My Ántonia (Chap. 2.12) lyrics

AFTER Ántonia went to live with the Cutters, she seemed to care about nothing but picnics and parties and having a good time. When she was not going to a dance, she sewed until midnight. Her new clothes were the subject of caustic comment. Under Lena’s direction she copied Mrs. Gardener’s new party dress and Mrs. Smith’s street costume so ingeniously in cheap materials that those ladies were greatly annoyed, and Mrs. Cutter, who was jealous of them, was secretly pleased.

Tony wore gloves now, and high-heeled shoes and feathered bonnets, and she went downtown nearly every afternoon with Tiny and Lena and the Marshalls’ Norwegian Anna. We High-School boys used to linger on the playground at the afternoon recess to watch them as they came tripping down the hill along the board sidewalk, two and two. They were growing prettier every day, but as they passed us, I used to think with pride that Ántonia, like Snow-White in the fairy tale, was still “fairest of them all.”

Being a Senior now, I got away from school early. Sometimes I overtook the girls downtown and coaxed them into the ice-cream parlor, where they would sit chattering and laughing, telling me all the news from the country. I remember how angry Tiny Soderball made me one afternoon. She declared she had heard grandmother was going to make a Baptist preacher of me. “I guess you’ll have to stop dancing and wear a white necktie then. Won’t he look funny, girls?”

Lena laughed. “You’ll have to hurry up, Jim. If you’re going to be a preacher, I want you to marry me. You must promise to marry us all, and then baptize the babies.”

Norwegian Anna, always dignified, looked at her reprovingly.

“Baptists don’t believe in christening babies, do they, Jim?”

I told her I did n’t know what they believed, and did n’t care, and that I certainly was n’t going to be a preacher.

“That’s too bad,” Tiny simpered. She was in a teasing mood. “You’d make such a good one. You’re so studious. Maybe you’d like to be a professor. You used to teach Tony, did n’t you?”

Ántonia broke in. “I’ve set my heart on Jim being a doctor. You’d be good with sick people, Jim. Your grandmother’s trained you up so nice. My papa always said you were an awful smart boy.”

I said I was going to be whatever I pleased. “Won’t you be surprised, Miss Tiny, if I turn out to be a regular devil of a fellow?”

They laughed until a glance from Norwegian Anna checked them; the High-School Principal had just come into the front part of the shop to buy bread for supper. Anna knew the whisper was going about that I was a sly one. People said there must be something queer about a boy who showed no interest in girls of his own age, but who could be lively enough when he was with Tony and Lena or the three Marys.

The enthusiasm for the dance, which the Vannis had kindled, did not at once die out. After the tent left town, the Euchre Club became the Owl Club, and gave dances in the Masonic Hall once a week. I was invited to join, but declined. I was moody and restless that winter, and tired of the people I saw every day. Charley Harling was already at Annapolis, while I was still sitting in Black Hawk, answering to my name at roll-call every morning, rising from my desk at the sound of a bell and marching out like the grammar-school children. Mrs. Harling was a little cool toward me, because I continued to champion Ántonia. What was there for me to do after supper? Usually I had learned next day’s lessons by the time I left the school building, and I could n’t sit still and read forever.

In the evening I used to prowl about, hunting for diversion. There lay the familiar streets, frozen with snow or liquid with mud. They led to the houses of good people who were putting the babies to bed, or simply sitting still before the parlor stove, digesting their supper. Black Hawk had two saloons. One of them was admitted, even by the church people, to be as respectable as a saloon could be. Handsome Anton Jelinek, who had rented his homestead and come to town, was the proprietor. In his saloon there were long tables where the Bohemian and German farmers could eat the lunches they brought from home while they drank their beer. Jelinek kept rye bread on hand, and smoked fish and strong imported cheeses to please the foreign palate. I liked to drop into his bar-room and listen to the talk. But one day he overtook me on the street and clapped me on the shoulder.