My Antonia, Page 29

  IX

  THERE WAS A CURIOUS social situation in Black Hawk. All the young menfelt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had cometo town to earn a living, and, in nearly every case, to help the fatherstruggle out of debt, or to make it possible for the younger children ofthe family to go to school.

  Those girls had grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and had gotlittle schooling themselves. But the younger brothers and sisters, forwhom they made such sacrifices and who have had 'advantages,' never seemto me, when I meet them now, half as interesting or as well educated.The older girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so muchfrom life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they hadall, like Antonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at atender age from an old country to a new.

  I can remember a score of these country girls who were in servicein Black Hawk during the few years I lived there, and I can remembersomething unusual and engaging about each of them. Physically they werealmost a race apart, and out-of-door work had given them a vigour which,when they got over their first shyness on coming to town, developed intoa positive carriage and freedom of movement, and made them conspicuousamong Black Hawk women.

  That was before the day of high-school athletics. Girls who had towalk more than half a mile to school were pitied. There was not atennis-court in the town; physical exercise was thought rather inelegantfor the daughters of well-to-do families. Some of the high-school girlswere jolly and pretty, but they stayed indoors in winter because ofthe cold, and in summer because of the heat. When one danced with them,their bodies never moved inside their clothes; their muscles seemed toask but one thing--not to be disturbed. I remember those girls merelyas faces in the schoolroom, gay and rosy, or listless and dull, cut offbelow the shoulders, like cherubs, by the ink-smeared tops of thehigh desks that were surely put there to make us round-shouldered andhollow-chested.

  The daughters of Black Hawk merchants had a confident, unenquiringbelief that they were 'refined,' and that the country girls, who'worked out,' were not. The American farmers in our county were quiteas hard-pressed as their neighbours from other countries. All alike hadcome to Nebraska with little capital and no knowledge of the soil theymust subdue. All had borrowed money on their land. But no matter in whatstraits the Pennsylvanian or Virginian found himself, he would notlet his daughters go out into service. Unless his girls could teach acountry school, they sat at home in poverty.

  The Bohemian and Scandinavian girls could not get positions as teachers,because they had had no opportunity to learn the language. Determinedto help in the struggle to clear the homestead from debt, they had noalternative but to go into service. Some of them, after they came totown, remained as serious and as discreet in behaviour as they had beenwhen they ploughed and herded on their father's farm. Others, like thethree Bohemian Marys, tried to make up for the years of youth they hadlost. But every one of them did what she had set out to do, and senthome those hard-earned dollars. The girls I knew were always helping topay for ploughs and reapers, brood-sows, or steers to fatten.

  One result of this family solidarity was that the foreign farmers in ourcounty were the first to become prosperous. After the fathers were outof debt, the daughters married the sons of neighbours--usually of likenationality--and the girls who once worked in Black Hawk kitchens areto-day managing big farms and fine families of their own; their childrenare better off than the children of the town women they used to serve.

  I thought the attitude of the town people toward these girls verystupid. If I told my schoolmates that Lena Lingard's grandfather was aclergyman, and much respected in Norway, they looked at me blankly. Whatdid it matter? All foreigners were ignorant people who couldn't speakEnglish. There was not a man in Black Hawk who had the intelligence orcultivation, much less the personal distinction, of Antonia's father.Yet people saw no difference between her and the three Marys; they wereall Bohemians, all 'hired girls.'

  I always knew I should live long enough to see my country girls comeinto their own, and I have. To-day the best that a harassed Black Hawkmerchant can hope for is to sell provisions and farm machinery andautomobiles to the rich farms where that first crop of stalwart Bohemianand Scandinavian girls are now the mistresses.

  The Black Hawk boys looked forward to marrying Black Hawk girls, andliving in a brand-new little house with best chairs that must not besat upon, and hand-painted china that must not be used. But sometimes ayoung fellow would look up from his ledger, or out through the gratingof his father's bank, and let his eyes follow Lena Lingard, as shepassed the window with her slow, undulating walk, or Tiny Soderball,tripping by in her short skirt and striped stockings.

  The country girls were considered a menace to the social order. Theirbeauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background. Butanxious mothers need have felt no alarm. They mistook the mettle oftheir sons. The respect for respectability was stronger than any desirein Black Hawk youth.

  Our young man of position was like the son of a royal house; the boy whoswept out his office or drove his delivery wagon might frolic with thejolly country girls, but he himself must sit all evening in a plushparlour where conversation dragged so perceptibly that the father oftencame in and made blundering efforts to warm up the atmosphere. On hisway home from his dull call, he would perhaps meet Tony and Lena, comingalong the sidewalk whispering to each other, or the three Bohemian Marysin their long plush coats and caps, comporting themselves with a dignitythat only made their eventful histories the more piquant. If he went tothe hotel to see a travelling man on business, there was Tiny, archingher shoulders at him like a kitten. If he went into the laundry to gethis collars, there were the four Danish girls, smiling up from theirironing-boards, with their white throats and their pink cheeks.

  The three Marys were the heroines of a cycle of scandalous stories,which the old men were fond of relating as they sat about thecigar-stand in the drugstore. Mary Dusak had been housekeeper for abachelor rancher from Boston, and after several years in his serviceshe was forced to retire from the world for a short time. Later shecame back to town to take the place of her friend, Mary Svoboda, who wassimilarly embarrassed. The three Marys were considered as dangerous ashigh explosives to have about the kitchen, yet they were such good cooksand such admirable housekeepers that they never had to look for a place.

  The Vannis' tent brought the town boys and the country girls together onneutral ground. Sylvester Lovett, who was cashier in his father's bank,always found his way to the tent on Saturday night. He took all thedances Lena Lingard would give him, and even grew bold enough to walkhome with her. If his sisters or their friends happened to be among theonlookers on 'popular nights,' Sylvester stood back in the shadowunder the cottonwood trees, smoking and watching Lena with a harassedexpression. Several times I stumbled upon him there in the dark, and Ifelt rather sorry for him. He reminded me of Ole Benson, who used tosit on the drawside and watch Lena herd her cattle. Later in the summer,when Lena went home for a week to visit her mother, I heard from Antoniathat young Lovett drove all the way out there to see her, and took herbuggy-riding. In my ingenuousness I hoped that Sylvester would marryLena, and thus give all the country girls a better position in the town.

  Sylvester dallied about Lena until he began to make mistakes in hiswork; had to stay at the bank until after dark to make his booksbalance. He was daft about her, and everyone knew it. To escape from hispredicament he ran away with a widow six years older than himself, whoowned a half-section. This remedy worked, apparently. He never looked atLena again, nor lifted his eyes as he ceremoniously tipped his hat whenhe happened to meet her on the sidewalk.

  So that was what they were like, I thought, these white-handed,high-collared clerks and bookkeepers! I used to glare at young Lovettfrom a distance and only wished I had some way of showing my contemptfor him.