‘Was he dead? Well, I guess so! There, now, Nina’s all upset. We won’t talk about it. Don’t you cry, Nina. No old tramp won’t get you while Tony’s here.’
Mrs. Harling spoke up sternly. ‘Stop crying, Nina, or I’ll always send you upstairs when Ántonia tells us about the country. Did they never find out where he came from, Ántonia?’
‘Never, ma’m. He hadn’t been seen nowhere except in a little town they call Conway. He tried to get beer there, but there wasn’t any saloon. Maybe he came in on a freight, but the brakeman hadn’t seen him. They couldn’t find no letters nor nothing on him; nothing but an old penknife in his pocket and the wishbone of a chicken wrapped up in a piece of paper, and some poetry.’
‘Some poetry?’ we exclaimed.
‘I remember,’ said Frances. ‘It was “The Old Oaken Bucket,” cut out of a newspaper and nearly worn out. Ole Iverson brought it into the office and showed it to me.’
‘Now, wasn’t that strange, Miss Frances?’ Tony asked thoughtfully. ‘What would anybody want to kill themselves in summer for? In threshing time, too! It’s nice everywhere then.’
‘So it is, Ántonia,’ said Mrs. Harling heartily. ‘Maybe I’ll go home and help you thresh next summer. Isn’t that taffy nearly ready to eat? I’ve been smelling it a long while.’
There was a basic harmony between Ántonia and her mistress. They had strong, independent natures, both of them. They knew what they liked, and were not always trying to imitate other people. They loved children and animals and music, and rough play and digging in the earth. They liked to prepare rich, hearty food and to see people eat it; to make up soft white beds and to see youngsters asleep in them. They ridiculed conceited people and were quick to help unfortunate ones. Deep down in each of them there was a kind of hearty joviality, a relish of life, not over-delicate, but very invigorating. I never tried to define it, but I was distinctly conscious of it. I could not imagine Ántonia’s living for a week in any other house in Black Hawk than the Harlings’.
VII
Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men’s affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice. But in Black Hawk the scene of human life was spread out shrunken and pinched, frozen down to the bare stalk.