|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 41
All the nights were close and hot during that harvest season. The
harvesters slept in the hayloft because it was cooler there than in the
house. I used to lie in my bed by the open window, watching the heat
lightning play softly along the horizon, or looking up at the gaunt frame
of the windmill against the blue night sky. One night there was a
beautiful electric storm, though not enough rain fell to damage the cut
grain. The men went down to the barn immediately after supper, and when
the dishes were washed, Antonia and I climbed up on the slanting roof of
the chicken-house to watch the clouds. The thunder was loud and metallic,
like the rattle of sheet iron, and the lightning broke in great zigzags
across the heavens, making everything stand out and come close to us for a
moment. Half the sky was chequered with black thunderheads, but all the
west was luminous and clear: in the lightning flashes it looked like deep
blue water, with the sheen of moonlight on it; and the mottled part of the
sky was like marble pavement, like the quay of some splendid seacoast city,
doomed to destruction. Great warm splashes of rain fell on our upturned
faces. One black cloud, no bigger than a little boat, drifted out into the
clear space unattended, and kept moving westward. All about us we could
hear the felty beat of the raindrops on the soft dust of the farmyard.
Grandmother came to the door and said it was late, and we would get wet out
there.
`In a minute we come,' Antonia called back to her. `I like your
grandmother, and all things here,' she sighed. `I wish my papa live to see
this summer. I wish no winter ever come again.'
`It will be summer a long while yet,' I reassured her. `Why aren't you
always nice like this, Tony?'
`How nice?'
`Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to be
like Ambrosch?'
She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. `If I
live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But
they will be hard for us.'
BOOK II
The Hired Girls
I
I HAD BEEN LIVING with my grandfather for nearly three years when he
decided to move to Black Hawk. He and grandmother were getting old for the
heavy work of a farm, and as I was now thirteen they thought I ought to be
going to school. Accordingly our homestead was rented to `that good woman,
the Widow Steavens,' and her bachelor brother, and we bought Preacher
White's house, at the north end of Black Hawk. This was the first town
house one passed driving in from the farm, a landmark which told country
people their long ride was over.
We were to move to Black Hawk in March, and as soon as grandfather had
fixed the date he let Jake and Otto know of his intention. Otto said he
would not be likely to find another place that suited him so well; that he
was tired of farming and thought he would go back to what he called the
`wild West.' Jake Marpole, lured by Otto's stories of adventure, decided to
go with him. We did our best to dissuade Jake. He was so handicapped by
illiteracy and by his trusting disposition that he would be an easy prey to
sharpers. Grandmother begged him to stay among kindly, Christian people,
where he was known; but there was no reasoning with him. He wanted to be a
prospector. He thought a silver mine was waiting for him in Colorado.
Jake and Otto served us to the last. They moved us into town, put down the
carpets in our new house, made shelves and cupboards for grandmother's
kitchen, and seemed loath to leave us. But at last they went, without
warning. Those two fellows had been faithful to us through sun and storm,
had given us things that cannot be bought in any market in the world. With
me they had been like older brothers; had restrained their speech and
manners out of care for me, and given me so much good comradeship. Now
they got on the westbound train one morning, in their Sunday clothes, with
their oilcloth valises--and I never saw them again. Months afterward we
got a card from Otto, saying that Jake had been down with mountain fever,
but now they were both working in the Yankee Girl Mine, and were doing
well. I wrote to them at that address, but my letter was returned to me,
`Unclaimed.' After that we never heard from them.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|