My Antonia, Page 32

  XII

  AFTER ANTONIA WENT TO live with the Cutters, she seemed to care aboutnothing but picnics and parties and having a good time. When she wasnot going to a dance, she sewed until midnight. Her new clothes werethe subject of caustic comment. Under Lena's direction she copiedMrs. Gardener's new party dress and Mrs. Smith's street costume soingeniously in cheap materials that those ladies were greatly annoyed,and Mrs. Cutter, who was jealous of them, was secretly pleased.

  Tony wore gloves now, and high-heeled shoes and feathered bonnets, andshe went downtown nearly every afternoon with Tiny and Lena and theMarshalls' Norwegian Anna. We high-school boys used to linger on theplayground at the afternoon recess to watch them as they came trippingdown the hill along the board sidewalk, two and two. They were growingprettier every day, but as they passed us, I used to think with pridethat Antonia, like Snow-White in the fairy tale, was still 'fairest ofthem all.'

  Being a senior now, I got away from school early. Sometimes I overtookthe girls downtown and coaxed them into the ice-cream parlour, wherethey would sit chattering and laughing, telling me all the news from thecountry.

  I remember how angry Tiny Soderball made me one afternoon. She declaredshe had heard grandmother was going to make a Baptist preacher of me. 'Iguess you'll have to stop dancing and wear a white necktie then. Won'the look funny, girls?'

  Lena laughed. 'You'll have to hurry up, Jim. If you're going to be apreacher, I want you to marry me. You must promise to marry us all, andthen baptize the babies.'

  Norwegian Anna, always dignified, looked at her reprovingly.

  'Baptists don't believe in christening babies, do they, Jim?'

  I told her I didn't know what they believed, and didn't care, and that Icertainly wasn't going to be a preacher.

  'That's too bad,' Tiny simpered. She was in a teasing mood. 'You'd makesuch a good one. You're so studious. Maybe you'd like to be a professor.You used to teach Tony, didn't you?'

  Antonia broke in. 'I've set my heart on Jim being a doctor. You'd begood with sick people, Jim. Your grandmother's trained you up so nice.My papa always said you were an awful smart boy.'

  I said I was going to be whatever I pleased. 'Won't you be surprised,Miss Tiny, if I turn out to be a regular devil of a fellow?'

  They laughed until a glance from Norwegian Anna checked them; thehigh-school principal had just come into the front part of the shop tobuy bread for supper. Anna knew the whisper was going about that I wasa sly one. People said there must be something queer about a boy whoshowed no interest in girls of his own age, but who could be livelyenough when he was with Tony and Lena or the three Marys.

  The enthusiasm for the dance, which the Vannis had kindled, did not atonce die out. After the tent left town, the Euchre Club became the OwlClub, and gave dances in the Masonic Hall once a week. I was invited tojoin, but declined. I was moody and restless that winter, and tired ofthe people I saw every day. Charley Harling was already at Annapolis,while I was still sitting in Black Hawk, answering to my name atroll-call every morning, rising from my desk at the sound of a bell andmarching out like the grammar-school children. Mrs. Harling was a littlecool toward me, because I continued to champion Antonia. What was therefor me to do after supper? Usually I had learned next day's lessons bythe time I left the school building, and I couldn't sit still and readforever.

  In the evening I used to prowl about, hunting for diversion. There laythe familiar streets, frozen with snow or liquid with mud. They led tothe houses of good people who were putting the babies to bed, or simplysitting still before the parlour stove, digesting their supper. BlackHawk had two saloons. One of them was admitted, even by the churchpeople, to be as respectable as a saloon could be. Handsome AntonJelinek, who had rented his homestead and come to town, was theproprietor. In his saloon there were long tables where the Bohemian andGerman farmers could eat the lunches they brought from home while theydrank their beer. Jelinek kept rye bread on hand and smoked fish andstrong imported cheeses to please the foreign palate. I liked to dropinto his bar-room and listen to the talk. But one day he overtook me onthe street and clapped me on the shoulder.

