Beyond the pond, on the slope that climbed to the cornfield, there was, faintly marked in the grass, a great circle where the Indians used to ride. Jake and Otto were sure that when they galloped4 round that ring the Indians tortured prisoners, bound to a stake in the centre; but grandfather thought they merely ran races or trained horses there. Whenever one looked at this slope against the setting sun, the circle showed like a pattern in the grass; and this morning, when the first light spray of snow lay over it, it came out with wonderful distinctness, like strokes of Chinese white on canvas. The old figure stirred me as it had never done before and seemed a good omen5 for the winter.
As soon as the snow had packed hard, I began to drive about the country in a clumsy sleigh that Otto Fuchs made for me by fastening a wooden goods-box on bobs. Fuchs had been apprenticed6 to a cabinetmaker in the old country and was very handy with tools. He would have done a better job if I hadn’t hurried him. My first trip was to the post-office, and the next day I went over to take Yulka and Antonia for a sleigh-ride.
It was a bright, cold day. I piled straw and buffalo7 robes into the box, and took two hot bricks wrapped in old blankets. When I got to the Shimerdas’, I did not go up to the house, but sat in my sleigh at the bottom of the draw and called. Antonia and Yulka came running out, wearing little rabbit-skin hats their father had made for them. They had heard about my sledge8 from Ambrosch and knew why I had come. They tumbled in beside me and we set off toward the north, along a road that happened to be broken.
The sky was brilliantly blue, and the sunlight on the glittering white stretches of prairie was almost blinding. As Antonia said, the whole world was changed by the snow; we kept looking in vain for familiar landmarks9. The deep arroyo10 through which Squaw Creek11 wound was now only a cleft12 between snowdrifts—very blue when one looked down into it. The tree-tops that had been gold all the autumn were dwarfed13 and twisted, as if they would never have any life in them again. The few little cedars14, which were so dull and dingy15 before, now stood out a strong, dusky green. The wind had the burning taste of fresh snow; my throat and nostrils16 smarted as if someone had opened a hartshorn bottle. The cold stung, and at the same time delighted one. My horse’s breath rose like steam, and whenever we stopped he smoked all over. The cornfields got back a little of their colour under the dazzling light, and stood the palest possible gold in the sun and snow. All about us the snow was crusted in shallow terraces, with tracings like ripple-marks at the edges, curly waves that were the actual impression of the stinging lash17 in the wind.
The girls had on cotton dresses under their shawls; they kept shivering beneath the buffalo robes and hugging each other for warmth. But they were so glad to get away from their ugly cave and their mother’s scolding that they begged me to go on and on, as far as Russian Peter’s house. The great fresh open, after the stupefying warmth indoors, made them behave like wild things. They laughed and shouted, and said they never wanted to go home again. Couldn’t we settle down and live in Russian Peter’s house, Yulka asked, and couldn’t I go to town and buy things for us to keep house with?
All the way to Russian Peter’s we were extravagantly18 happy, but when we turned back—it must have been about four o’clock—the east wind grew stronger and began to howl; the sun lost its heartening power and the sky became grey and sombre. I took off my long woollen comforter and wound it around Yulka’s throat. She got so cold that we made her hide her head under the buffalo robe. Antonia and I sat erect19, but I held the reins20 clumsily, and my eyes were blinded by the wind a good deal of the time. It was growing dark when we got to their house, but I refused to go in with them and get warm. I knew my hands would ache terribly if I went near a fire. Yulka forgot to give me back my comforter, and I had to drive home directly against the wind. The next day I came down with an attack of quinsy, which kept me in the house for nearly two weeks.
The basement kitchen seemed heavenly safe and warm in those days—like a tight little boat in a winter sea. The men were out in the fields all day, husking corn, and when they came in at noon, with long caps pulled down over their ears and their feet in red-lined overshoes, I used to think they were like Arctic explorers. In the afternoons, when grandmother sat upstairs darning, or making husking-gloves, I read ‘The Swiss Family Robinson’ aloud to her, and I felt that the Swiss family had no advantages over us in the way of an adventurous21 life. I was convinced that man’s strongest antagonist22 is the cold. I admired the cheerful zest23 with which grandmother went about keeping us warm and comfortable and well-fed. She often reminded me, when she was preparing for the return of the hungry men, that this country was not like Virginia; and that here a cook had, as she said, ‘very little to do with.’ On Sundays she gave us as much chicken as we could eat, and on other days we had ham or bacon or sausage meat. She baked either pies or cake for us every day, unless, for a change, she made my favourite pudding, striped with currants and boiled in a bag.
