by Willa Cather
IV
HOW well I remember the stiff little parlor where I used to wait for Lena:the hard horsehair furniture, bought at some auction sale, the longmirror, the fashion-plates on the wall. If I sat down even for a moment Iwas sure to find threads and bits of colored silk clinging to my clothesafter I went away. Lena's success puzzled me. She was so easy-going; hadnone of the push and self-assertiveness that get people ahead in business.She had come to Lincoln, a country girl, with no introductions except tosome cousins of Mrs. Thomas who lived there, and she was already makingclothes for the women of "the young married set." She evidently had greatnatural aptitude for her work. She knew, as she said, "what people lookedwell in." She never tired of poring over fashion books. Sometimes in theevening I would find her alone in her work-room, draping folds of satin ona wire figure, with a quite blissful expression of countenance. I couldn't help thinking that the years when Lena literally had n't enoughclothes to cover herself might have something to do with her untiringinterest in dressing the human figure. Her clients said that Lena "hadstyle," and overlooked her habitual inaccuracies. She never, I discovered,finished anything by the time she had promised, and she frequently spentmore money on materials than her customer had authorized. Once, when Iarrived at six o'clock, Lena was ushering out a fidgety mother and herawkward, overgrown daughter. The woman detained Lena at the door to sayapologetically:--
"You'll try to keep it under fifty for me, won't you, Miss Lingard? Yousee, she's really too young to come to an expensive dressmaker, but I knewyou could do more with her than anybody else."
"Oh, that will be all right, Mrs. Herron. I think we'll manage to get agood effect," Lena replied blandly.
I thought her manner with her customers very good, and wondered where shehad learned such self-possession.
Sometimes after my morning classes were over, I used to encounter Lenadowntown, in her velvet suit and a little black hat, with a veil tiedsmoothly over her face, looking as fresh as the spring morning. Maybe shewould be carrying home a bunch of jonquils or a hyacinth plant. When wepassed a candy store her footsteps would hesitate and linger. "Don't letme go in," she would murmur. "Get me by if you can." She was very fond ofsweets, and was afraid of growing too plump.
We had delightful Sunday breakfasts together at Lena's. At the back of herlong work-room was a bay-window, large enough to hold a box-couch and areading-table. We breakfasted in this recess, after drawing the curtainsthat shut out the long room, with cutting-tables and wire women andsheet-draped garments on the walls. The sunlight poured in, makingeverything on the table shine and glitter and the flame of the alcohollamp disappear altogether. Lena's curly black water-spaniel, Prince,breakfasted with us. He sat beside her on the couch and behaved very welluntil the Polish violin-teacher across the hall began to practice, whenPrince would growl and sniff the air with disgust. Lena's landlord, oldColonel Raleigh, had given her the dog, and at first she was not at allpleased. She had spent too much of her life taking care of animals to havemuch sentiment about them. But Prince was a knowing little beast, and shegrew fond of him. After breakfast I made him do his lessons; play deaddog, shake hands, stand up like a soldier. We used to put my cadet cap onhis head--I had to take military drill at the University--and give him ayard-measure to hold with his front leg. His gravity made us laughimmoderately.
Lena's talk always amused me. Antonia had never talked like the peopleabout her. Even after she learned to speak English readily there wasalways something impulsive and foreign in her speech. But Lena had pickedup all the conventional expressions she heard at Mrs. Thomas's dressmakingshop. Those formal phrases, the very flower of small-town proprieties, andthe flat commonplaces, nearly all hypocritical in their origin, becamevery funny, very engaging, when they were uttered in Lena's soft voice,with her caressing intonation and arch naivete. Nothing could be morediverting than to hear Lena, who was almost as candid as Nature, call aleg a "limb" or a house a "home."
We used to linger a long while over our coffee in that sunny corner. Lenawas never so pretty as in the morning; she wakened fresh with the worldevery day, and her eyes had a deeper color then, like the blue flowersthat are never so blue as when they first open. I could sit idle allthrough a Sunday morning and look at her. Ole Benson's behavior was now nomystery to me.
