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Page 6
"I finished it last night--the thing about Antonia," he said. "Now, what
about yours?"
I had to confess that mine had not gone beyond a few straggling notes.
"Notes? I didn't make any." He drank his tea all at once and put down the
cup. "I didn't arrange or rearrange. I simply wrote down what of herself
and myself and other people Antonia's name recalls to me. I suppose it
hasn't any form. It hasn't any title, either." He went into the next
room, sat down at my desk and wrote on the pinkish face of the portfolio
the word, "Antonia." He frowned at this a moment, then prefixed another
word, making it "My Antonia." That seemed to satisfy him.
"Read it as soon as you can," he said, rising, "but don't let it influence
your own story."
My own story was never written, but the following narrative is Jim's
manuscript, substantially as he brought it to me.
NOTES: [1] The Bohemian name Antonia is strongly accented on the first
syllable, like the English name Anthony, and the `i' is, of course, given
the sound of long `e'. The name is pronounced An'-ton-ee-ah.
BOOK I
The Shimerdas
I
I FIRST HEARD OF Antonia on what seemed to me an interminable journey
across the great midland plain of North America. I was ten years old then;
I had lost both my father and mother within a year, and my Virginia
relatives were sending me out to my grandparents, who lived in Nebraska. I
travelled in the care of a mountain boy, Jake Marpole, one of the `hands'
on my father's old farm under the Blue Ridge, who was now going West to
work for my grandfather. Jake's experience of the world was not much wider
than mine. He had never been in a railway train until the morning when we
set out together to try our fortunes in a new world.
We went all the way in day-coaches, becoming more sticky and grimy with
each stage of the journey. Jake bought everything the newsboys offered
him: candy, oranges, brass collar buttons, a watch-charm, and for me a
`Life of Jesse James,' which I remember as one of the most satisfactory
books I have ever read. Beyond Chicago we were under the protection of a
friendly passenger conductor, who knew all about the country to which we
were going and gave us a great deal of advice in exchange for our
confidence. He seemed to us an experienced and worldly man who had been
almost everywhere; in his conversation he threw out lightly the names of
distant states and cities. He wore the rings and pins and badges of
different fraternal orders to which he belonged. Even his cuff-buttons
were engraved with hieroglyphics, and he was more inscribed than an
Egyptian obelisk.
Once when he sat down to chat, he told us that in the immigrant car ahead
there was a family from `across the water' whose destination was the same
as ours.
`They can't any of them speak English, except one little girl, and all she
can say is "We go Black Hawk, Nebraska." She's not much older than you,
twelve or thirteen, maybe, and she's as bright as a new dollar. Don't you
want to go ahead and see her, Jimmy? She's got the pretty brown eyes,
too!'
This last remark made me bashful, and I shook my head and settled down to
`Jesse James.' Jake nodded at me approvingly and said you were likely to
get diseases from foreigners.
I do not remember crossing the Missouri River, or anything about the long
day's journey through Nebraska. Probably by that time I had crossed so
many rivers that I was dull to them. The only thing very noticeable about
Nebraska was that it was still, all day long, Nebraska.
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