My Ántonia - Willa Cather (i read books txt) 📗

we complained of her, he only smiled and said, “She will help some fellow get ahead in the world.”

Nowadays Tony could talk of nothing but the prices of things, or how much she could lift and endure. She was too proud of her strength. I knew, too, that Ambrosch put upon her some chores a girl ought not to do, and that the farmhands around the country joked in a nasty way about it. Whenever I saw her come up the furrow, shouting to her beasts, sunburned, sweaty, her dress open at the neck, and her throat and chest dust-plastered, I used to think of the tone in which poor Mr. Shimerda, who could say so little, yet managed to say so much when he exclaimed, “My Án-tonia!”

XVIII

After I began to go to the country school, I saw less of the Bohemians. We were sixteen pupils at the sod schoolhouse, and we all came on horseback and brought our dinner. My schoolmates were none of them very interesting, but I somehow felt that, by making comrades of them, I was getting even with Ántonia for her indifference. Since the father’s death, Ambrosch was more than ever the head of the house, and he seemed to direct the feelings as well as the fortunes of his women-folk. Ántonia often quoted his opinions to me, and she let me see that she admired him, while she thought of me only as a little boy. Before the spring was over, there was a distinct coldness between us and the Shimerdas. It came about in this way.

One Sunday I rode over there with Jake to get a horse-collar which Ambrosch had borrowed from him and had not returned. It was a beautiful blue morning. The buffalo-peas were blooming in pink and purple masses along the roadside, and the larks, perched on last year’s dried sunflower stalks, were singing straight at the sun, their heads thrown back and their yellow breasts a-quiver. The wind blew about us in warm, sweet gusts. We rode slowly, with a pleasant sense of Sunday indolence.

We found the Shimerdas working just as if it were a weekday. Marek was cleaning out the stable, and Ántonia and her mother were making garden, off across the pond in the draw-head. Ambrosch was up on the windmill tower, oiling the wheel. He came down, not very cordially. When Jake asked for the collar, he grunted and scratched his head. The collar belonged to grandfather, of course, and Jake, feeling responsible for it, flared up. “Now, don’t you say you haven’t got it, Ambrosch, because I know you have, and if you ain’t a-going to look for it, I will.”

Ambrosch shrugged his shoulders and sauntered down the hill toward the stable. I could see that it was one of his mean days. Presently he returned, carrying a collar that had been badly used⁠—trampled in the dirt and gnawed by rats until the hair was sticking out of it.

“This what you want?” he asked surlily.

Jake jumped off his horse. I saw a wave of red come up under the rough stubble on his face. “That ain’t the piece of harness I loaned you, Ambrosch; or, if it is, you’ve used it shameful. I ain’t a-going to carry such a looking thing back to Mr. Burden.”

Ambrosch dropped the collar on the ground. “All right,” he said coolly, took up his oilcan, and began to climb the mill. Jake caught him by the belt of his trousers and yanked him back. Ambrosch’s feet had scarcely touched the ground when he lunged out with a vicious kick at Jake’s stomach. Fortunately, Jake was in such a position that he could dodge it. This was not the sort of thing country boys did when they played at fisticuffs, and Jake was furious. He landed Ambrosch a blow on the head⁠—it sounded like the crack of an axe on a cow-pumpkin. Ambrosch dropped over, stunned.

We heard squeals, and looking up saw Ántonia and her mother coming on the run. They did not take the path around the pond, but plunged through the muddy water, without even lifting their skirts. They came on, screaming and clawing the air. By this time Ambrosch had come to his senses and was sputtering with nosebleed.

Jake sprang into his saddle. “Let’s get out of this, Jim,” he called.

Mrs. Shimerda threw her hands over her head and clutched as if she were going to pull down lightning. “Law, law!” she shrieked after us. “Law for knock my Ambrosch down!”

“I never like you no more, Jake and Jim Burden,” Ántonia panted. “No friends any more!”

Jake stopped and turned his horse for a second. “Well, you’re a damned ungrateful lot, the whole pack of you,” he shouted back. “I guess the Burdens can get along without you. You’ve been a sight of trouble to them, anyhow!”

We rode away, feeling so outraged that the fine morning was spoiled for us. I hadn’t a word to say, and poor Jake was white as paper and trembling all over. It made him sick to get so angry. “They ain’t the same, Jimmy,” he kept saying in a hurt tone. “These foreigners ain’t the same. You can’t trust ’em to be fair. It’s dirty to kick a feller. You heard how the women turned on you⁠—and after all we went through on account of ’em last winter! They ain’t to be trusted. I don’t want to see you get too thick with any of ’em.”

“I’ll never be friends with them again, Jake,” I declared hotly. “I believe they are all like Krajiek and Ambrosch underneath.”

Grandfather heard our story with a twinkle in his eye. He advised Jake to ride to town tomorrow, go to a justice of the peace, tell him he had knocked young Shimerda down, and pay his fine. Then if Mrs. Shimerda was inclined to make trouble⁠—her son was still under age⁠—she would be forestalled. Jake said he might as well take the wagon and haul to market the