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

“Are you Mrs. Cuzak’s boys?” I asked.

The younger one did not look up; he was submerged in his own feelings, but his brother met me with intelligent gray eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“Does she live up there on the hill? I am going to see her. Get in and ride up with me.”

He glanced at his reluctant little brother. “I guess we’d better walk. But we’ll open the gate for you.”

I drove along the side-road and they followed slowly behind. When I pulled up at the windmill, another boy, barefooted and curly-headed, ran out of the barn to tie my team for me. He was a handsome one, this chap, fair-skinned and freckled, with red cheeks and a ruddy pelt as thick as a lamb’s wool, growing down on his neck in little tufts. He tied my team with two flourishes of his hands, and nodded when I asked him if his mother was at home. As he glanced at me, his face dimpled with a seizure of irrelevant merriment, and he shot up the windmill tower with a lightness that struck me as disdainful. I knew he was peering down at me as I walked toward the house.

Ducks and geese ran quacking across my path. White cats were sunning themselves among yellow pumpkins on the porch steps. I looked through the wire screen into a big, light kitchen with a white floor. I saw a long table, rows of wooden chairs against the wall, and a shining range in one corner. Two girls were washing dishes at the sink, laughing and chattering, and a little one, in a short pinafore, sat on a stool playing with a rag baby. When I asked for their mother, one of the girls dropped her towel, ran across the floor with noiseless bare feet, and disappeared. The older one, who wore shoes and stockings, came to the door to admit me. She was a buxom girl with dark hair and eyes, calm and self-possessed.

“Won’t you come in? Mother will be here in a minute.”

Before I could sit down in the chair she offered me, the miracle happened; one of those quiet moments that clutch the heart, and take more courage than the noisy, excited passages in life. Ántonia came in and stood before me; a stalwart, brown woman, flat-chested, her curly brown hair a little grizzled. It was a shock, of course. It always is, to meet people after long years, especially if they have lived as much and as hard as this woman had. We stood looking at each other. The eyes that peered anxiously at me were⁠—simply Ántonia’s eyes. I had seen no others like them since I looked into them last, though I had looked at so many thousands of human faces. As I confronted her, the changes grew less apparent to me, her identity stronger. She was there, in the full vigor of her personality, battered but not diminished, looking at me, speaking to me in the husky, breathy voice I remembered so well.

“My husband’s not at home, sir. Can I do anything?”

“Don’t you remember me, Ántonia? Have I changed so much?”

She frowned into the slanting sunlight that made her brown hair look redder than it was. Suddenly her eyes widened, her whole face seemed to grow broader. She caught her breath and put out two hard-worked hands.

“Why, it’s Jim! Anna, Yulka, it’s Jim Burden!” She had no sooner caught my hands than she looked alarmed. “What’s happened? Is anybody dead?”

I patted her arm. “No. I didn’t come to a funeral this time. I got off the train at Hastings and drove down to see you and your family.”

She dropped my hand and began rushing about. “Anton, Yulka, Nina, where are you all? Run, Anna, and hunt for the boys. They’re off looking for that dog, somewhere. And call Leo. Where is that Leo!” She pulled them out of corners and came bringing them like a mother cat bringing in her kittens. “You don’t have to go right off, Jim? My oldest boy’s not here. He’s gone with papa to the street fair at Wilber. I won’t let you go! You’ve got to stay and see Rudolph and our papa.” She looked at me imploringly, panting with excitement.

While I reassured her and told her there would be plenty of time, the barefooted boys from outside were slipping into the kitchen and gathering about her.

“Now, tell me their names, and how old they are.”

As she told them off in turn, she made several mistakes about ages, and they roared with laughter. When she came to my light-footed friend of the windmill, she said, “This is Leo, and he’s old enough to be better than he is.”

He ran up to her and butted her playfully with his curly head, like a little ram, but his voice was quite desperate. “You’ve forgot! You always forget mine. It’s mean! Please tell him, mother!” He clenched his fists in vexation and looked up at her impetuously.

She wound her forefinger in his yellow fleece and pulled it, watching him. “Well, how old are you?”

“I’m twelve,” he panted, looking not at me but at her; “I’m twelve years old, and I was born on Easter day!”

She nodded to me. “It’s true. He was an Easter baby.”

The children all looked at me, as if they expected me to exhibit astonishment or delight at this information. Clearly, they were proud of each other, and of being so many. When they had all been introduced, Anna, the eldest daughter, who had met me at the door, scattered them gently, and came bringing a white apron which she tied round her mother’s waist.

“Now, mother, sit down and talk to Mr. Burden. We’ll finish the dishes quietly and not disturb you.”

Ántonia looked about, quite distracted. “Yes, child, but why don’t we take him into the parlor, now that we’ve got a nice parlor for company?”

The daughter laughed indulgently, and took my hat from me. “Well, you’re here, now, mother, and if you talk here, Yulka