Chapter: I FIRST heard of Antonia(1) on what seemed to me an interminable journey
across 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 Virginia
relatives were sending me out to my grandparents, who lived in Nebraska. I
traveled 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 to
work for my grandfather. Jake's experience of the world was not much wider
than mine. He had never been in a railway train until the morning when we
set out together to try our fortunes in a new world.

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

"They can't any of them speak English, except one little girl, and all she
can 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 you
want 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 to
get diseases from foreigners.

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

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

Another lantern came along. A bantering voice called out: "Hello, are you
Mr. Burden's folks? If you are, it's me you're looking for. I'm Otto
Fuchs. 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?"

I looked up with interest at the new face in the lantern light. He might
have 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 mustache
were twisted up stiffly, like little horns. He looked lively and
ferocious, I thought, and as if he had a history. A long scar ran across
one cheek and drew the corner of his mouth up in a sinister curl. The top
of his left ear was gone, and his skin was brown as an Indian's. Surely
this was the face of a desperado. As he walked about the platform in his
high-heeled boots, looking for our trunks, I saw that he was a rather
slight man, quick and wiry, and light on his feet. He told us we had a
long night drive ahead of us, and had better be on the hike. He led us to
a hitching-bar where two farm wagons were tied, and I saw the foreign
family crowding into one of them. The other was for us. Jake got on the
front seat with Otto Fuchs, and I rode on the straw in the bottom of the
wagon-box, covered up with a buffalo hide. The immigrants rumbled off into
the empty darkness, and we followed them.

I tried to go to sleep, but the jolting made me bite my tongue, and I soon
began 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 and
peered over the side of the wagon. There seemed to be nothing to see; no
fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I
could 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 often
our wheels ground against the brake as we went down into a hollow and
lurched up again on the other side. I had the feeling that the world was
left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's
jurisdiction. I had never before looked up at the sky when there was not a
familiar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of
heaven, all there was of it. I did not believe that my dead father and
mother were watching me from up there; they would still be looking for me
at the sheep-fold down by the creek, or along the white road that led to
the mountain pastures. I had left even their spirits behind me. The wagon
jolted 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 and
that sky I felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers that night:
here, I felt, what would be would be.

 Jim Burden first heard of Antonia when he was on a very long train ride out west to Nebraska. He was ten years old and was being sent out west to his grandparents by his Virginia relatives after his parents had died. He was brought out by Jake Marpole, a man who has been hired by his grandparents. As he rides the train, he reads a novel about the life of Jesse James. The train conductor befriends them and tells them of a family on the immigrant car who will be settling in Black Hawk, Nebraska, the same place where Jim will be living. The train conductor encourages Jim to go over and meet the girl, but he is shy about it. Jake approves of his decision, saying that he should watch out because he could get a disease from foreigners. Jim doesnt think much of Nebraska. It is a long train ride through the state and he only notices its vastness. When they arrive at Black Hawk, it is dark. He feels "surrounded by utter darkness. " He cant see any lights anywhere. As they debark from the train, he notices the immigrant family. A man comes to them and speaks in a foreign language. Jim is interested to hear it since it is the first time he has heard a foreign language. Then Otto Fuchs, Jims grandparents hired man, comes to pick them up. Jim thinks Otto looks just like a character from his Jesse James book. They put Jim in the back of the wagon and head off for the farm. Jim sleeps under a buffalo hide, but the ride is too rough for comfort. He peeps out from the hide to see the land. He finds nothing to see. He thinks it is nothing but the material from which to make a country. He feels as if they have left the world behind. When he looks up at the sky, he realizes he doesnt believe his father and mother are watching over him here, but must be back in Virginia looking for him. The wagon goes on and Jim experiences a strange feeling, not of sadness, but of nothingness. He thinks that if they kept on going forever, he wouldnt mind. That night, he doesnt say his prayers. He feels as if here in Nebraska, "what would be would be."

