by Willa Cather
XIV
THE DAY AFTER COMMENCEMENT I moved my books and desk upstairs, to anempty room where I should be undisturbed, and I fell to studying inearnest. I worked off a year's trigonometry that summer, and beganVirgil alone. Morning after morning I used to pace up and down my sunnylittle room, looking off at the distant river bluffs and the roll of theblond pastures between, scanning the 'Aeneid' aloud and committing longpassages to memory. Sometimes in the evening Mrs. Harling called to meas I passed her gate, and asked me to come in and let her play for me.She was lonely for Charley, she said, and liked to have a boy about.Whenever my grandparents had misgivings, and began to wonder whether Iwas not too young to go off to college alone, Mrs. Harling took up mycause vigorously. Grandfather had such respect for her judgment that Iknew he would not go against her.
I had only one holiday that summer. It was in July. I met Antoniadowntown on Saturday afternoon, and learned that she and Tiny and Lenawere going to the river next day with Anna Hansen--the elder was all inbloom now, and Anna wanted to make elderblow wine.
'Anna's to drive us down in the Marshalls' delivery wagon, and we'lltake a nice lunch and have a picnic. Just us; nobody else. Couldn't youhappen along, Jim? It would be like old times.'
I considered a moment. 'Maybe I can, if I won't be in the way.'
On Sunday morning I rose early and got out of Black Hawk while the dewwas still heavy on the long meadow grasses. It was the high season forsummer flowers. The pink bee-bush stood tall along the sandy roadsides,and the cone-flowers and rose mallow grew everywhere. Across the wirefence, in the long grass, I saw a clump of flaming orange-colouredmilkweed, rare in that part of the state. I left the road and wentaround through a stretch of pasture that was always cropped short insummer, where the gaillardia came up year after year and matted overthe ground with the deep, velvety red that is in Bokhara carpets. Thecountry was empty and solitary except for the larks that Sunday morning,and it seemed to lift itself up to me and to come very close.
The river was running strong for midsummer; heavy rains to the west ofus had kept it full. I crossed the bridge and went upstream alongthe wooded shore to a pleasant dressing-room I knew among the dogwoodbushes, all overgrown with wild grapevines. I began to undress for aswim. The girls would not be along yet. For the first time it occurredto me that I should be homesick for that river after I left it. Thesandbars, with their clean white beaches and their little groves ofwillows and cottonwood seedlings, were a sort of No Man's Land, littlenewly created worlds that belonged to the Black Hawk boys. CharleyHarling and I had hunted through these woods, fished from the fallenlogs, until I knew every inch of the river shores and had a friendlyfeeling for every bar and shallow.
After my swim, while I was playing about indolently in the water, Iheard the sound of hoofs and wheels on the bridge. I struck downstreamand shouted, as the open spring wagon came into view on the middle span.They stopped the horse, and the two girls in the bottom of the cartstood up, steadying themselves by the shoulders of the two in front,so that they could see me better. They were charming up there, huddledtogether in the cart and peering down at me like curious deer when theycome out of the thicket to drink. I found bottom near the bridge andstood up, waving to them.
'How pretty you look!' I called.
'So do you!' they shouted altogether, and broke into peals of laughter.Anna Hansen shook the reins and they drove on, while I zigzagged back tomy inlet and clambered up behind an overhanging elm. I dried myself inthe sun, and dressed slowly, reluctant to leave that green enclosurewhere the sunlight flickered so bright through the grapevine leaves andthe woodpecker hammered away in the crooked elm that trailed out overthe water. As I went along the road back to the bridge, I kept pickingoff little pieces of scaly chalk from the dried water gullies, andbreaking them up in my hands.
When I came upon the Marshalls' delivery horse, tied in the shade, thegirls had already taken their baskets and gone down the east road whichwound through the sand and scrub. I could hear them calling to eachother. The elder bushes did not grow back in the shady ravines betweenthe bluffs, but in the hot, sandy bottoms along the stream, where theirroots were always in moisture and their tops in the sun. The blossomswere unusually luxuriant and beautiful that summer.
I followed a cattle path through the thick under-brush until I came to aslope that fell away abruptly to the water's edge. A great chunk ofthe shore had been bitten out by some spring freshet, and the scar wasmasked by elder bushes, growing down to the water in flowery terraces. Idid not touch them. I was overcome by content and drowsiness and by thewarm silence about me. There was no sound but the high, singsong buzzof wild bees and the sunny gurgle of the water underneath. I peeped overthe edge of the bank to see the little stream that made the noise; itflowed along perfectly clear over the sand and gravel, cut off from themuddy main current by a long sandbar. Down there, on the lower shelf ofthe bank, I saw Antonia, seated alone under the pagoda-like elders. Shelooked up when she heard me, and smiled, but I saw that she had beencrying. I slid down into the soft sand beside her and asked her what wasthe matter.
