by Willa Cather
XIX
JULY came on with that breathless, brilliant heat which makes the plainsof Kansas and Nebraska the best corn country in the world. It seemed as ifwe could hear the corn growing in the night; under the stars one caught afaint crackling in the dewy, heavy-odored cornfields where the featheredstalks stood so juicy and green. If all the great plain from the Missourito the Rocky Mountains had been under glass, and the heat regulated by athermometer, it could not have been better for the yellow tassels thatwere ripening and fertilizing each other day by day. The cornfields werefar apart in those times, with miles of wild grazing land between. It tooka clear, meditative eye like my grandfather's to foresee that they wouldenlarge and multiply until they would be, not the Shimerdas' cornfields,or Mr. Bushy's, but the world's cornfields; that their yield would be oneof the great economic facts, like the wheat crop of Russia, which underlieall the activities of men, in peace or war.
The burning sun of those few weeks, with occasional rains at night,secured the corn. After the milky ears were once formed, we had little tofear from dry weather. The men were working so hard in the wheatfieldsthat they did not notice the heat,--though I was kept busy carrying waterfor them,--and grandmother and Antonia had so much to do in the kitchenthat they could not have told whether one day was hotter than another.Each morning, while the dew was still on the grass, Antonia went with meup to the garden to get early vegetables for dinner. Grandmother made herwear a sunbonnet, but as soon as we reached the garden she threw it on thegrass and let her hair fly in the breeze. I remember how, as we bent overthe pea-vines, beads of perspiration used to gather on her upper lip likea little mustache.
"Oh, better I like to work out of doors than in a house!" she used to singjoyfully. "I not care that your grandmother say it makes me like a man. Ilike to be like a man." She would toss her head and ask me to feel themuscles swell in her brown arm.
We were glad to have her in the house. She was so gay and responsive thatone did not mind her heavy, running step, or her clattery way with pans.Grandmother was in high spirits during the weeks that Antonia worked forus.
Jim and Antonia in the garden]
All the nights were close and hot during that harvest season. Theharvesters slept in the hayloft because it was cooler there than in thehouse. I used to lie in my bed by the open window, watching the heatlightning play softly along the horizon, or looking up at the gaunt frameof the windmill against the blue night sky. One night there was abeautiful electric storm, though not enough rain fell to damage the cutgrain. The men went down to the barn immediately after supper, and whenthe dishes were washed Antonia and I climbed up on the slanting roof ofthe chicken-house to watch the clouds. The thunder was loud and metallic,like the rattle of sheet iron, and the lightning broke in great zigzagsacross the heavens, making everything stand out and come close to us for amoment. Half the sky was checkered with black thunderheads, but all thewest was luminous and clear: in the lightning-flashes it looked like deepblue water, with the sheen of moonlight on it; and the mottled part of thesky was like marble pavement, like the quay of some splendid sea-coastcity, doomed to destruction. Great warm splashes of rain fell on ourupturned faces. One black cloud, no bigger than a little boat, drifted outinto the clear space unattended, and kept moving westward. All about us wecould hear the felty beat of the raindrops on the soft dust of thefarmyard. Grandmother came to the door and said it was late, and we wouldget wet out there.
"In a minute we come," Antonia called back to her. "I like yourgrandmother, and all things here," she sighed. "I wish my papa live to seethis summer. I wish no winter ever come again."
"It will be summer a long while yet," I reassured her. "Why are n't youalways nice like this, Tony?"
"How nice?"
"Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to belike Ambrosch?"
She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. "If Ilive here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. Butthey will be hard for us."
BOOK II--THE HIRED GIRLS
