My Antonia

a little room, scarcely larger than the bed that held me, and the window-shade at my head was flapping softly in a warm wind. A tall woman, with wrinkled brown skin and black hair, stood lo

her had been her little boy; she must often have come to wake him like this when he overslept. "Here are your clean clothes," she went on, stroking my coverlid with her

were plastered and whitewashed-the plaster laid directly upon the earth walls, as it used to be in dugouts. The floor was of hard cement. Up under the wooden ceiling there were little half-windows with white curtains, and pots of geraniums and wandering Jew in the deep sills. As I entered the kitchen I sniffed a ple

Are you sure? Well, now, I cal

nd rubbed himself against the tub, watching me curiously. While I scrubbed, my grandmother busied herself in the dining-room until I called a

it was only because she was so often thinking of things that were far away. She was quick-footed and energetic in all her movements. Her voice was high and rather shrill, and she often spoke with an anxious inflection, for she was exceedin

ng of the house, was plastered and cemented, with a stairway and an outside door by which the men ca

e floor traveled back toward the stairway, and grandmother and I talked about my journey, and about the arrival of the new Bohemian family; she said they were to be our nearest neighbors. We did not talk about the farm in

berateness and personal dignity, and was a little in awe of him. The thing one[pg 013] immediately noticed about him was his beautiful, crin

His teeth were white and regular-so sound that he had never been to a dentist in his life. He had a delicate skin, ea

ountry a young boy and had led an adventurous life in the Far West among mining-camps and cow outfits. His iron constitution was somewhat broken by mountain pneumonia, and he had

ect gentleman," and his name was Dude. Fuchs told me everything I wanted to know: how he had lost his ear in a Wyoming blizzard when he was a stage-driver, and how to throw a lasso. He promised to rope a steer for me before sundown next

he read so interestingly that I wished he had chosen one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Kings. I was awed by his intonation of the word "Selah." "He shall choose our inheritance

close by the kitchen door. From the windmill the ground sloped westward, down to the barns and granaries and pig-yards. This slope was trampled hard and bare, and washed out in winding gullies by the rain. Beyond the corncribs, at the bottom of the shallow draw, was a muddy little pond, with rusty willow bushes growing about it. The road from the post-office came directly by our door, crossed the farmyard, and curved rou

ning yellow. This hedge was nearly a quarter of a mile long, but I had to look very hard to see it at all. The little trees were insign

grass made all the great prairie the color of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are fi

ter of a mile from[pg 017] the house, and the way to it led up a shallow draw past the cattle corral. Grandmother called my attention to a stout hickory cane, tipped with copper, which hung by a leather thong from her belt. This, she said, was her r

haps the glide of long railway travel was still with me, for more than anything else I felt motion in the landscape; in the fresh, easy-blowing morning

rld, which could not be very far away. The light air about me told me that the world ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left, and if one went a little farther there would be only sun and sky, and one would float off into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over our

go, I said I would like to sta

under her sunbonnet. "Are

tted, "but I'd lik

you see anything look out of that[pg 019] hole in the bank over there. That's a badger hole. He's about as big as a big 'possum, and his face is striped, black and white. He tak

rd a little. The road followed the windings of the draw; when she came to the first bend she

nd down the ploughed ground. There in the sheltered draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it [pg 020] singing its humming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as I could. Nothing ha

g