"There was never any harm in Ole," she said once. "People need n't havetroubled themselves. He just liked to come over and sit on the draw-sideand forget about his bad luck. I liked to have him. Any company's welcomewhen you're off with cattle all the time."
"But was n't he always glum?" I asked. "People said he never talked atall."
"Sure he talked, in Norwegian. He'd been a sailor on an English boat andhad seen lots of queer places. He had wonderful tattoos. We used to sitand look at them for hours; there was n't much to look at out there. Hewas like a picture book. He had a ship and a strawberry girl on one arm,and on the other a girl standing before a little house, with a fence andgate and all, waiting for her sweetheart. Farther up his arm, her sailorhad come back and was kissing her. 'The Sailor's Return,' he called it."
I admitted it was no wonder Ole liked to look at a pretty girl once in awhile, with such a fright at home.
"You know," Lena said confidentially, "he married Mary because he thoughtshe was strong-minded and would keep him straight. He never could keepstraight on shore. The last time he landed in Liverpool he'd been out on atwo years' voyage. He was paid off one morning, and by the next he had n'ta cent left, and his watch and compass were gone. He'd got with somewomen, and they'd taken everything. He worked his way to this country on alittle passenger boat. Mary was a stewardess, and she tried to convert himon the way over. He thought she was just the one to keep him steady. PoorOle! He used to bring me candy from town, hidden in his feed-bag. He couldn't refuse anything to a girl. He'd have given away his tattoos long ago,if he could. He's one of the people I'm sorriest for."
If I happened to spend an evening with Lena and stayed late, the Polishviolin-teacher across the hall used to come out and watch me descend thestairs, muttering so threateningly that it would have been easy to fallinto a quarrel with him. Lena had told him once that she liked to hear himpractice, so he always left his door open, and watched who came and went.
There was a coolness between the Pole and Lena's landlord on her account.Old Colonel Raleigh had come to Lincoln from Kentucky and invested aninherited fortune in real estate, at the time of inflated prices. Now hesat day after day in his office in the Raleigh Block, trying to discoverwhere his money had gone and how he could get some of it back. He was awidower, and found very little congenial companionship in this casualWestern city. Lena's good looks and gentle manners appealed to him. Hesaid her voice reminded him of Southern voices, and he found as manyopportunities of hearing it as possible. He painted and papered her roomsfor her that spring, and put in a porcelain bathtub in place of the tinone that had satisfied the former tenant. While these repairs were beingmade, the old gentleman often dropped in to consult Lena's preferences.She told me with amusement how Ordinsky, the Pole, had presented himselfat her door one evening, and said that if the landlord was annoying her byhis attentions, he would promptly put a stop to it.
"I don't exactly know what to do about him," she said, shaking her head,"he's so sort of wild all the time. I would n't like to have him sayanything rough to that nice old man. The Colonel is long-winded, but thenI expect he's lonesome. I don't think he cares much for Ordinsky, either.He said once that if I had any complaints to make of my neighbors, I mustn't hesitate."
One Saturday evening when I was having supper with Lena we heard a knockat her parlor door, and there stood the Pole, coatless, in a dress shirtand collar. Prince dropped on his paws and began to growl like a mastiff,while the visitor apologized, saying that he could not possibly come inthus attired, but he begged Lena to lend him some safety pins.
"Oh, you'll have to come in, Mr. Ordinsky, and let me see what's thematter." She closed the door behind him. "Jim
, won't you make Princebehave?"
I rapped Prince on the nose, while Ordinsky explained that he had not hadhis dress clothes on for a long time, and to-night, when he was going toplay for a concert, his waistcoat had split down the back. He thought hecould pin it together until he got it to a tailor.
Lena took him by the elbow and turned him round. She laughed when she sawthe long gap in the satin. "You could never pin that, Mr. Ordinsky. You'vekept it folded too long, and the goods is all gone along the crease. Takeit off. I can put a new piece of lining-silk in there for you in tenminutes." She disappeared into her work-room with the vest, leaving me toconfront the Pole, who stood against the door like a wooden figure. Hefolded his arms and glared at me with his excitable, slanting brown eyes.His head was the shape of a chocolate drop, and was covered with dry,straw-colored hair that fuzzed up about his pointed crown. He had neverdone more than mutter at me as I passed him, and I was surprised when henow addressed me.
