Chapter: ON the first or second day of August I got a horse and cart and set out
for the high country, to visit the Widow Steavens. The wheat harvest was
over, and here and there along the horizon I could see black puffs of
smoke from the steam thrashing-machines. The old pasture land was now
being broken up into wheatfields and cornfields, the red grass was
disappearing, and the whole face of the country was changing. There were
wooden houses where the old sod dwellings used to be, and little orchards,
and big red barns; all this meant happy children, contented women, and men
who saw their lives coming to a fortunate issue. The windy springs and the
blazing summers, one after another, had enriched and mellowed that flat
tableland; all the human effort that had gone into it was coming back in
long, sweeping lines of fertility. The changes seemed beautiful and
harmonious to me; it was like watching the growth of a great man or of a
great idea. I recognized every tree and sandbank and rugged draw. I found
that I remembered the conformation of the land as one remembers the
modeling of human faces.

When I drew up to our old windmill, the Widow Steavens came out to meet
me. She was brown as an Indian woman, tall, and very strong. When I was
little, her massive head had always seemed to me like a Roman senator's. I
told her at once why I had come.

"You'll stay the night with us, Jimmy? I'll talk to you after supper. I
can take more interest when my work is off my mind. You've no prejudice
against hot biscuit for supper? Some have, these days."

While I was putting my horse away I heard a rooster squawking. I looked at
my watch and sighed; it was three o'clock, and I knew that I must eat him
at six.

After supper Mrs. Steavens and I went upstairs to the old sitting-room,
while her grave, silent brother remained in the basement to read his farm
papers. All the windows were open. The white summer moon was shining
outside, the windmill was pumping lazily in the light breeze. My hostess
put the lamp on a stand in the corner, and turned it low because of the
heat. She sat down in her favorite rocking-chair and settled a little
stool comfortably under her tired feet. "I'm troubled with callouses, Jim;
getting old," she sighed cheerfully. She crossed her hands in her lap and
sat as if she were at a meeting of some kind.

"Now, it's about that dear Antonia you want to know? Well, you've come to
the right person. I've watched her like she'd been my own daughter.

"When she came home to do her sewing that summer before she was to be
married, she was over here about every day. They've never had a sewing
machine at the Shimerdas', and she made all her things here. I taught her
hemstitching, and I helped her to cut and fit. She used to sit there at
that machine by the window, pedaling the life out of it--she was so
strong--and always singing them queer Bohemian songs, like she was the
happiest thing in the world.

"'Antonia,' I used to say, 'don't run that machine so fast. You won't
hasten the day none that way.'

"Then she'd laugh and slow down for a little, but she'd soon forget and
begin to pedal and sing again. I never saw a girl work harder to go to
housekeeping right and well-prepared. Lovely table linen the Harlings had
given her, and Lena Lingard had sent her nice things from Lincoln. We
hemstitched all the tablecloths and pillow-cases, and some of the sheets.
Old Mrs. Shimerda knit yards and yards of lace for her underclothes. Tony
told me just how she meant to have everything in her house. She'd even
bought silver spoons and forks, and kept them in her trunk. She was always
coaxing brother to go to the post-office. Her young man did write her real
often, from the different towns along his run.

"The first thing that troubled her was when he wrote that his run had been
changed, and they would likely have to live in Denver. 'I'm a country
girl,' she said, 'and I doubt if I'll be able to manage so well for him in
a city. I was counting on keeping chickens, and maybe a cow.' She soon
cheered up, though.

"At last she got the letter telling her when to come. She was shaken by
it; she broke the seal and read it in this room. I suspected then that
she'd begun to get faint-hearted, waiting; though she'd never let me see
it.

"Then there was a great time of packing. It was in March, if I remember
rightly, and a terrible muddy, raw spell, with the roads bad for hauling
her things to town. And here let me say, Ambrosch did the right thing. He
went to Black Hawk and bought her a set of plated silver in a purple
velvet box, good enough for her station. He gave her three hundred dollars
in money; I saw the check. He'd collected her wages all those first years
she worked out, and it was but right. I shook him by the hand in this
room. 'You're behaving like a man, Ambrosch,' I said, 'and I'm glad to see
it, son.'

