The Song of the Lark

by Willa Sibert Cather

  come out, pale yellow in a yellow sky, and Ray and Johnny began to sing

  one of those railroad ditties that are usually born on the Southern

  Pacific and run the length of the Santa Fe and the “Q” system before

  they die to give place to a new one. This was a song about a Greaser

  dance, the refrain being something like this:—

  “Pedro, Pedro, swing high, swing low, And it’s allamand left again; For there’s boys that’s bold and there’s some that’s cold, But the gold boys come from Spain, Oh, the gold boys come from Spain!”

  VIII

  Winter was long in coming that year. Throughout October the days were

  bathed in sunlight and the air was clear as crystal. The town kept its

  cheerful summer aspect, the desert glistened with light, the sand hills

  every day went through magical changes of color. The scarlet sage

  bloomed late in the front yards, the cottonwood leaves were bright gold

  long before they fell, and it was not until November that the green on

  the tamarisks began to cloud and fade. There was a flurry of snow about

  Thanksgiving, and then December came on warm and clear.

  Thea had three music pupils now, little girls whose mothers declared

  that Professor Wunsch was “much too severe.” They took their lessons on

  Saturday, and this, of course, cut down her time for play. She did not

  really mind this because she was allowed to use the money—her pupils

  paid her twenty-five cents a lesson—to fit up a little room for herself

  upstairs in the half-story. It was the end room of the wing, and was not

  plastered, but was snugly lined with soft pine. The ceiling was so low

  that a grown person could reach it with the palm of the hand, and it

  sloped down on either side. There was only one window, but it was a

  double one and went to the floor. In October, while the days were still

  warm, Thea and Tillie papered the room, walls and ceiling in the same

  paper, small red and brown roses on a yellowish ground. Thea bought a

  brown cotton carpet, and her big brother, Gus, put it down for her one

  Sunday. She made white cheesecloth curtains and hung them on a tape. Her

  mother gave her an old walnut dresser with a broken mirror, and she had

  her own dumpy walnut single bed, and a blue washbowl and pitcher which

  she had drawn at a church fair lottery. At the head of her bed she had a

  tall round wooden hat-crate, from the clothing store. This, standing on

  end and draped with cretonne, made a fairly steady table for her

  lantern. She was not allowed to take a lamp upstairs, so Ray Kennedy

  gave her a railroad lantern by which she could read at night.

  In winter this loft room of Thea’s was bitterly cold, but against her

  mother’s advice—and Tillie’s—she always left her window open a little

  way. Mrs. Kronborg declared that she “had no patience with American

  physiology,” though the lessons about the injurious effects of alcohol

  and tobacco were well enough for the boys. Thea asked Dr. Archie about

  the window, and he told her that a girl who sang must always have plenty

  of fresh air, or her voice would get husky, and that the cold would

  harden her throat. The important thing, he said, was to keep your feet

  warm. On very cold nights Thea always put a brick in the oven after

  supper, and when she went upstairs she wrapped it in an old flannel

  petticoat and put it in her bed. The boys, who would never heat bricks

  for themselves, sometimes carried off Thea’s, and thought it a good joke

  to get ahead of her.

  When Thea first plunged in between her red blankets, the cold sometimes

  kept her awake for a good while, and she comforted herself by

  remembering all she could of “Polar Explorations,” a fat, calf-bound

  volume her father had bought from a book-agent, and by thinking about

  the members of Greely’s party: how they lay in their frozen

  sleeping-bags, each man hoarding the warmth of his own body and trying

  to make it last as long as possible against the on-coming cold that

  would be everlasting. After half an hour or so, a warm wave crept over

  her body and round, sturdy legs; she glowed like a little stove with the

  warmth of her own blood, and the heavy quilts and red blankets grew warm

  wherever they touched her, though her breath sometimes froze on the

  coverlid. Before daylight, her internal fires went down a little, and

  she often wakened to find herself drawn up into a tight ball, somewhat

  stiff in the legs. But that made it all the easier to get up.

  The acquisition of this room was the beginning of a new era in Thea’s

  life. It was one of the most important things that ever happened to her.

  Hitherto, except in summer, when she could be out of doors, she had

  lived in constant turmoil; the family, the day school, the

  Sunday-School. The clamor about her drowned the voice within herself. In

  the end of the wing, separated from the other upstairs sleeping-rooms by

  a long, cold, unfinished lumber room, her mind worked better. She

  thought things out more clearly. Pleasant plans and ideas occurred to

  her which had never come before. She had certain thoughts which were

  like companions, ideas which were like older and wiser friends. She left

  them there in the morning, when she finished dressing in the cold, and

  at night, when she came up with her lantern and shut the door after a

  busy day, she found them awaiting her. There was no possible way of

  heating the room, but that was fortunate, for otherwise it would have

  been occupied by one of her older brothers.

  From the time when she moved up into the wing, Thea began to live a

  double life. During the day, when the hours were full of tasks, she was

  one of the Kronborg children, but at night she was a different person.

