My Antonia

On Christmas morning, when I got down to the kitchen, the men were just coming in from their morning chores—­the horses and pigs always had their breakfast before we did.  Jake and Otto shouted `Merry Christmas!’ to me, and winked at each other when they saw the waffle-irons on the stove.  Grandfather came down, wearing a white shirt and his Sunday coat.  Morning prayers were longer than usual.  He read the chapters from Saint Matthew about the birth of Christ, and as we listened, it all seemed like something that had happened lately, and near at hand.  In his prayer he thanked the Lord for the first Christmas, and for all that it had meant to the world ever since.  He gave thanks for our food and comfort, and prayed for the poor and destitute in great cities, where the struggle for life was harder than it was here with us.  Grandfather’s prayers were often very interesting.  He had the gift of simple and moving expression.  Because he talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull from constant use.  His prayers reflected what he was thinking about at the time, and it was chiefly through them that we got to know his feelings and his views about things.

After we sat down to our waffles and sausage, Jake told us how pleased the Shimerdas had been with their presents; even Ambrosch was friendly and went to the creek with him to cut the Christmas tree.  It was a soft grey day outside, with heavy clouds working across the sky, and occasional squalls of snow.  There were always odd jobs to be done about the barn on holidays, and the men were busy until afternoon.  Then Jake and I played dominoes, while Otto wrote a long letter home to his mother.  He always wrote to her on Christmas Day, he said, no matter where he was, and no matter how long it had been since his last letter.  All afternoon he sat in the dining-room.  He would write for a while, then sit idle, his clenched fist lying on the table, his eyes following the pattern of the oilcloth.  He spoke and wrote his own language so seldom that it came to him awkwardly.  His effort to remember entirely absorbed him.

At about four o’clock a visitor appeared:  Mr. Shimerda, wearing his rabbit-skin cap and collar, and new mittens his wife had knitted.  He had come to thank us for the presents, and for all grandmother’s kindness to his family.  Jake and Otto joined us from the basement and we sat about the stove, enjoying the deepening grey of the winter afternoon and the atmosphere of comfort and security in my grandfather’s house.  This feeling seemed completely to take possession of Mr. Shimerda.  I suppose, in the crowded clutter of their cave, the old man had come to believe that peace and order had vanished from the earth, or existed only in the old world he had left so far behind.  He sat still and passive, his head resting against the back of the wooden rocking-chair, his hands relaxed upon the arms.  His face had a look of weariness and pleasure, like that of sick people when they feel relief from pain.  Grandmother insisted on his drinking a glass of Virginia apple-brandy after his long walk in the cold, and when a faint flush came up in his cheeks, his features might have been cut out of a shell, they were so transparent.  He said almost nothing, and smiled rarely; but as he rested there we all had a sense of his utter content.

As it grew dark, I asked whether I might light the Christmas tree before the lamp was brought.  When the candle-ends sent up their conical yellow flames, all the coloured figures from Austria stood out clear and full of meaning against the green boughs.  Mr. Shimerda rose, crossed himself, and quietly knelt down before the tree, his head sunk forward.  His long body formed a letter `S.’  I saw grandmother look apprehensively at grandfather.  He was rather narrow in religious matters, and sometimes spoke out and hurt people’s feelings.  There had been nothing strange about the tree before, but now, with some one kneeling before it—­images, candles …  Grandfather merely put his finger-tips to his brow and bowed his venerable head, thus Protestantizing the atmosphere.

We persuaded our guest to stay for supper with us.  He needed little urging.  As we sat down to the table, it occurred to me that he liked to look at us, and that our faces were open books to him.  When his deep-seeing eyes rested on me, I felt as if he were looking far ahead into the future for me, down the road I would have to travel.

At nine o’clock Mr. Shimerda lighted one of our lanterns and put on his overcoat and fur collar.  He stood in the little entry hall, the lantern and his fur cap under his arm, shaking hands with us.  When he took grandmother’s hand, he bent over it as he always did, and said slowly, `Good woman!’ He made the sign of the cross over me, put on his cap and went off in the dark.  As we turned back to the sitting-room, grandfather looked at me searchingly. `The prayers of all good people are good,’ he said quietly.