Next to getting warm and keeping warm, dinner and supper were the most interesting things we had to think about. Our lives centred around warmth and food and the return of the men at nightfall. I used to wonder, when they came in tired from the fields, their feet numb25 and their hands cracked and sore, how they could do all the chores so conscientiously26: feed and water and bed the horses, milk the cows, and look after the pigs. When supper was over, it took them a long while to get the cold out of their bones. While grandmother and I washed the dishes and grandfather read his paper upstairs, Jake and Otto sat on the long bench behind the stove, ‘easing’ their inside boots, or rubbing mutton tallow into their cracked hands.
Every Saturday night we popped corn or made taffy, and Otto Fuchs used to sing, ‘For I Am a Cowboy and Know I’ve Done Wrong,’ or, ‘Bury Me Not on the Lone27 Prairee.’ He had a good baritone voice and always led the singing when we went to church services at the sod schoolhouse.
I can still see those two men sitting on the bench; Otto’s close-clipped head and Jake’s shaggy hair slicked flat in front by a wet comb. I can see the sag24 of their tired shoulders against the whitewashed28 wall. What good fellows they were, how much they knew, and how many things they had kept faith with!
Fuchs had been a cowboy, a stage-driver, a bartender, a miner; had wandered all over that great Western country and done hard work everywhere, though, as grandmother said, he had nothing to show for it. Jake was duller than Otto. He could scarcely read, wrote even his name with difficulty, and he had a violent temper which sometimes made him behave like a crazy man—tore him all to pieces and actually made him ill. But he was so soft-hearted that anyone could impose upon him. If he, as he said, ‘forgot himself’ and swore before grandmother, he went about depressed29 and shamefaced all day. They were both of them jovial30 about the cold in winter and the heat in summer, always ready to work overtime31 and to meet emergencies. It was a matter of pride with them not to spare themselves. Yet they were the sort of men who never get on, somehow, or do anything but work hard for a dollar or two a day.
On those bitter, starlit nights, as we sat around the old stove that fed us and warmed us and kept us cheerful, we could hear the coyotes howling down by the corrals, and their hungry, wintry cry used to remind the boys of wonderful animal stories; about grey wolves and bears in the Rockies, wildcats and panthers in the Virginia mountains. Sometimes Fuchs could be persuaded to talk about the outlaws32 and desperate characters he had known. I remember one funny story about himself that made grandmother, who was working her bread on the bread-board, laugh until she wiped her eyes with her bare arm, her hands being floury. It was like this:
When Otto left Austria to come to America, he was asked by one of his relatives to look after a woman who was crossing on the same boat, to join her husband in Chicago. The woman started off with two children, but it was clear that her family might grow larger on the journey. Fuchs said he ‘got on fine with the kids,’ and liked the mother, though she played a sorry trick on him. In mid-ocean she proceeded to have not one baby, but three! This event made Fuchs the object of undeserved notoriety, since he was travelling with her. The steerage stewardess33 was indignant with him, the doctor regarded him with suspicion. The first-cabin passengers, who made up a purse for the woman, took an embarrassing interest in Otto, and often enquired34 of him about his charge. When the triplets were taken ashore35 at New York, he had, as he said, ‘to carry some of them.’ The trip to Chicago was even worse than the ocean voyage. On the train it was very difficult to get milk for the babies and to keep their bottles clean. The mother did her best, but no woman, out of her natural resources, could feed three babies. The husband, in Chicago, was working in a furniture factory for modest wages, and when he met his family at the station he was rather crushed by the size of it. He, too, seemed to consider Fuchs in some fashion to blame. ‘I was sure glad,’ Otto concluded, ‘that he didn’t take his hard feeling out on that poor woman; but he had a sullen36 eye for me, all right! Now, did you ever hear of a young feller’s having such hard luck, Mrs. Burden?’
Grandmother told him she was sure the Lord had remembered these things to his credit, and had helped him out of many a scrape when he didn’t realize that he was being protected by Providence37.
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1
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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4
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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apprenticed
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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8
sledge
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| n.雪橇，大锤；v.用雪橇搬运，坐雪橇往 | |
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9
landmarks
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| n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址） | |
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10
arroyo
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| n.干涸的河床，小河 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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12
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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13
dwarfed
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| vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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14
cedars
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| 雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
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15
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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16
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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17
lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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18
extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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19
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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20
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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21
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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23
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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24
sag
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| v.下垂，下跌，消沉；n.下垂，下跌，凹陷，[航海]随风漂流 | |
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25
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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26
conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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27
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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28
whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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30
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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31
overtime
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| adj.超时的，加班的；adv.加班地 | |
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32
outlaws
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| 歹徒，亡命之徒( outlaw的名词复数 )； 逃犯 | |
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33
stewardess
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| n.空中小姐，女乘务员 | |
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34
enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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35
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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36
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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37
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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