  On Friday and Saturday nights she always read for a long while after she

  was in bed. She had no clock, and there was no one to nag her.

  Ray Kennedy, on his way from the depot to his boardinghouse, often

  looked up and saw Thea’s light burning when the rest of the house was

  dark, and felt cheered as by a friendly greeting. He was a faithful

  soul, and many disappointments had not changed his nature. He was still,

  at heart, the same boy who, when he was sixteen, had settled down to

  freeze with his sheep in a Wyoming blizzard, and had been rescued only

  to play the losing game of fidelity to other charges.

  Ray had no very clear idea of what might be going on in Thea’s head, but

  he knew that something was. He used to remark to Spanish Johnny, “That

  girl is developing something fine.” Thea was patient with Ray, even in

  regard to the liberties he took with her name. Outside the family, every

  one in Moonstone, except Wunsch and Dr. Archie, called her “Thee-a,” but

  this seemed cold and distant to Ray, so he called her “Thee.” Once, in a

  moment of exasperation, Thea asked him why he did this, and he explained

  that he once had a chum, Theodore, whose name was always abbreviated

  thus, and that since he was killed down on the Santa Fe, it seemed

  natural to call somebody “Thee.” Thea sighed and submitted. She was

  always helpless before homely sentiment and usually changed the subject.

&
nbsp; It was the custom for each of the different Sunday Schools in Moonstone

  to give a concert on Christmas Eve. But this year all the churches were

  to unite and give, as was announced from the pulpits, “a semi-sacred

  concert of picked talent” at the opera house. The Moonstone Orchestra,

  under the direction of Professor Wunsch, was to play, and the most

  talented members of each Sunday School were to take part in the

  programme. Thea was put down by the committee “for instrumental.” This

  made her indignant, for the vocal numbers were always more popular. Thea

  went to the president of the committee and demanded hotly if her rival,

  Lily Fisher, were going to sing. The president was a big, florid,

  powdered woman, a fierce W.C.T.U. worker, one of Thea’s natural enemies.

  Her name was Johnson; her husband kept the livery stable, and she was

  called Mrs. Livery Johnson, to distinguish her from other families of

  the same surname. Mrs. Johnson was a prominent Baptist, and Lily Fisher

  was the Baptist prodigy. There was a not very Christian rivalry between

  the Baptist Church and Mr. Kronborg’s church.

  When Thea asked Mrs. Johnson whether her rival was to be allowed to

  sing, Mrs. Johnson, with an eagerness which told how she had waited for

  this moment, replied that “Lily was going to recite to be obliging, and

  to give other children a chance to sing.” As she delivered this thrust,

  her eyes glittered more than the Ancient Mariner’s, Thea thought. Mrs.

  Johnson disapproved of the way in which Thea was being brought up, of a

  child whose chosen associates were Mexicans and sinners, and who was, as

  she pointedly put it, “bold with men.” She so enjoyed an opportunity to

  rebuke Thea, that, tightly corseted as she was, she could scarcely

  control her breathing, and her lace and her gold watch chain rose and

  fell “with short, uneasy motion.” Frowning, Thea turned away and walked

  slowly homeward. She suspected guile. Lily Fisher was the most stuck-up

  doll in the world, and it was certainly not like her to recite to be

  obliging. Nobody who could sing ever recited, because the warmest

  applause always went to the singers.

  However, when the programme was printed in the Moonstone GLEAM, there it

  was: “Instrumental solo, Thea Kronborg. Recitation, Lily Fisher.”

  Because his orchestra was to play for the concert, Mr. Wunsch imagined

  that he had been put in charge of the music, and he became arrogant. He

  insisted that Thea should play a “Ballade” by Reinecke. When Thea

  consulted her mother, Mrs. Kronborg agreed with her that the “Ballade”

  would “never take” with a Moonstone audience. She advised Thea to play

  “something with variations,” or, at least, “The Invitation to the

  Dance.”

  “It makes no matter what they like,” Wunsch replied to Thea’s

  entreaties. “It is time already that they learn something.”

  Thea’s fighting powers had been impaired by an ulcerated tooth and

  consequent loss of sleep, so she gave in. She finally had the molar

  pulled, though it was a second tooth and should have been saved. The

  dentist was a clumsy, ignorant country boy, and Mr. Kronborg would not

  hear of Dr. Archie’s taking Thea to a dentist in Denver, though Ray

  Kennedy said he could get a pass for her. What with the pain of the

  tooth, and family discussions about it, with trying to make Christmas

  presents and to keep up her school work and practicing, and giving

  lessons on Saturdays, Thea was fairly worn out.

  On Christmas Eve she was nervous and excited. It was the first time she

  had ever played in the opera house, and she had never before had to face

  so many people. Wunsch would not let her play with her notes, and she

  was afraid of forgetting. Before the concert began, all the participants

  had to assemble on the stage and sit there to be looked at. Thea wore

  her white summer dress and a blue sash, but Lily Fisher had a new pink

  silk, trimmed with white swansdown.