  'Jim,' he said, 'I am good friends with you and I always like to seeyou. But you know how the church people think about saloons. Yourgrandpa has always treated me fine, and I don't like to have you comeinto my place, because I know he don't like it, and it puts me in badwith him.'

  So I was shut out of that.

  One could hang about the drugstore; and listen to the old men who satthere every evening, talking politics and telling raw stories. One couldgo to the cigar factory and chat with the old German who raised canariesfor sale, and look at his stuffed birds. But whatever you began withhim, the talk went back to taxidermy. There was the depot, of course; Ioften went down to see the night train come in, and afterward satawhile with the disconsolate telegrapher who was always hoping to betransferred to Omaha or Denver, 'where there was some life.' He was sureto bring out his pictures of actresses and dancers. He got them withcigarette coupons, and nearly smoked himself to death to possess thesedesired forms and faces. For a change, one could talk to the stationagent; but he was another malcontent; spent all his spare time writingletters to officials requesting a transfer. He wanted to get back toWyoming where he could go trout-fishing on Sundays. He used to say'there was nothing in life for him but trout streams, ever since he'dlost his twins.'

  These were the distractions I had to choose from. There were no otherlights burning downtown after nine o'clock. On starlight nights I usedto pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little,sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and coveredback porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly builtof light wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by theturning-lathe. Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envyand unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went onin them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to savecooking, to save washing and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongueof gossip. This guarded mode of existence was like living under atyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, becamefurtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite,was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses, I thought,tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise,to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark.The growing piles of ashes and cinders in the back yards were the onlyevidence that the wasteful, consuming process of life went on at all. OnTuesday nights the Owl Club danced; then there was a little stir inthe streets, and here and there one could see a lighted window untilmidnight. But the next night all was dark again.

  After I refused to join 'the Owls,' as they were called, I made a boldresolve to go to the Saturday night dances at Firemen's Hall. I knew itwould be useless to acquaint my elders with any such plan. Grandfatherdidn't approve of dancing, anyway; he would only say that if I wanted todance I could go to the Masonic Hall, among 'the people we knew.' It wasjust my point that I saw altogether too much of the people we knew.

  My bedroom was on the ground floor, and as I studied there, I had astove in it. I used to retire to my room early on Saturday night, changemy shirt and collar and put on my Sunday coat. I waited until all wasquiet and the old people were asleep, then raised my window, climbedout, and went softly through the yard. The first time I deceived mygrandparents I felt rather shabby, perhaps even the second time, but Isoon ceased to think about it.

  The dance at the Firemen's Hall was the one thing I looked forward toall the week. There I met the same people I used to see at the Vannis'tent. Sometimes there were Bohemians from Wilber, or German boys whocame down on the afternoon freight from Bismarck. Tony and Lena and Tinywere always there, and the three Bohemian Marys, and the Danish laundrygirls.

  The four Danish girls lived with the laundryman and his wife in theirhouse behind the laundry, with a big garden where the clothes were hungout to dry. The laundryman was a kind, wise old fellow
, who paid hisgirls well, looked out for them, and gave them a good home. He told meonce that his own daughter died just as she was getting old enough tohelp her mother, and that he had been 'trying to make up for it eversince.' On summer afternoons he used to sit for hours on the sidewalkin front of his laundry, his newspaper lying on his knee, watchinghis girls through the big open window while they ironed and talked inDanish. The clouds of white dust that blew up the street, the gusts ofhot wind that withered his vegetable garden, never disturbed his calm.His droll expression seemed to say that he had found the secret ofcontentment. Morning and evening he drove about in his spring wagon,distributing freshly ironed clothes, and collecting bags of linen thatcried out for his suds and sunny drying-lines. His girls never looked sopretty at the dances as they did standing by the ironing-board, or overthe tubs, washing the fine pieces, their white arms and throats bare,their cheeks bright as the brightest wild roses, their gold hair moistwith the steam or the heat and curling in little damp spirals abouttheir ears. They had not learned much English, and were not so ambitiousas Tony or Lena; but they were kind, simple girls and they were alwayshappy. When one danced with them, one smelled their clean, freshlyironed clothes that had been put away with rosemary leaves from Mr.Jensen's garden.

