by Willa Cather
V
AFTER Lena came to Black Hawk I often met her downtown, where she would bematching sewing silk or buying "findings" for Mrs. Thomas. If I happenedto walk home with her, she told me all about the dresses she was helpingto make, or about what she saw and heard when she was with Tiny Soderballat the hotel on Saturday nights.
The Boys' Home was the best hotel on our branch of the Burlington, and allthe commercial travelers in that territory tried to get into Black Hawkfor Sunday. They used to assemble in the parlor after supper on Saturdaynights. Marshall Field's man, Anson Kirkpatrick, played the piano and sangall the latest sentimental songs. After Tiny had helped the cook wash thedishes, she and Lena sat on the other side of the double doors between theparlor and the dining-room, listening to the music and giggling at thejokes and stories. Lena often said she hoped I would be a traveling manwhen I grew up. They had a gay life of it; nothing to do but ride about ontrains all day and go to theaters when they were in big cities. Behind thehotel there was an old store building, where the salesmen opened their bigtrunks and spread out their samples on the counters. The Black Hawkmerchants went to look at these things and order goods, and Mrs. Thomas,though she was "retail trade," was permitted to see them and to "getideas." They were all generous, these traveling men; they gave TinySoderball handkerchiefs and gloves and ribbons and striped stockings, andso many bottles of perfume and cakes of scented soap that she bestowedsome of them on Lena.
One afternoon in the week before Christmas I came upon Lena and her funny,square-headed little brother Chris, standing before the drug-store, gazingin at the wax dolls and blocks and Noah's arks arranged in the frosty showwindow. The boy had come to town with a neighbor to do his Christmasshopping, for he had money of his own this year. He was only twelve, butthat winter he had got the job of sweeping out the Norwegian church andmaking the fire in it every Sunday morning. A cold job it must have been,too!
We went into Duckford's dry-goods store, and Chris unwrapped all hispresents and showed them to me--something for each of the six younger thanhimself, even a rubber pig for the baby. Lena had given him one of TinySoderball's bottles of perfume for his mother, and he thought he would getsome handkerchiefs to go with it. They were cheap, and he had n't muchmoney left. We found a tableful of handkerchiefs spread out for view atDuckford's. Chris wanted those with initial letters in the corner, becausehe had never seen any before. He studied them seriously, while Lena lookedover his shoulder, telling him she thought the red letters would holdtheir color best. He seemed so perplexed that I thought perhaps he had n'tenough money, after all. Presently he said gravely,--
"Sister, you know mother's name is Berthe. I don't know if I ought to getB for Berthe, or M for Mother."
Lena patted his bristly head. "I'd get the B, Chrissy. It will please herfor you to think about her name. Nobody ever calls her by it now."
That satisfied him. His face cleared at once, and he took three reds andthree blues. When the neighbor came in to say that it was time to start,Lena wound Chris's comforter about his neck and turned up his jacketcollar--he had no overcoat--and we watched him climb into the wagon andstart on his long, cold drive. As we walked together up the windy street,Lena wiped her eyes with the back of her woolen glove. "I get awfulhomesick for them, all the same," she murmured, as if she were answeringsome remembered reproach.
