Hefound it all right!"
"Maybe he did," said Jake grimly. "There's something mighty queer aboutit."
"Now what do you mean, Jake?" grandmother asked sharply.
"Well, mam, I found Krajiek's axe under the manger, and I picks it up andcarries it over to the corpse, and I take my oath it just fit the gash inthe front of the old man's face. That there Krajiek had been sneakin'round, pale and quiet, and when he seen me examinin' the axe, he begunwhimperin', 'My God, man, don't do that!' 'I reckon I'm a-goin' to lookinto this,' says I. Then he begun to squeal like a rat and run aboutwringin' his hands. 'They'll hang me!' says he. 'My God, they'll hang mesure!'"
Fuchs spoke up impatiently. "Krajiek's gone silly, Jake, and so have you.The old man would n't have made all them preparations for Krajiek tomurder him, would he? It don't hang together. The gun was right beside himwhen Ambrosch found him."
"Krajiek could 'a' put it there, could n't he?" Jake demanded.
Grandmother broke in excitedly: "See here, Jake Marpole, don't you gotrying to add murder to suicide. We're deep enough in trouble. Otto readsyou too many of them detective stories."
"It will be easy to decide all that, Emmaline," said grandfather quietly."If he shot himself in the way they think, the gash will be torn from theinside outward."
"Just so it is, Mr. Burden," Otto affirmed. "I seen bunches of hair andstuff sticking to the poles and straw along the roof. They was blown upthere by gunshot, no question."
Grandmother told grandfather she meant to go over to the Shimerdas withhim.
"There is nothing you can do," he said doubtfully. "The body can't betouched until we get the coroner here from Black Hawk, and that will be amatter of several days, this weather."
"Well, I can take them some victuals, anyway, and say a word of comfort tothem poor little girls. The oldest one was his darling, and was like aright hand to him. He might have thought of her. He's left her alone in ahard world." She glanced distrustfully at Ambrosch, who was now eating hisbreakfast at the kitchen table.
Fuchs, although he had been up in the cold nearly all night, was going tomake the long ride to Black Hawk to fetch the priest and the coroner. Onthe gray gelding, our best horse, he would try to pick his way across thecountry with no roads to guide him.
"Don't you worry about me, Mrs. Burden," he said cheerfully, as he put ona second pair of socks. "I've got a good nose for directions, and I neverdid need much sleep. It's the gray I'm worried about. I'll save him what Ican, but it'll strain him, as sure as I'm telling you!"
"This is no time to be over-considerate of animals, Otto; do the best youcan for yourself. Stop at the Widow Steavens's for dinner. She's a goodwoman, and she'll do well by you."
After Fuchs rode away, I was left with Ambrosch. I saw a side of him I hadnot seen before. He was deeply, even slavishly, devout. He did not say aword all morning, but sat with his rosary in his hands, praying, nowsilently, now aloud. He never looked away from his beads, nor lifted hishands except to cross himself. Several times the poor boy fell asleepwhere he sat, wakened with a start, and began to pray again.
No wagon could be got to the Shimerdas' until a road was broken, and thatwould be a day's job. Grandfather came from the barn on one of our bigblack horses, and Jake lifted grandmother up behind him. She wore herblack hood and was bundled up in shawls. Grandfather tucked his bushywhite beard inside his overcoat. They looked very Biblical as they setoff, I thought. Jake and Ambrosch followed them, riding the other blackand my pony, carrying bundles of clothes that we had got together for Mrs.Shimerda. I watched them go past the pond and over the hill by the driftedcornfield. Then, for the first time, I realized that I was alone in thehouse.
I felt a considerable extension of power and authority, and was anxious toacquit myself creditably. I carried in cobs and wood from the long cellar,and filled both the stoves. I remembered that in the hurry and excitementof the morning nobody had thought of the chickens, and the eggs had notbeen gathered. Going out through the tunnel, I gave the hens their corn,emptied the ice from their drinking-pan, and filled it with water. Afterthe cat had had his milk, I could think of nothing else to do, and I satdown to get warm. The quiet was delightful, and the ticking clock was themost pleasant of companions. I got "Robinson Crusoe" and tried to read,but his life on the island seemed dull compared with ours. Presently, as Ilooked with satisfaction about our comfortable sitting-room, it flashedupon me that if Mr. Shimerda's soul were lingering about in this world atall, it would be here, in our house, which had been more to his likingthan any other in the neighborhood. I remembered his contented face whenhe was with us on Christmas Day. If he could have lived with us, thisterrible thing would never have happened.
I
knew it was homesickness that had killed Mr. Shimerda, and I wonderedwhether his released spirit would not eventually find its way back to hisown country. I thought of how far it was to Chicago, and then to Virginia,to Baltimore,--and then the great wintry ocean. No, he would not at onceset out upon that long journey. Surely, his exhausted spirit, so tired ofcold and crowding and the struggle with the ever-falling snow, was restingnow in this quiet house.
I was not frightened, but I made no noise. I did not wish to disturb him.I went softly down to the kitchen which, tucked away so snuglyunderground, always seemed to me the heart and center of the house. There,on the bench behind the stove, I thought and thought about Mr. Shimerda.Outside I could hear the wind singing over hundreds of miles of snow. Itwas as if I had let the old man in out of the tormenting winter, and weresitting there with him. I went over all that Antonia had ever told meabout his life before he came to this country; how he used to play thefiddle at weddings and dances. I thought about the friends he had mournedto leave, the trombone-player, the great forest full of game,--belonging,as Antonia said, to the "nobles,"--from which she and her mother used tosteal wood on moonlight nights. There was a white hart that lived in thatforest, and if any one killed it, he would be hanged, she said. Such vividpictures came to me that they might have been Mr. Shimerda's memories, notyet faded out from the air in which they had haunted him.
It had begun to grow dark when my household returned, and grandmother wasso tired that she went at once to bed. Jake and I got supper, and while wewere washing the dishes he told me in loud whispers about the state ofthings over at the Shimerdas'. Nobody could touch the body until thecoroner came. If any one did, something terrible would happen, apparently.The dead man was frozen through, "just as stiff as a dressed turkey youhang out to freeze," Jake said. The horses and oxen would not go into thebarn until he was frozen so hard that there was no longer any smell ofblood. They were stabled there now, with the dead man, because there wasno other place to keep them. A lighted lantern was kept hanging over Mr.Shimerda's head. Antonia and Ambrosch and the mother took turns going downto pray beside him. The crazy boy went with them, because he did not feelthe cold. I believed he felt cold as much as any one else, but he liked tobe thought insensible to it. He was always coveting distinction, poorMarek!
Ambrosch, Jake said, showed more human feeling than he would have supposedhim capable of; but he was chiefly concerned about getting a priest, andabout his father's soul, which he believed was in a place of torment andwould remain there until his family and the priest had prayed a great dealfor him. "As I understand it," Jake concluded, "it will be a matter ofyears to pray his soul out of Purgatory, and right now he's in torment."
"I don't believe it," I said stoutly. "I almost know it is n't true." Idid not, of course, say that I believed he had been in that very kitchenall afternoon, on his way back to his own country. Nevertheless, after Iwent to bed, this idea of punishment and Purgatory came back on mecrushingly. I remembered the account of Dives in torment, and shuddered.But Mr. Shimerda had not been rich and selfish; he had only been sounhappy that he could not live any longer.