"'T was a cold, raw day he drove her and her three trunks into Black Hawk
to take the night train for Denver--the boxes had been shipped before. He
stopped the wagon here, and she ran in to tell me good-bye. She threw her
arms around me and kissed me, and thanked me for all I'd done for her. She
was so happy she was crying and laughing at the same time, and her red
cheeks was all wet with rain.

"'You're surely handsome enough for any man,' I said, looking her over.

"She laughed kind of flighty like, and whispered, 'Good-bye, dear house!'
and then ran out to the wagon. I expect she meant that for you and your
grandmother, as much as for me, so I'm particular to tell you. This house
had always been a refuge to her.

"Well, in a few days we had a letter saying she got to Denver safe, and he
was there to meet her. They were to be married in a few days. He was
trying to get his promotion before he married, she said. I did n't like
that, but I said nothing. The next week Yulka got a postal card, saying
she was 'well and happy.' After that we heard nothing. A month went by,
and old Mrs. Shimerda began to get fretful. Ambrosch was as sulky with me
as if I'd picked out the man and arranged the match.

"One night brother William came in and said that on his way back from the
fields he had passed a livery team from town, driving fast out the west
road. There was a trunk on the front seat with the driver, and another
behind. In the back seat there was a woman all bundled up; but for all her
veils, he thought 't was Antonia Shimerda, or Antonia Donovan, as her name
ought now to be.

"The next morning I got brother to drive me over. I can walk still, but my
feet ain't what they used to be, and I try to save myself. The lines
outside the Shimerdas' house was full of washing, though it was the middle
of the week. As we got nearer I saw a sight that made my heart sink--all
those underclothes we'd put so much work on, out there swinging in the
wind. Yulka came bringing a dishpanful of wrung clothes, but she darted
back into the house like she was loath to see us. When I went in, Antonia
was standing over the tubs, just finishing up a big washing. Mrs. Shimerda
was going about her work, talking and scolding to herself. She did n't so
much as raise her eyes. Tony wiped her hand on her apron and held it out
to me, looking at me steady but mournful. When I took her in my arms she
drew away. 'Don't, Mrs. Steavens,' she says, 'you'll make me cry, and I
don't want to.'

"I whispered and asked her to come out of doors with me. I knew she could
n't talk free before her mother. She went out with me, bareheaded, and we
walked up toward the garden.

"'I'm not married, Mrs. Steavens,' she says to me very quiet and
natural-like, 'and I ought to be.'

"'Oh, my child,' says I, 'what's happened to you? Don't be afraid to tell
me!'

"She sat down on the draw-side, out of sight of the house. 'He's run away
from me,' she said. 'I don't know if he ever meant to marry me.'

"'You mean he's thrown up his job and quit the country?' says I.

"'He did n't have any job. He'd been fired; blacklisted for knocking down
fares. I did n't know. I thought he had n't been treated right. He was
sick when I got there. He'd just come out of the hospital. He lived with
me till my money gave out, and afterwards I found he had n't really been
hunting work at all. Then he just did n't come back. One nice fellow at
the station told me, when I kept going to look for him, to give it up. He
said he was afraid Larry'd gone bad and would n't come back any more. I
guess he's gone to Old Mexico. The conductors get rich down there,
collecting half-fares off the natives and robbing the company. He was
always talking about fellows who had got ahead that way.'

"I asked her, of course, why she did n't insist on a civil marriage at
once--that would have given her some hold on him. She leaned her head on
her hands, poor child, and said, 'I just don't know, Mrs. Steavens. I
guess my patience was wore out, waiting so long. I thought if he saw how
well I could do for him, he'd want to stay with me.'

