My Antonia

n more of the world; but I was a boy and she was a girl, and I resented her protecting manner. Before the autumn was over she began to tre

ed to take her on the pony, and she got up behind me. There had been another black frost the night before, and the air was clear and heady as wine. W

inter. As we rode away with the spade, ántonia suggested that we stop at the prairie-dog town and dig into one of the holes. We could find out whether they ran straight down, or were h

ly and very sociable kind of life was going on there. I picketed Dude down in a draw, and we went wandering about, looking for a hole that would be easy to dig. The dogs were out, as usual, dozens of them, sitting up on their hind legs over the doors of their houses. As we approached, they barked, shook their tails at us, and scurried[pg 050] underground. Before

been asleep when ántonia screamed. When I turned he was lying in long loose waves, like a letter "W." He twitched and began to coil slowly. He was not merely a big snake, I thought-he was a circus monstrosity. His[pg 051] abominable muscularity, his loathsome, fluid motion, somehow made me sick. He was as thick as my leg, and looked as if millstones could n't crush the disgusting vitality out of him. He lifted his hideous little head, and rattled. I did n't run because I did n't think of it-if my back had been against a stone wall I could n't have felt more

ou might have told me there was a

chief from my pocket and tried to wipe my face with it, but[pg 052]

wait for him lift his head and then you go for him. Ain't you feel scared a bit? Now we take tha

with joy. Cautiously we went back to the snake; he was still groping with his tail, turning up his ugly bell

that's his po

, so I insisted that he must once have had twenty-four. I explained to ántonia how this meant that he[pg 053] was twenty-four years old, that he must have been there when white men first came, left on from buffalo and Indian times. As I turned him over I began to feel proud of him, to have a ki

erybody would be. I followed with the spade over my shoulder, dragging my snake. Her exultation was contagious. The great land had never looked to me so big and free. If the red grass were ful

ne we met. He was sitting on the edge of the cattle-pond, having a quiet pipe before supper. ántonia called him to com

run onto that

town," I answer

f? How come you t

an Peter's, to borrow

autiously. "Gosh! I would n't want to do any business with that fellow myself, unless I had a fence-post along. Your gran

all over Jimmy's boots. I scream for him to run, bu

ode on he said: "Got him in the head first

the kitchen I found ántonia standing in the middle of

rie dog for breakfast whenever he felt like it, a sheltered home, even an owl-feather bed, perhaps, and he had forgot that the world does n't owe rattlers a living. A snake of his size, in fighting trim, would be more than any boy could handle. S

the biggest rattler[pg 056] ever killed in those parts. This was enough for ántonia. She liked me better from th

g