VI
ONE AFTERNOON WE WERE having our reading lesson on the warm, grassy bankwhere the badger lived. It was a day of amber sunlight, but there wasa shiver of coming winter in the air. I had seen ice on the littlehorsepond that morning, and as we went through the garden we found thetall asparagus, with its red berries, lying on the ground, a mass ofslimy green.
Tony was barefooted, and she shivered in her cotton dress and wascomfortable only when we were tucked down on the baked earth, in thefull blaze of the sun. She could talk to me about almost anything bythis time. That afternoon she was telling me how highly esteemed ourfriend the badger was in her part of the world, and how men kept aspecial kind of dog, with very short legs, to hunt him. Those dogs, shesaid, went down into the hole after the badger and killed him there ina terrific struggle underground; you could hear the barks and yelpsoutside. Then the dog dragged himself back, covered with bites andscratches, to be rewarded and petted by his master. She knew a dog whohad a star on his collar for every badger he had killed.
The rabbits were unusually spry that afternoon. They kept starting upall about us, and dashing off down the draw as if they were playing agame of some kind. But the little buzzing things that lived in the grasswere all dead--all but one. While we were lying there against the warmbank, a little insect of the palest, frailest green hopped painfullyout of the buffalo grass and tried to leap into a bunch of bluestem. Hemissed it, fell back, and sat with his head sunk between his long legs,his antennae quivering, as if he were waiting for something to come andfinish him. Tony made a warm nest for him in her hands; talked to himgaily and indulgently in Bohemian. Presently he began to sing for us--athin, rusty little chirp. She held him close to her ear and laughed, buta moment afterward I saw there were tears in her eyes. She told me thatin her village at home there was an old beggar woman who went aboutselling herbs and roots she had dug up in the forest. If you took herin and gave her a warm place by the fire, she sang old songs to thechildren in a cracked voice, like this. Old Hata, she was called, andthe children loved to see her coming and saved their cakes and sweetsfor her.
When the bank on the other side of the draw began to throw a narrowshelf of shadow, we knew we ought to be starting homeward; the chillcame on quickly when the sun got low, and Antonia's dress was thin. Whatwere we to do with the frail little creature we had lured back to lifeby false pretences? I offered my pockets, but Tony shook her head andcarefully put the green insect in her hair, tying her big handkerchiefdown loosely over her curls. I said I would go with her until we couldsee Squaw Creek, and then turn and run home. We drifted along lazily,very happy, through the magical light of the late afternoon.
All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them.As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched insunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of theday. The blond cornfields were red gold, the haystacks turned rosy andthrew long shadows. The whole prairie was like the bush that burnedwith fire and was not consumed. That hour always had the exultationof victory, of triumphant ending, like a hero's death--heroes who diedyoung and gloriously. It was a sudden transfiguration, a lifting-up ofday.
How many an afternoon Antonia and I have trailed along the prairie underthat magnificence! And always two long black shadows flitted before usor followed after, dark spots on the ruddy grass.
We had been silent a long time, and the edge of the sun sank nearer andnearer the prairie floor, when we saw a figure moving on the edge ofthe upland, a gun over his shoulder. He was walking slowly, dragging hisfeet along as if he had no purpose. We broke into a run to overtake him.
'My papa sick all the time,' Tony panted as we flew. 'He not look good,Jim.'
As we neared Mr. Shimerda she shouted, and he lifted his head and peeredabout. Tony ran up to him, caught his hand and pressed it against hercheek. She was the only one of his family who could rouse the old manfrom the torpor in which he seemed to live. He took the bag from hisbelt and showed us three rabbits he had shot, looked at Antonia with awintry flicker of a smile and began to tell her something. She turned tome.
'My tatinek make me little hat with the skins, little hat for winter!'she exclaimed joyfully. 'Meat for eat, skin for hat'--she told off thesebenefits on her fingers.
Her father put his hand on her hair, but she caught his wrist and liftedit carefully away, talking to him rapidly. I heard the name of old Hata.He untied the handkerchief, separated her hair with his fingers, andstood looking down at the green insect. When it began to chirp faintly,he listened as if it were a beautiful sound.
I picked up the gun he had dropped; a queer piece from the old country,short and heavy, with a stag's head on the cock. When he saw meexamining it, he turned to me with his far-away look that always mademe feel as if I were down at the bottom of a well. He spoke kindly andgravely, and Antonia translated:
'My tatinek say when you are big boy, he give you his gun. Very fine,from Bohemie. It was belong to a great man, very rich, like what you notgot here; many fields, many forests, many big house. My papa play forhis wedding, and he give my papa fine gun, and my papa give you.'
I was glad that this project was one of futurity. There never were suchpeople as the Shimerdas for wanting to give away everything theyhad. Even the mother was always offering me things, though I knew sheexpected substantial presents in return. We stood there in friendlysilence, while the feeble minstrel sheltered in Antonia's hair went onwith its scratchy chirp. The old man's smile, as he listened, was sofull of sadness, of pity for things, that I never afterward forgot it.As the sun sank there came a sudden coolness and the strong smell ofearth and drying grass. Antonia and her father went off hand in hand,and I buttoned up my jacket and raced my shadow home.