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My
Antonia, by Willa Sibert Cather Book I: The Shimerdas Chapter XII
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. |
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