"Miss Lingard," he said haughtily, "is a young woman for whom I have theutmost, the utmost respect."
"So have I," I said coldly.
He paid no heed to my remark, but began to do rapid finger-exercises onhis shirt-sleeves, as he stood with tightly folded arms.
"Kindness of heart," he went on, staring at the ceiling, "sentiment, arenot understood in a place like this. The noblest qualities are ridiculed.Grinning college boys, ignorant and conceited, what do they know ofdelicacy!"
I controlled my features and tried to speak seriously.
"If you mean me, Mr. Ordinsky, I have known Miss Lingard a long time, andI think I appreciate her kindness. We come from the same town, and we grewup together."
His gaze traveled slowly down from the ceiling and rested on me. "Am I tounderstand that you have this young woman's interests at heart? That youdo not wish to compromise her?"
"That's a word we don't use much here, Mr. Ordinsky. A girl who makes herown living can ask a college boy to supper without being talked about. Wetake some things for granted."
"Then I have misjudged you, and I ask your pardon,"--he bowed gravely."Miss Lingard," he went on, "is an absolutely trustful heart. She has notlearned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige,"--hewatched me narrowly.
Lena returned with the vest. "Come in and let us look at you as you goout, Mr. Ordinsky. I've never seen you in your dress suit," she said asshe opened the door for him.
A few moments later he reappeared with his violin case--a heavy mufflerabout his neck and thick woolen gloves on his bony hands. Lena spokeencouragingly to him, and he went off with such an important, professionalair, that we fell to laughing as soon as we had shut the door. "Poorfellow," Lena said indulgently, "he takes everything so hard."
After that Ordinsky was friendly to me, and behaved as if there were somedeep understanding between us. He wrote a furious article, attacking themusical taste of the town, and asked me to do him a great service bytaking it to the editor of the morning paper. If the editor refused toprint it, I was to tell him that he would be answerable to Ordinsky "inperson." He declared that he would never retract one word, and that he wasquite prepared to lose all his pupils. In spite of the fact that nobodyever mentioned his article to him after it appeared--full of typographicalerrors which he thought intentional--he got a certain satisfaction frombelieving that the citizens of Lincoln had meekly accepted the epithet"coarse barbarians." "You see how it is," he said to me, "where there isno chivalry, there is no amour propre." When I met him on his rounds now,I thought he carried his head more disdainfully than ever, and strode upthe steps of front porches and rang doorbells with more assurance. He toldLena he would never forget how I had stood by him when he was "underfire."
All this time, of course, I was drifting. Lena had broken up my seriousmood. I was n't interested in my classes. I played with Lena and Prince, Iplayed with the Pole, I went buggy-riding with the old Colonel, who hadtaken a fancy to me and used to talk to me about Lena and the "greatbeauties" he had known in his youth. We were all three in love with Lena.
Before the first of June, Gaston Cleric was offered an instructorship atHarvard College, and accepted it. He suggested that I should follow him inthe fall, and complete my course at Harvard. He had found out aboutLena--not from me--and he talked to me seriously.
"You won't do anything here now. You should either quit school and go towork, or change your college and begin again in earnest. You won't recoveryourself while you are playing about with this handsome Norwegian. Yes,I've seen her with you at the theater. She's very pretty, and perfectlyirresponsible, I should judge."
Cleric wrote my grandfather that he would like to take me East with him.To my astonishment, grandfather replied that I might go if I wished. I wasboth glad and sorry on the day when the letter came. I stayed in my roomall evening and thought things over; I even tried to persuade myself thatI was standing in Lena's way--it is so necessary to be a little noble!--andthat if she had not me to play with, she would probably marry and secureher future.