  There were never girls enough to go round at those dances, but everyonewanted a turn with Tony and Lena.

  Lena moved without exertion, rather indolently, and her hand oftenaccented the rhythm softly on her partner's shoulder. She smiled if onespoke to her, but seldom answered. The music seemed to put her into asoft, waking dream, and her violet-coloured eyes looked sleepily andconfidingly at one from under her long lashes. When she sighed sheexhaled a heavy perfume of sachet powder. To dance 'Home, Sweet Home,'with Lena was like coming in with the tide. She danced every dance likea waltz, and it was always the same waltz--the waltz of coming home tosomething, of inevitable, fated return. After a while one got restlessunder it, as one does under the heat of a soft, sultry summer day.

  When you spun out into the floor with Tony, you didn't return toanything. You set out every time upon a new adventure. I liked toschottische with her; she had so much spring and variety, and was alwaysputting in new steps and slides. She taught me to dance against andaround the hard-and-fast beat of the music. If, instead of going to theend of the railroad, old Mr. Shimerda had stayed in New York and pickedup a living with his fiddle, how different Antonia's life might havebeen!

  Antonia often went to the dances with Larry Donovan, a passengerconductor who was a kind of professional ladies' man, as we said. Iremember how admiringly all the boys looked at her the night she firstwore her velveteen dress, made like Mrs. Gardener's black velvet. Shewas lovely to see, with her eyes shining, and her lips always a littleparted when she danced. That constant, dark colour in her cheeks neverchanged.

  One evening when Donovan was out on his run, Antonia came to the hallwith Norwegian Anna and her young man, and that night I took her home.When we were in the Cutters' yard, sheltered by the evergreens, I toldher she must kiss me good night.

  'Why, sure, Jim.' A moment later she drew her face away and whisperedindignantly, 'Why, Jim! You know you ain't right to kiss me like that.I'll tell your grandmother on you!'

  'Lena Lingard lets me kiss her,' I retorted, 'and I'm not half as fondof her as I am of you.'

  'Lena does?' Tony gasped. 'If she's up to any of her nonsense with you,I'll scratch her eyes out!' She took my arm again and we walked out ofthe gate and up and down the sidewalk. 'Now, don't you go and be a foollike some of these town boys. You're not going to sit around here andwhittle store-boxes and tell stories all your life. You are going awayto school and make something of yourself. I'm just awful proud of you.You won't go and get mixed up with the Swedes, will you?'

  'I don't care anything about any of them but you,' I said. 'And you'llalways treat me like a kid, suppose.'

  She laughed and threw her arms around me. 'I expect I will, but you're akid I'm awful fond of, anyhow! You can like me all you want to, but ifI see you hanging round with Lena much, I'll go to your grandmother, assure as your name's Jim Burden! Lena's all right, only--well, you knowyourself she's soft that way. She can't help it. It's natural to her.'

  If she was proud of me, I was so proud of her that I carried my headhigh as I emerged from the dark cedars and shut the Cutters' gate softlybehind me. Her warm, sweet face, her kind arms, and the true heart inher; she was, oh, she was still my Antonia! I looked with contempt atthe dark, silent little houses about me as I walked home, and thought ofthe stupid young men who were asleep in some of them. I knew where thereal women were, though I was only a boy; and I would not be afraid ofthem, either!

  I hated to enter the still house when I went home from the dances, andit was long before I could get to sleep. Toward morning I used to havepleasant dreams: sometimes Tony and I were out in the country, slidingdown straw-stacks as we used to do; climbing up the yellow mountainsover and over, and slipping down the smooth sides into soft piles ofchaff.

  One dream I dreamed a great many times, and it was always the same. Iwas in a harvest-field full of shocks, and I was lying against one ofthem. Lena Lingard came across the stubble barefoot, in a short skirt,with a curved reaping-hook in her hand, and she was flushed like thedawn, with a kind of luminous rosiness all about her. She sat downbeside me, turned to me with a soft sigh and said, 'Now they are allgone, and I can kiss you as much as I like.'

  I used to wish I could have this flattering dream about Antonia, but Inever did.