My Ántonia

by Willa Cather

  XV

  LATE in August the Cutters went to Omaha for a few days, leaving Antoniain charge of the house. Since the scandal about the Swedish girl, WickCutter could never get his wife to stir out of Black Hawk without him.

  The day after the Cutters left, Antonia came over to see us. Grandmothernoticed that she seemed troubled and distracted. "You've got something onyour mind, Antonia," she said anxiously.

  "Yes, Mrs. Burden. I could n't sleep much last night." She hesitated, andthen told us how strangely Mr. Cutter had behaved before he went away. Heput all the silver in a basket and placed it under her bed, and with it abox of papers which he told her were valuable. He made her promise thatshe would not sleep away from the house, or be out late in the evening,while he was gone. He strictly forbade her to ask any of the girls sheknew to stay with her at night. She would be perfectly safe, he said, ashe had just put a new Yale lock on the front door.

  Cutter had been so insistent in regard to these details that now she feltuncomfortable about staying there alone. She had n't liked the way he keptcoming into the kitchen to instruct her, or the way he looked at her. "Ifeel as if he is up to some of his tricks again, and is going to try toscare me, somehow."

  Grandmother was apprehensive at once. "I don't think it's right for you tostay there, feeling that way. I suppose it would n't be right for you toleave the place alone, either, after giving your word. Maybe Jim would bewilling to go over there and sleep, and you could come here nights. I'dfeel safer, knowing you were under my own roof. I guess Jim could takecare of their silver and old usury notes as well as you could."

  Antonia turned to me eagerly. "Oh, would you, Jim? I'd make up my bed niceand fresh for you. It's a real cool room, and the bed's right next thewindow. I was afraid to leave the window open last night."

  I liked my own room, and I did n't like the Cutters' house under anycircumstances; but Tony looked so troubled that I consented to try thisarrangement. I found that I slept there as well as anywhere, and when Igot home in the morning, Tony had a good breakfast waiting for me. Afterprayers she sat down at the table with us, and it was like old times inthe country.

  The third night I spent at the Cutters', I awoke suddenly with theimpression that I had heard a door open and shut. Everything was still,however, and I must have gone to sleep again immediately.

  The next thing I knew, I felt some one sit down on the edge of the bed. Iwas only half awake, but I decided that he might take the Cutters' silver,whoever he was. Perhaps if I did not move, he would find it and get outwithout troubling me. I held my breath and lay absolutely still. A handclosed softly on my shoulder, and at the same moment I felt somethinghairy and cologne-scented brushing my face. If the room had suddenly beenflooded with electric light, I could n't have seen more clearly thedetestable bearded countenance that I knew was bending over me. I caught ahandful of whiskers and pulled, shouting something. The hand that held myshoulder was instantly at my throat. The man became insane; he stood overme, choking me with one fist and beating me in the face with the other,hissing and chuckling and letting out a flood of abuse.

  "So this is what she's up to when I'm away, is it? Where is she, you nastywhelp, where is she? Under the bed, are you, hussy? I know your tricks!Wait till I get at you! I'll fix this rat you've got in here. He's caught,all right!"

  So long as Cutter had me by the throat, there was no chance for me at all.I got hold of his thumb and bent it back, until he let go with a yell. Ina bound, I was on my feet, and easily sent him sprawling to the floor.Then I made a dive for the open window, struck the wire screen, knocked itout, and tumbled after it into the yard.

  Suddenly I found myself running across the north end of Black Hawk in mynightshirt, just as one sometimes finds one's self behaving in bad dreams.When I got home I climbed in at the kitchen window. I was covered withblood from my nose and lip, but I was too sick to do anything about it. Ifound a shawl and an overcoat on the hatrack, lay down on the parlor sofa,and in spite of my hurts, went to sleep.