'It makes me homesick, Jimmy, this flower, this smell,' she said softly.'We have this flower very much at home, in the old country. It alwaysgrew in our yard and my papa had a green bench and a table under thebushes. In summer, when they were in bloom, he used to sit there withhis friend that played the trombone. When I was little I used to go downthere to hear them talk--beautiful talk, like what I never hear in thiscountry.'
'What did they talk about?' I asked her.
She sighed and shook her head. 'Oh, I don't know! About music, andthe woods, and about God, and when they were young.' She turned tome suddenly and looked into my eyes. 'You think, Jimmy, that maybe myfather's spirit can go back to those old places?'
I told her about the feeling of her father's presence I had on thatwinter day when my grandparents had gone over to see his dead body and Iwas left alone in the house. I said I felt sure then that he was on hisway back to his own country, and that even now, when I passed his grave,I always thought of him as being among the woods and fields that were sodear to him.
Antonia had the most trusting, responsive eyes in the world; love andcredulousness seemed to look out of them with open faces.
'Why didn't you ever tell me that before? It makes me feel more sure forhim.' After a while she said: 'You know, Jim, my father was differentfrom my mother. He did not have to marry my mother, and all his brothersquarrelled with him because he did. I used to hear the old people athome whisper about it. They said he could have paid my mother money, andnot married her. But he was older than she was, and he was too kind totreat her like that. He lived in his mother's house, and she was a poorgirl come in to do the work. After my father married her, my grandmothernever let my mother come into her house again. When I went to mygrandmother's funeral was the only time I was ever in my grandmother'shouse. Don't that seem strange?'
While she talked, I lay back in the hot sand and looked up at the bluesky between the flat bouquets of elder. I could hear the bees hummingand singing, but they stayed up in the sun above the flowers and did notcome down into the shadow of the leaves. Antonia seemed to me that dayexactly like the little girl who used to come to our house with Mr.Shimerda.
'Some day, Tony, I am going over to your country, and I am going to thelittle town where you lived. Do you remember all about it?'
'Jim,' she said earnestly, 'if I was put down there in the middle ofthe night, I could find my way all over that little town; and along theriver to the next town, where my grandmother lived. My feet remember allthe little paths through the woods, and where the big roots stick out totrip you. I ain't never forgot my own country.'
There was a crackling in the branches above us, and Lena Lingard peereddown over the edge of the bank.
'You lazy things!' she cried. 'All this elder, and you two lying there!Didn't you hear us calling you?' Almost as flushed as she had been inmy dream, she leaned over the edge of the
bank and began to demolish ourflowery pagoda. I had never seen her so energetic; she was panting withzeal, and the perspiration stood in drops on her short, yielding upperlip. I sprang to my feet and ran up the bank.
It was noon now, and so hot that the dogwoods and scrub-oaks beganto turn up the silvery underside of their leaves, and all the foliagelooked soft and wilted. I carried the lunch-basket to the top of oneof the chalk bluffs, where even on the calmest days there was always abreeze. The flat-topped, twisted little oaks threw light shadows on thegrass. Below us we could see the windings of the river, and Black Hawk,grouped among its trees, and, beyond, the rolling country, swellinggently until it met the sky. We could recognize familiar farm-houses andwindmills. Each of the girls pointed out to me the direction in whichher father's farm lay, and told me how many acres were in wheat thatyear and how many in corn.
'My old folks,' said Tiny Soderball, 'have put in twenty acres of rye.They get it ground at the mill, and it makes nice bread. It seems likemy mother ain't been so homesick, ever since father's raised rye flourfor her.'
'It must have been a trial for our mothers,' said Lena, 'coming out hereand having to do everything different. My mother had always lived intown. She says she started behind in farm-work, and never has caughtup.'
'Yes, a new country's hard on the old ones, sometimes,' said Annathoughtfully. 'My grandmother's getting feeble now, and her mindwanders. She's forgot about this country, and thinks she's at home inNorway. She keeps asking mother to take her down to the waterside andthe fish market. She craves fish all the time. Whenever I go home I takeher canned salmon and mackerel.'
'Mercy, it's hot!' Lena yawned. She was supine under a little oak,resting after the fury of her elder-hunting, and had taken off thehigh-heeled slippers she had been silly enough to wear. 'Come here, Jim.You never got the sand out of your hair.' She began to draw her fingersslowly through my hair.
Antonia pushed her away. 'You'll never get it out like that,' she saidsharply. She gave my head a rough touzling and finished me off withsomething like a box on the ear. 'Lena, you oughtn't to try to wearthose slippers any more. They're too small for your feet. You'd bettergive them to me for Yulka.'
'All right,' said Lena good-naturedly, tucking her white stockings underher skirt. 'You get all Yulka's things, don't you? I wish father didn'thave such bad luck with his farm machinery; then I could buy more thingsfor my sisters. I'm going to get Mary a new coat this fall, if the sulkyplough's never paid for!'
Tiny asked her why she didn't wait until after Christmas, when coatswould be cheaper. 'What do you think of poor me?' she added; 'with sixat home, younger than I am? And they all think I'm rich, because when Igo back to the country I'm dressed so fine!' She shrugged her shoulders.'But, you know, my weakness is playthings. I like to buy them playthingsbetter than what they need.'