"Jimmy, I sat right down on that bank beside her and made lament. I cried
like a young thing. I could n't help it. I was just about heart-broke. It
was one of them lovely warm May days, and the wind was blowing and the
colts jumping around in the pastures; but I felt bowed with despair. My
Antonia, that had so much good in her, had come home disgraced. And that
Lena Lingard, that was always a bad one, say what you will, had turned out
so well, and was coming home here every summer in her silks and her
satins, and doing so much for her mother. I give credit where credit is
due, but you know well enough, Jim Burden, there is a great difference in
the principles of those two girls. And here it was the good one that had
come to grief! I was poor comfort to her. I marveled at her calm. As we
went back to the house, she stopped to feel of her clothes to see if they
was drying well, and seemed to take pride in their whiteness--she said
she'd been living in a brick block, where she did n't have proper
conveniences to wash them.

"The next time I saw Antonia, she was out in the fields ploughing corn.
All that spring and summer she did the work of a man on the farm; it
seemed to be an understood thing. Ambrosch did n't get any other hand to
help him. Poor Marek had got violent and been sent away to an institution
a good while back. We never even saw any of Tony's pretty dresses. She did
n't take them out of her trunks. She was quiet and steady. Folks respected
her industry and tried to treat her as if nothing had happened. They
talked, to be sure; but not like they would if she'd put on airs. She was
so crushed and quiet that nobody seemed to want to humble her. She never
went anywhere. All that summer she never once came to see me. At first I
was hurt, but I got to feel that it was because this house reminded her of
too much. I went over there when I could, but the times when she was in
from the fields were the times when I was busiest here. She talked about
the grain and the weather as if she'd never had another interest, and if I
went over at night she always looked dead weary. She was afflicted with
toothache; one tooth after another ulcerated, and she went about with her
face swollen half the time. She would n't go to Black Hawk to a dentist
for fear of meeting people she knew. Ambrosch had got over his good spell
long ago, and was always surly. Once I told him he ought not to let
Antonia work so hard and pull herself down. He said, 'If you put that in
her head, you better stay home.' And after that I did.

"Antonia worked on through harvest and thrashing, though she was too
modest to go out thrashing for the neighbors, like when she was young and
free. I did n't see much of her until late that fall when she begun to
herd Ambrosch's cattle in the open ground north of here, up toward the big
dog town. Sometimes she used to bring them over the west hill, there, and
I would run to meet her and walk north a piece with her. She had thirty
cattle in her bunch; it had been dry, and the pasture was short, or she
would n't have brought them so far.

"It was a fine open fall, and she liked to be alone. While the steers
grazed, she used to sit on them grassy banks along the draws and sun
herself for hours. Sometimes I slipped up to visit with her, when she had
n't gone too far.

"'It does seem like I ought to make lace, or knit like Lena used to,' she
said one day, 'but if I start to work, I look around and forget to go on.
It seems such a little while ago when Jim Burden and I was playing all
over this country. Up here I can pick out the very places where my father
used to stand. Sometimes I feel like I'm not going to live very long, so
I'm just enjoying every day of this fall.'

"After the winter begun she wore a man's long overcoat and boots, and a
man's felt hat with a wide brim. I used to watch her coming and going, and
I could see that her steps were getting heavier. One day in December, the
snow began to fall. Late in the afternoon I saw Antonia driving her cattle
homeward across the hill. The snow was flying round her and she bent to
face it, looking more lonesome-like to me than usual. 'Deary me,' I says
to myself, 'the girl's stayed out too late. It'll be dark before she gets
them cattle put into the corral.' I seemed to sense she'd been feeling too
miserable to get up and drive them.

"That very night, it happened. She got her cattle home, turned them into
the corral, and went into the house, into her room behind the kitchen, and
shut the door. There, without calling to anybody, without a groan, she lay
down on the bed and bore her child.

"I was lifting supper when old Mrs. Shimerda came running down the
basement stairs, out of breath and screeching:--

"'Baby come, baby come!' she says. 'Ambrosch much like devil!'

