My Ántonia

  IX

  THERE was a curious social situation in Black Hawk. All the young men feltthe attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to townto earn a living, and, in nearly every case, to help the father struggleout of debt, or to make it possible for the younger children of the familyto go to school.

  Those girls had grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and had gotlittle schooling themselves. But the younger brothers and sisters, forwhom they made such sacrifices and who have had "advantages," never seemto me, when I meet them now, half as interesting or as well educated. Theolder girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so much fromlife, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all,like Antonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tenderage from an old country to a new. I can remember a score of these countrygirls who were in service in Black Hawk during the few years I livedthere, and I can remember something unusual and engaging about each ofthem. Physically they were almost a race apart, and out-of-door work hadgiven them a vigor which, when they got over their first shyness on comingto town, developed into a positive carriage and freedom of movement, andmade them conspicuous among Black Hawk women.

  That was before the day of High-School athletics. Girls who had to walkmore than half a mile to school were pitied. There was not a tennis courtin the town; physical exercise was thought rather inelegant for thedaughters of well-to-do families. Some of the High-School girls were jollyand pretty, but they stayed indoors in winter because of the cold, and insummer because of the heat. When one danced with them their bodies nevermoved inside their clothes; their muscles seemed to ask but one thing--notto be disturbed. I remember those girls merely as faces in the schoolroom,gay and rosy, or listless and dull, cut off below the shoulders, likecherubs, by the ink-smeared tops of the high desks that were surely putthere to make us round-shouldered and hollow-chested.

  The daughters of Black Hawk merchants had a confident, uninquiring beliefthat they were "refined," and that the country girls, who "worked out,"were not. The American farmers in our county were quite as hard-pressed astheir neighbors from other countries. All alike had come to Nebraska withlittle capital and no knowledge of the soil they must subdue. All hadborrowed money on their land. But no matter in what straits thePennsylvanian or Virginian found himself, he would not let his daughtersgo out into service. Unless his girls could teach a country school, theysat at home in poverty. The Bohemian and Scandinavian girls could not getpositions as teachers, because they had had no opportunity to learn thelanguage. Determined to help in the struggle to clear the homestead fromdebt, they had no alternative but to go into service. Some of them, afterthey came to town, remained as serious and as discreet in behavior as theyhad been when they ploughed and herded on their father's farm. Others,like the three Bohemian Marys, tried to make up for the years of youththey had lost. But every one of them did what she had set out to do, andsent home those hard-earned dollars. The girls I knew were always helpingto pay for ploughs and reapers, brood-sows, or steers to fatten.

  One result of this family solidarity was that the foreign farmers in ourcounty were the first to become prosperous. After the fathers were out ofdebt, the daughters married the sons of neighbors,--usually of likenationality,--and the girls who once worked in Black Hawk kitchens areto-day managing big farms and fine families of their own; their childrenare better off than the children of the town women they used to serve.

  I thought the attitude of the town people toward these girls very stupid.If I told my schoolmates that Lena Lingard's grandfather was a clergyman,and much respected in Norway, they looked at me blankly. What did itmatter? All foreigners were ignorant people who could n't speak English.There was not a man in Black Hawk who had the intelligence or cultivation,much less the personal distinction, of Antonia's father. Yet people saw nodifference between her and the three Marys; they were all Bohemians, all"hired girls."

  I always knew I should live long enough to see my country girls come intotheir own, and I have. To-day the best that a harassed Black Hawk merchantcan hope for is to sell provisions and farm machinery and automobiles tothe rich farms where that first crop of stalwart Bohemian and Scandinaviangirls are now the mistresses.

  The Black Hawk boys looked forward to marrying Black Hawk girls, andliving in a brand-new little house with best chairs that must not be satupon, and hand-painted china that must not be used. But sometimes a youngfellow would look up from his ledger, or out through the grating of hisfather's bank, and let his eyes follow Lena Lingard, as she passed thewindow with her slow, undulating walk, or Tiny Soderball, tripping by inher short skirt and striped stockings.

  The country girls were considered a menace to the social order. Theirbeauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background. But anxiousmothers need have felt no alarm. They mistook the mettle of their sons.The respect for respectability was stronger than any desire in Black Hawkyouth.

  Our young man of position was like the son of a royal house; the boy whoswept out his office or drove his delivery wagon might frolic with thejolly country girls, but he himself must sit all evening in a plush parlorwhere conversation dragged so perceptibly that the father often came inand made blundering efforts to warm up the atmosphere. On his way homefrom his dull call, he would perhaps meet Tony and Lena, coming along thesidewalk whispering to each other, or the three Bohemian Marys in theirlong plush coats and caps, comporting themselves with a dignity that onlymade their eventful histories the more piquant. If he went to the hotel tosee a traveling man on business, there was Tiny, arching her shoulders athim like a kitten. If he went into the laundry to get his collars, therewere the four Danish girls, smiling up from their ironing-boards, withtheir white throats and their pink cheeks.

  The three Marys were the heroines of a cycle of scandalous stories, whichthe old men were fond of relating as they sat about the cigar-stand in thedrug-store. Mary Dusak had been housekeeper for a bachelor rancher fromBoston, and after several years in his service she was forced to retirefrom the world for a short time. Later she came back to town to take theplace of her friend, Mary Svoboda, who was similarly embarrassed. Thethree Marys were considered as dangerous as high explosives to have aboutthe kitchen, yet they were such good cooks and such admirable housekeepersthat they never had to look for a place.

  The Vannis' tent brought the town boys and the country girls together onneutral ground. Sylvester Lovett, who was cashier in his father's bank,always found his way to the tent on Saturday night. He took all the dancesLena Lingard would give him, and even grew bold enough to walk home withher. If his sisters or their friends happened to be among the onlookers on"popular nights," Sylvester stood back in the shadow under the cottonwoodtrees, smoking and watching Lena with a harassed expression. Several timesI stumbled upon him there in the dark, and I felt rather sorry for him. Hereminded me of Ole Benson, who used to sit on the draw-side and watch Lenaherd her cattle. Later in the summer, when Lena went home for a week tovisit her mother, I heard from Antonia that young Lovett drove all the wayout there to see her, and took her buggy-riding. In my ingenuousness Ihoped that Sylvester would marry Lena, and thus give all the country girlsa better position in the town.

  Sylvester dallied about Lena until he began to make mistakes in his work;had to stay at the bank until after dark to make his books balance. He wasdaft about her, and every one knew it. To escape from his predicament heran away with a widow six years older than himself, who owned ahalf-section. This remedy worked, apparently. He never looked at Lenaagain, nor lifted his eyes as he ceremoniously tipped his hat when hehappened to meet her on the sidewalk.

  So that was what they were like, I thought, these white-handed,high-collared clerks and bookkeepers! I used to glare at young Lovett froma distance and only wished I had some way of showing my contempt for him.