|
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 94
II
WHEN I AWOKE IN THE morning, long bands of sunshine were coming in at the
window and reaching back under the eaves where the two boys lay. Leo was
wide awake and was tickling his brother's leg with a dried cone-flower he
had pulled out of the hay. Ambrosch kicked at him and turned over. I
closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. Leo lay on his back, elevated
one foot, and began exercising his toes. He picked up dried flowers with
his toes and brandished them in the belt of sunlight. After he had amused
himself thus for some time, he rose on one elbow and began to look at me,
cautiously, then critically, blinking his eyes in the light. His
expression was droll; it dismissed me lightly. `This old fellow is no
different from other people. He doesn't know my secret.' He seemed
conscious of possessing a keener power of enjoyment than other people; his
quick recognitions made him frantically impatient of deliberate judgments.
He always knew what he wanted without thinking.
After dressing in the hay, I washed my face in cold water at the windmill.
Breakfast was ready when I entered the kitchen, and Yulka was baking
griddle-cakes. The three older boys set off for the fields early. Leo and
Yulka were to drive to town to meet their father, who would return from
Wilber on the noon train.
`We'll only have a lunch at noon,' Antonia said, and cook the geese for
supper, when our papa will be here. I wish my Martha could come down to
see you. They have a Ford car now, and she don't seem so far away from me
as she used to. But her husband's crazy about his farm and about having
everything just right, and they almost never get away except on Sundays.
He's a handsome boy, and he'll be rich some day. Everything he takes hold
of turns out well. When they bring that baby in here, and unwrap him, he
looks like a little prince; Martha takes care of him so beautiful. I'm
reconciled to her being away from me now, but at first I cried like I was
putting her into her coffin.'
We were alone in the kitchen, except for Anna, who was pouring cream into
the churn. She looked up at me. `Yes, she did. We were just ashamed of
mother. She went round crying, when Martha was so happy, and the rest of
us were all glad. Joe certainly was patient with you, mother.'
Antonia nodded and smiled at herself. `I know it was silly, but I couldn't
help it. I wanted her right here. She'd never been away from me a night
since she was born. If Anton had made trouble about her when she was a
baby, or wanted me to leave her with my mother, I wouldn't have married
him. I couldn't. But he always loved her like she was his own.'
`I didn't even know Martha wasn't my full sister until after she was
engaged to Joe,' Anna told me.
Toward the middle of the afternoon, the wagon drove in, with the father and
the eldest son. I was smoking in the orchard, and as I went out to meet
them, Antonia came running down from the house and hugged the two men as if
they had been away for months.
`Papa,' interested me, from my first glimpse of him. He was shorter than
his older sons; a crumpled little man, with run-over boot-heels, and he
carried one shoulder higher than the other. But he moved very quickly, and
there was an air of jaunty liveliness about him. He had a strong, ruddy
colour, thick black hair, a little grizzled, a curly moustache, and red
lips. His smile showed the strong teeth of which his wife was so proud,
and as he saw me his lively, quizzical eyes told me that he knew all about
me. He looked like a humorous philosopher who had hitched up one shoulder
under the burdens of life, and gone on his way having a good time when he
could. He advanced to meet me and gave me a hard hand, burned red on the
back and heavily coated with hair. He wore his Sunday clothes, very thick
and hot for the weather, an unstarched white shirt, and a blue necktie with
big white dots, like a little boy's, tied in a flowing bow. Cuzak began at
once to talk about his holiday--from politeness he spoke in English.
`Mama, I wish you had see the lady dance on the slack-wire in the street at
night. They throw a bright light on her and she float through the air
something beautiful, like a bird! They have a dancing bear, like in the
old country, and two-three merry-go-around, and people in balloons, and
what you call the big wheel, Rudolph?'
`A Ferris wheel,' Rudolph entered the conversation in a deep baritone
voice. He was six foot two, and had a chest like a young blacksmith. `We
went to the big dance in the hall behind the saloon last night, mother, and
I danced with all the girls, and so did father. I never saw so many pretty
girls. It was a Bohunk crowd, for sure. We didn't hear a word of English
on the street, except from the show people, did we, papa?'
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|