"Brother William is surely a patient man. He was just ready to sit down to
a hot supper after a long day in the fields. Without a word he rose and
went down to the barn and hooked up his team. He got us over there as
quick as it was humanly possible. I went right in, and began to do for
Antonia; but she laid there with her eyes shut and took no account of me.
The old woman got a tubful of warm water to wash the baby. I overlooked
what she was doing and I said out loud:--

"'Mrs. Shimerda, don't you put that strong yellow soap near that baby.
You'll blister its little skin.' I was indignant.

             [Illustration: Antonia driving her cattle home]

"'Mrs. Steavens,' Antonia said from the bed, 'if you'll look in the top
tray of my trunk, you'll see some fine soap.' That was the first word she
spoke.

"After I'd dressed the baby, I took it out to show it to Ambrosch. He was
muttering behind the stove and would n't look at it.

"'You'd better put it out in the rain barrel,' he says.

"'Now, see here, Ambrosch,' says I, 'there's a law in this land, don't
forget that. I stand here a witness that this baby has come into the world
sound and strong, and I intend to keep an eye on what befalls it.' I pride
myself I cowed him.

"Well, I expect you're not much interested in babies, but Antonia's got on
fine. She loved it from the first as dearly as if she'd had a ring on her
finger, and was never ashamed of it. It's a year and eight months old now,
and no baby was ever better cared-for. Antonia is a natural-born mother. I
wish she could marry and raise a family, but I don't know as there's much
chance now."



I slept that night in the room I used to have when I was a little boy,
with the summer wind blowing in at the windows, bringing the smell of the
ripe fields. I lay awake and watched the moonlight shining over the barn
and the stacks and the pond, and the windmill making its old dark shadow
against the blue sky.

 At the beginning of August, Jim goes to see the Widow Steavens. He notices the great changes that have happened in the land. The red prairies have almost completely disappeared and the sod houses have been replaced with wood-framed houses. He approves of these changes greatly. When he gets to Mrs. Steavens house, the house he grew up in, she invites him to spend the night. After dinner she tells him Antonias story. Antonia got word from Larry Donovan that they would be married, so she came to Mrs. Steavens house every day to sew her linens and clothes. She was very excited about the wedding and setting up house in Black Hawk. The wait was a long one and when she finally got a letter, Mrs. Steavens noticed that she had begun to lose heart. Larry wrote that they would be living in Denver, a decision Antonia was not happy with but soon accepted. Ambrosch gave her three hundred dollars and drove her to the station. They got a letter that she was there and he had met her, but that the wedding had been delayed while he was working on getting his promotion. Then they heard nothing. Soon everyone began to get very worried. One day, William Steavens, Mrs. Steavens brother, came home to report that he had seen Antonia in a wagon along with all her trunks. Mrs. Steavens went to see her and Antonia told her she was not married, but should be. She said Larry had fooled her into believing he was getting promoted, when in fact he had been fired and blacklisted for cheating customers. He had stayed with her until all her money was gone and then had abandoned her. She thought he must have gone to Mexico to try his hand at railroad cheating there. Mrs. Steavens watched Antonia over the next months as she worked in the field doing mens work. She saw that Antonia was pregnant and watched her get slower and slower in her movements. Then one night, Mrs. Shimerda came over to say the baby came. Antonia had come in from the fields where she was herding cattle, gone to her room, and gave birth to her child alone. Ambrosch was in a fury. Mrs. Steavens went immediately to the Shimerdas and helped Antonia get cleaned up and wrapped the baby. Antonia was very silent. When Mrs. Steavens took the baby out of the room, Ambrosch told her she should put it in the rain barrel. She told him he had better remember there was a law in the land and that she was a witness that the baby was born healthy. Mrs. Steavens reports that the baby grew well and Antonia was very happy with it. She wishes Antonia could get married and raise a family, but fears that she probably wont be able to. That night Jim stays in his old room. He lies awake watching the moon outside his window.