  Grandmother found me there in the morning. Her cry of fright awakened me.Truly, I was a battered object. As she helped me to my room, I caught aglimpse of myself in the mirror. My lip was cut and stood out like asnout. My nose looked like a big blue plum, and one eye was swollen shutand hideously discolored. Grandmother said we must have the doctor atonce, but I implored her, as I had never begged for anything before, notto send for him. I could stand anything, I told her, so long as nobody sawme or knew what had happened to me. I entreated her not to letgrandfather, even, come into my room. She seemed to understand, though Iwas too faint and miserable to go into explanations. When she took off mynightshirt, she found such bruises on my chest and shoulders that shebegan to cry. She spent the whole morning bathing and poulticing me, andrubbing me with arnica. I heard Antonia sobbing outside my door, but Iasked grandmother to send her away. I felt that I never wanted to see heragain. I hated her almost as much as I hated Cutter. She had let me in forall this disgustingness. Grandmother kept saying how thankful we ought tobe that I had been there instead of Antonia. But I lay with my disfiguredface to the wall and felt no particular gratitude. My one concern was thatgrandmother should keep every one away from me. If the story once gotabroad, I would never hear the last of it. I could well imagine what theold men down at the drug-store would do with such a theme.

  While grandmother was trying to make me comfortable, grandfather went tothe depot and learned that Wick Cutter had come home on the night expressfrom the east, and had left again on the six o'clock train for Denver thatmorning. The agent said his face was striped with court-plaster, and hecarried his left hand in a sling. He looked so used up, that the agentasked him what had happened to him since ten o'clock the night before;whereat Cutter began to swear at him and said he would have him dischargedfor incivility.

  That afternoon, while I was asleep, Antonia took grandmother with her, andwent over to the Cutters' to pack her trunk. They found the place lockedup, and they had to break the window to get into Antonia's bedroom. Thereeverything was in shocking disorder. Her clothes had been taken out of hercloset, thrown into the middle of the room, and trampled and torn. My owngarments had been treated so badly that I never saw them again;grandmother burned them in the Cutters' kitchen range.

  While Antonia was packing her trunk and putting her room in order, toleave it, the front-door bell rang violently. There stood Mrs.Cutter,--locked out, for she had no key to the new lock--her head tremblingwith rage. "I advised her to control herself, or she would have a stroke,"grandmother said afterwards.

  Grandmother would not let her see Antonia at all, but made her sit down inthe parlor while she related to her just what had occurred the nightbefore. Antonia was frightened, and was going home to stay for a while,she told Mrs. Cutter; it would be useless to interrogate the girl, for sheknew nothing of what had happened.

  Then Mrs. Cutter told her story. She and her husband had started home fromOmaha together the morning before. They had to stop over several hours atWaymore Junction to catch the Black Hawk train. During the wait, Cutterleft her at the depot and went to the Waymore bank to attend to somebusiness. When he returned, he told her that he would have to stayovernight there, but she could go on home. He bought her ticket and puther on the train. She saw him slip a twenty-dollar bill into her handbagwith her ticket. That bill, she said, should have aroused her suspicionsat once--but did not.

  The trains are never called at little junction towns; everybody knows whenthey come in. Mr. Cutter showed his wife's ticket to the conductor, andsettled her in her seat before the train moved off. It was not untilnearly nightfall that she discovered she was on the express bound forKansas City, that her ticket was made out to that point, and that Cuttermust have planned it so. The conductor told her the Black Hawk train wasdue at Waymore twelve minutes after the Kansas City train left. She saw atonce that her husband had played this trick in order to get back to BlackHawk without her. She had no choice but to go on to Kansas City and take
the first fast train for home.

  Cutter could have got home a day earlier than his wife by any one of adozen simpler devices; he could have left her in the Omaha hotel, and saidhe was going on to Chicago for a few days. But apparently it was part ofhis fun to outrage her feelings as much as possible.

  "Mr. Cutter will pay for this, Mrs. Burden. He will pay!" Mrs. Cutteravouched, nodding her horselike head and rolling her eyes.

  Grandmother said she had n't a doubt of it.

  Certainly Cutter liked to have his wife think him a devil. In some way hedepended upon the excitement he could arouse in her hysterical nature.Perhaps he got the feeling of being a rake more from his wife's rage andamazement than from any experiences of his own. His zest in debaucherymight wane, but never Mrs. Cutter's belief in it. The reckoning with hiswife at the end of an escapade was something he counted on--like the lastpowerful liqueur after a long dinner. The one excitement he really couldn't do without was quarreling with Mrs. Cutter!

  BOOK III--LENA LINGARD