The next evening I went to call on Lena. I found her propped up on thecouch in her bay window, with her foot in a big slipper. An awkward littleRussian girl whom she had taken into her work-room had dropped a flat-ironon Lena's toe. On the table beside her there was a basket of early summerflowers which the Pole had left after he heard of the accident. He alwaysmanaged to know what went on in Lena's apartment.
Lena was telling me some amusing piece of gossip about one of her clients,when I interrupted her and picked up the flower basket.
"This old chap will be proposing to you some day, Lena."
"Oh, he has--often!" she murmured.
"What! After you've refused him?"
"He does n't mind that. It seems to cheer him to mention the subject. Oldmen are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they'rein love with somebody."
"The Colonel would marry you in a minute. I hope you won't marry some oldfellow; not even a rich one."
Lena shifted her pillows and looked up at me in surprise. "Why, I'm notgoing to marry anybody. Did n't you know that?"
"Nonsense, Lena. That's what girls say, but you know better. Everyhandsome girl like you marries, of course."
She shook her head. "Not me."
"But why not? What makes you say that?" I persisted.
Lena laughed. "Well, it's mainly because I don't want a husband. Men areall right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into crankyold fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensibleand what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I preferto be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody."
"But you'll be lonesome. You'll get tired of this sort of life, and you'llwant a family."
"Not me. I like to be lonesome. When I went to work for Mrs. Thomas I wasnineteen years old, and I had never slept a night in my life when therewere n't three in the bed. I never had a minute to myself except when Iwas off with the cattle."
Usually, when Lena referred to her life in the country at all, shedismissed it with a single remark, humorous or mildly cynical. Butto-night her mind seemed to dwell on those early years. She told me shecould n't remember a time when she was so little that she was n't lugginga heavy baby about, helping to wash for babies, trying to keep theirlittle chapped hands and faces clean. She remembered home as a place wherethere were always too many children, a cross man, and work piling uparound a sick woman.
"It was n't mother's fault. She would have made us comfortable if shecould. But that was no life for a girl! After I began to herd and milk Icould never get the smell of the cattle off me. The few underclothes I hadI kept in a cracker box. On Saturday nights, after everybody was in bed,then I could take a bath if I was n't too tired. I could make two trips tothe windmill to carry water, and heat it in the wash-boiler on the stove.While the water was heating, I could bring in a washtub out of the cave,and take my bath in the kitchen. Then I could put on a clean nightgown andget into bed with
two others, who likely had n't had a bath unless I'dgiven it to them. You can't tell me anything about family life. I've hadplenty to last me."
"But it's not all like that," I objected.
"Near enough. It's all being under somebody's thumb. What's on your mind,Jim? Are you afraid I'll want you to marry me some day?"
Then I told her I was going away.
"What makes you want to go away, Jim? Have n't I been nice to you?"
"You've been just awfully good to me, Lena," I blurted. "I don't thinkabout much else. I never shall think about much else while I'm with you.I'll never settle down and grind if I stay here. You know that." I droppeddown beside her and sat looking at the floor. I seemed to have forgottenall my reasonable explanations.
Lena drew close to me, and the little hesitation in her voice that hadhurt me was not there when she spoke again.
"I ought n't to have begun it, ought I?" she murmured. "I ought n't tohave gone to see you that first time. But I did want to. I guess I'vealways been a little foolish about you. I don't know what first put itinto my head, unless it was Antonia, always telling me I must n't be up toany of my nonsense with you. I let you alone for a long while, though, didn't I?"
She was a sweet creature to those she loved, that Lena Lingard!
At last she sent me away with her soft, slow, renunciatory kiss. "You aren't sorry I came to see you that time?" she whispered. "It seemed sonatural. I used to think I'd like to be your first sweetheart. You weresuch a funny kid!" She always kissed one as if she were sadly and wiselysending one away forever.
We said many good-byes before I left Lincoln, but she never tried tohinder me or hold me back. "You are going, but you have n't gone yet, haveyou?" she used to say.
My Lincoln chapter closed abruptly. I went home to my grandparents for afew weeks, and afterward visited my relatives in Virginia until I joinedCleric in Boston. I was then nineteen years old.
BOOK IV--THE PIONEER WOMAN'S STORY