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Page 35
`No, Mrs. Shimerda,' she said firmly, `I won't stand by and see that child
frightened into spasms. She is too little to understand what you want of
her. Let her alone.'
At a look from grandfather, Fuchs and Jelinek placed the lid on the box,
and began to nail it down over Mr. Shimerda. I was afraid to look at
Antonia. She put her arms round Yulka and held the little girl close to
her.
The coffin was put into the wagon. We drove slowly away, against the fine,
icy snow which cut our faces like a sand-blast. When we reached the grave,
it looked a very little spot in that snow-covered waste. The men took the
coffin to the edge of the hole and lowered it with ropes. We stood about
watching them, and the powdery snow lay without melting on the caps and
shoulders of the men and the shawls of the women. Jelinek spoke in a
persuasive tone to Mrs. Shimerda, and then turned to grandfather.
`She says, Mr. Burden, she is very glad if you can make some prayer for him
here in English, for the neighbours to understand.'
Grandmother looked anxiously at grandfather. He took off his hat, and the
other men did likewise. I thought his prayer remarkable. I still remember
it. He began, `Oh, great and just God, no man among us knows what the
sleeper knows, nor is it for us to judge what lies between him and Thee.'
He prayed that if any man there had been remiss toward the stranger come to
a far country, God would forgive him and soften his heart. He recalled the
promises to the widow and the fatherless, and asked God to smooth the way
before this widow and her children, and to `incline the hearts of men to
deal justly with her.' In closing, he said we were leaving Mr. Shimerda at
`Thy judgment seat, which is also Thy mercy seat.'
All the time he was praying, grandmother watched him through the black
fingers of her glove, and when he said `Amen,' I thought she looked
satisfied with him. She turned to Otto and whispered, `Can't you start a
hymn, Fuchs? It would seem less heathenish.'
Fuchs glanced about to see if there was general approval of her suggestion,
then began, `Jesus, Lover of my Soul,' and all the men and women took it up
after him. Whenever I have heard the hymn since, it has made me remember
that white waste and the little group of people; and the bluish air, full
of fine, eddying snow, like long veils flying:
`While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is
high.'
Years afterward, when the open-grazing days were over, and the red grass
had been ploughed under and under until it had almost disappeared from the
prairie; when all the fields were under fence, and the roads no longer ran
about like wild things, but followed the surveyed section-lines, Mr.
Shimerda's grave was still there, with a sagging wire fence around it, and
an unpainted wooden cross. As grandfather had predicted, Mrs. Shimerda
never saw the roads going over his head. The road from the north curved a
little to the east just there, and the road from the west swung out a
little to the south; so that the grave, with its tall red grass that was
never mowed, was like a little island; and at twilight, under a new moon or
the clear evening star, the dusty roads used to look like soft grey rivers
flowing past it. I never came upon the place without emotion, and in all
that country it was the spot most dear to me. I loved the dim
superstition, the propitiatory intent, that had put the grave there; and
still more I loved the spirit that could not carry out the sentence-- the
error from the surveyed lines, the clemency of the soft earth roads along
which the home-coming wagons rattled after sunset. Never a tired driver
passed the wooden cross, I am sure, without wishing well to the sleeper.
XVII
WHEN SPRING CAME, AFTER that hard winter, one could not get enough of the
nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter
was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch
in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only--spring
itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it
everywhere: in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in
the warm, high wind--rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and
playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If
I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known
that it was spring.
Everywhere now there was the smell of burning grass. Our neighbours burned
off their pasture before the new grass made a start, so that the fresh
growth would not be mixed with the dead stand of last year. Those light,
swift fires, running about the country, seemed a part of the same kindling
that was in the air.
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