'I know how that is,' said Anna. 'When we first came here, and I waslittle, we were too poor to buy toys. I never got over the loss of adoll somebody gave me before we left Norway. A boy on the boat broke herand I still hate him for it.'
'I guess after you got here you had plenty of live dolls to nurse, likeme!' Lena remarked cynically.
'Yes, the babies came along pretty fast, to be sure. But I never minded.I was fond of them all. The youngest one, that we didn't any of us want,is the one we love best now.'
Lena sighed. 'Oh, the babies are all right; if only they don't come inwinter. Ours nearly always did. I don't see how mother stood it. I tellyou what, girls'--she sat up with sudden energy--'I'm going to get mymother out of that old sod house where she's lived so many years. Themen will never do it. Johnnie, that's my oldest brother, he's wanting toget married now, and build a house for his girl instead of his mother.Mrs. Thomas says she thinks I can move to some other town pretty soon,and go into business for myself. If I don't get into business, I'llmaybe marry a rich gambler.'
'That would be a poor way to get on,' said Anna sarcastically. 'I wishI could teach school, like Selma Kronn. Just think! She'll be the firstScandinavian girl to get a position in the high school. We ought to beproud of her.'
Selma was a studious girl, who had not much tolerance for giddy thingslike Tiny and Lena; but they always spoke of her with admiration.
Tiny moved about restlessly, fanning herself with her straw hat. 'If Iwas smart like her, I'd be at my books day and night. But she was bornsmart--and look how her father's trained her! He was something high upin the old country.'
'So was my mother's father,' murmured Lena, 'but that's all the good itdoes us! My father's father was smart, too, but he was wild. He marrieda Lapp. I guess that's what's the matter with me; they say Lapp bloodwill out.'
'A real Lapp, Lena?' I exclaimed. 'The kind that wear skins?'
'I don't know if she wore skins, but she was a Lapps all right, and hisfolks felt dreadful about it. He was sent up North on some governmentjob he had, and fell in with her. He would marry her.'
'But I thought Lapland women were fat and ugly, and had squint eyes,like Chinese?' I objected.
'I don't know, maybe. There must be something mighty taking about theLapp girls, though; mother says the Norwegians up North are alwaysafraid their boys will run after them.'
In the afternoon, when the heat was less oppressive, we had a livelygame of 'Pussy Wants a Corner,' on the flat bluff-top, with the littletrees for bases. Lena was Pussy so often that she finally said shewouldn't play any more. We threw ourselves down on the grass, out ofbreath.
'Jim,' Antonia said dreamily, 'I want you to tell the girls about howthe Spanish first came here, like you and Charley Harling used to talkabout. I've tried to tell them, but I leave out so much.'
They sat under a little oak, Tony resting against the trunk and theother girls leaning against her and each other, and listened to thelittle I was able to tell them about Coronado and his search for theSeven Golden Cities. At school we were taught that he had not got so farnorth as Nebraska, but had given up his quest and turned back somewherein Kansas. But Charley Harling and I had a strong belief that he hadbeen along this very river. A farmer in the county north of ours, whenhe was breaking sod, had turned up a metal stirrup of fine workmanship,and a sword with a Spanish inscription on the blade. He lent theserelics to Mr. Harling, who brought them home with him. Charley and Iscoured them, and they were on exhibition in the Harling office allsummer. Father Kelly, the priest, had found the name of the Spanishmaker on the sword and an abbreviation that stood for the city ofCordova.
'And that I saw with my own eyes,' Antonia put in triumphantly. 'So Jimand Charley were right, and the teachers were wrong!'
The girls began to wonder among themselves. Why had the Spaniards comeso far? What must this country have been like, then? Why had Coronadonever gone back to Spain, to his riches and his castles and his king?I couldn't tell them. I only knew the schoolbooks said he 'died in thewilderness, of a broken heart.'
'More than him has done that,' said Antonia sadly, and the girlsmurmured assent.
We sat looking off across the country, watching the sun go down. Thecurly grass about us was on fire now. The bark of the oaks turned redas copper. There was a shimmer of gold on the brown river. Out in thestream the sandbars glittered like glass, and the light trembled in thewillow thickets as if little flames were leaping among them. The breezesank to stillness. In the ravine a ringdove mourned plaintively, andsomewhere off in the bushes an owl hooted. The girls sat listless,leaning against each other. The long fingers of the sun touched theirforeheads.
Presently we saw a curious thing: There were no clouds, the sun wasgoing down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of thered disk rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great blackfigure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet,straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. Onsome upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. Thesun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by thehorizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exact
ly containedwithin the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share--blackagainst the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writingon the sun.
Even while we whispered about it, our vision disappeared; the balldropped and dropped until the red tip went beneath the earth. The fieldsbelow us were dark, the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten ploughhad sunk back to its own littleness somewhere on the prairie.