  The hall was packed. It seemed as if every one in Moonstone was there,

  even Mrs. Kohler, in her hood, and old Fritz. The seats were wooden

  kitchen chairs, numbered, and nailed to long planks which held them

  together in rows. As the floor was not raised, the chairs were all on

  the same level. The more interested persons in the audience peered over

  the heads of the people in front of them to get a good view of the

  stage. From the platform Thea picked out many friendly faces. There was

  Dr. Archie, who never went to church entertainments; there was the

  friendly jeweler who ordered her music for her,—he sold accordions and

  guitars as well as watches,—and the druggist who often lent her books,

  and her favorite teacher from the school. There was Ray Kennedy, with a

  party of freshly barbered railroad men he had brought along with him.

  There was Mrs. Kronborg with all the children, even Thor, who had been

  brought out in a new white plush coat. At the back of the hall sat a

  little group of Mexicans, and among them Thea caught the gleam of

  Spanish Johnny’s white teeth, and of Mrs. Tellamantez’s lustrous,

  smoothly coiled black hair.

  After the orchestra played “Selections from Erminie,” and the Baptist

  preacher made a long prayer, Tillie Kronborg came on with a highly

  colored recitation, “The Polish Boy.” When it was over every one

  breathed more freely. No committee had the courage to leave Tillie off a

  programme. She was accepted as a trying feature of every entertainment.

  The Progressive Euchre Club was the only social organization in the town

  that entirely escaped Tillie. After Tillie sat down, the Ladies’

  Quartette sang, “Beloved, it is Night,” and then it was Thea’s turn.

  The “Ballade” took ten minutes, which was five minutes too long. The

  audience grew restive and fell to whispering. Thea could hear Mrs.

  Livery Johnson’s bracelets jangling as she fanned herself, and she could

  hear her father’s nervous, ministerial cough. Thor behaved better than

  any one else. When Thea bowed and returned to her seat at the back of

  the stage there was the usual applause, but it was vigorous only from

  the back of the house where the Mexicans sat, and from Ray Kennedy’s

  CLAQUEURS. Any one could see that a good-natured audience had been

  bored.

  Because Mr. Kronborg’s sister was on the programme, it had also been

  necessary to ask the Baptist preacher’s wife’s cousin to sing. She was a

  “deep alto” from McCook, and she sang, “Thy Sentinel Am I.” After her

  came Lily Fisher. Thea’s rival was also a blonde, but her hair was much

  heavier than Thea’s, and fell in long round curls over her shoulders.

  She was the angel-child of the Baptists, and looked exactly like the

  beautiful children on soap calendars. Her pink-and-white face, her set

  smile of innocence, were surely born of a color-press. She had long,

  drooping eyelashes, a little pursed-up mouth, and narrow, pointed teeth,

  like a squirrel’s.

  Lily began:—

  “ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME, carelessly the maiden sang.”

  Thea drew a long breath. That was the ga
me; it was a recitation and a

  song in one. Lily trailed the hymn through half a dozen verses with

  great effect. The Baptist preacher had announced at the beginning of the

  concert that “owing to the length of the programme, there would be no

  encores.” But the applause which followed Lily to her seat was such an

  unmistakable expression of enthusiasm that Thea had to admit Lily was

  justified in going back. She was attended this time by Mrs. Livery

  Johnson herself, crimson with triumph and gleaming-eyed, nervously

  rolling and unrolling a sheet of music. She took off her bracelets and

  played Lily’s accompaniment. Lily had the effrontery to come out with,

  “She sang the song of Home, Sweet Home, the song that touched my heart.”

  But this did not surprise Thea; as Ray said later in the evening, “the

  cards had been stacked against her from the beginning.” The next issue

  of the GLEAM correctly stated that “unquestionably the honors of the

  evening must be accorded to Miss Lily Fisher.” The Baptists had

  everything their own way.

  After the concert Ray Kennedy joined the Kronborgs’ party and walked

  home with them. Thea was grateful for his silent sympathy, even while it

  irritated her. She inwardly vowed that she would never take another

  lesson from old Wunsch. She wished that her father would not keep

  cheerfully singing, “When Shepherds Watched,” as he marched ahead,

  carrying Thor. She felt that silence would become the Kronborgs for a

  while. As a family, they somehow seemed a little ridiculous, trooping

  along in the starlight. There were so many of them, for one thing. Then

  Tillie was so absurd. She was giggling and talking to Anna just as if

  she had not made, as even Mrs. Kronborg admitted, an exhibition of

  herself.

  When they got home, Ray took a box from his overcoat pocket and slipped

  it into Thea’s hand as he said goodnight. They all hurried in to the

  glowing stove in the parlor. The sleepy children were sent to bed. Mrs.

  Kronborg and Anna stayed up to fill the stockings.

  “I guess you’re tired, Thea. You needn’t stay up.” Mrs. Kronborg’s clear

  and seemingly indifferent eye usually measured Thea pretty accurately.

  Thea hesitated. She glanced at the presents laid out on the dining-room

  table, but they looked unattractive. Even the brown plush monkey she had