My Ántonia, Page 3

  I

  I FIRST heard of Antonia(1) on what seemed to me an interminable journeyacross the great midland plain of North America. I was ten years old then;I had lost both my father and mother within a year, and my Virginiarelatives were sending me out to my grandparents, who lived in Nebraska. Itraveled in the care of a mountain boy, Jake Marpole, one of the "hands"on my father's old farm under the Blue Ridge, who was now going West towork for my grandfather. Jake's experience of the world was not much widerthan mine. He had never been in a railway train until the morning when weset out together to try our fortunes in a new world.

  We went all the way in day-coaches, becoming more sticky and grimy witheach stage of the journey. Jake bought everything the newsboys offeredhim: candy, oranges, brass collar buttons, a watch-charm, and for me a"Life of Jesse James," which I remember as one of the most satisfactorybooks I have ever read. Beyond Chicago we were under the protection of afriendly passenger conductor, who knew all about the country to which wewere going and gave us a great deal of advice in exchange for ourconfidence. He seemed to us an experienced and worldly man who had beenalmost everywhere; in his conversation he threw out lightly the names ofdistant States and cities. He wore the rings and pins and badges ofdifferent fraternal orders to which he belonged. Even his cuff-buttonswere engraved with hieroglyphics, and he was more inscribed than anEgyptian obelisk. Once when he sat down to chat, he told us that in theimmigrant car ahead there was a family from "across the water" whosedestination was the same as ours.

  "They can't any of them speak English, except one little girl, and all shecan say is 'We go Black Hawk, Nebraska.' She's not much older than you,twelve or thirteen, maybe, and she's as bright as a new dollar. Don't youwant to go ahead and see her, Jimmy? She's got the pretty brown eyes,too!"

  This last remark made me bashful, and I shook my head and settled down to"Jesse James." Jake nodded at me approvingly and said you were likely toget diseases from foreigners.

  I do not remember crossing the Missouri River, or anything about the longday's journey through Nebraska. Probably by that time I had crossed somany rivers that I was dull to them. The only thing very noticeable aboutNebraska was that it was still, all day long, Nebraska.

  I had been sleeping, curled up in a red plush seat, for a long while whenwe reached Black Hawk. Jake roused me and took me by the hand. We stumbleddown from the train to a wooden siding, where men were running about withlanterns. I could n't see any town, or even distant lights; we weresurrounded by utter darkness. The engine was panting heavily after itslong run. In the red glow from the fire-box, a group of people stoodhuddled together on the platform, encumbered by bundles and boxes. I knewthis must be the immigrant family the conductor had told us about. Thewoman wore a fringed shawl tied over her head, and she carried a littletin trunk in her arms, hugging it as if it were a baby. There was an oldman, tall and stooped. Two half-grown boys and a girl stood holdingoil-cloth bundles, and a little girl clung to her mother's skirts.Presently a man with a lantern approached them and began to talk, shoutingand exclaiming. I pricked up my ears, for it was positively the first timeI had ever heard a foreign tongue.

  Another lantern came along. A bantering voice called out: "Hello, are youMr. Burden's folks? If you are, it's me you're looking for. I'm OttoFuchs. I'm Mr. Burden's hired man, and I'm to drive you out. Hello, Jimmy,ain't you scared to come so far west?"

  Immigrant family huddled together on the train platform]

  I looked up with interest at the new face in the lantern light. He mighthave stepped out of the pages of "Jesse James." He wore a sombrero hat,with a wide leather band and a bright buckle, and the ends of his mustachewere twisted up stiffly, like little horns. He looked lively andferocious, I thought, and as if he had a history. A long scar ran acrossone cheek and drew the corner of his mouth up in a sinister curl. The topof his left ear was gone, and his skin was brown as an Indian's. Surelythis was the face of a desperado. As he walked about the platform in hishigh-heeled boots, looking for our trunks, I saw that he was a ratherslight man, quick and wiry, and light on his feet. He told us we had along night drive ahead of us, and had better be on the hike. He led us toa hitching-bar where two farm wagons were tied, and I saw the foreignfamily crowding into one of them. The other was for us. Jake got on thefront seat with Otto Fuchs, and I rode on the straw in the bottom of thewagon-box, covered up with a buffalo hide. The immigrants rumbled off intothe empty darkness, and we followed them.

  I tried to go to sleep, but the jolting made me bite my tongue, and I soonbegan to ache all over. When the straw settled down I had a hard bed.Cautiously I slipped from under the buffalo hide, got up on my knees andpeered over the side of the wagon. There seemed to be nothing to see; nofences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, Icould not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land:not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.No, there was nothing but land--slightly undulating, I knew, because oftenour wheels ground against the brake as we went down into a hollow andlurched up again on the other side. I had the feeling that the world wasleft behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man'sjurisdiction. I had never before looked up at the sky when there was not afamiliar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome ofheaven, all there was of it. I did not believe that my dead father andmother were watching me from up there; they would still be looking for meat the sheep-fold down by the creek, or along the white road that led tothe mountain pastures. I had left even their spirits behind me. The wagonjolted on, carrying me I knew not whither. I don't think I was homesick.If we never arrived anywhere, it did not matter. Between that earth andthat sky I felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers that night:here, I felt, what would be would be.