One of Ours

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by Willa Sibert Cather

to give him the satisfaction of asking him how he had got a black

  eye. Ernest Havel was a Bohemian, and he usually drank a glass of

  beer when he came to town; but he was sober and thoughtful beyond

  the wont of young men. From Bayliss’ drawl one might have

  supposed that the boy was a drunken loafer.

  At that very moment Claude saw his friend on the other side of

  the street, following the wagon of trained dogs that brought up

  the rear of the procession. He ran across, through a crowd of

  shouting youngsters, and caught Ernest by the arm.

  “Hello, where are you off to?”

  “I’m going to eat my lunch before show-time. I left my wagon out

  by the pumping station, on the creek. What about you?”

  “I’ve got no program. Can I go along?”

  Ernest smiled. “I expect. I’ve got enough lunch for two.”

  “Yes, I know. You always have. I’ll join you later.”

  Claude would have liked to take Ernest to the hotel for dinner.

  He had more than enough money in his pockets; and his father was

  a rich farmer. In the Wheeler family a new thrasher or a new

  automobile was ordered without a question, but it was considered

  extravagant to go to a hotel for dinner. If his father or Bayliss

  heard that he had been there-and Bayliss heard everything they

  would say he was putting on airs, and would get back at him. He

  tried to excuse his cowardice to himself by saying that he was

  dirty and smelled of the hides; but in his heart he knew that he

  did not ask Ernest to go to the hotel with him because he had

  been so brought up that it would be difficult for him to do this

  simple thing. He made some purchases at the fruit stand and the

  cigar counter, and then hurried out along the dusty road toward

  the pumping station. Ernest’s wagon was standing under the shade

  of some willow trees, on a little sandy bottom half enclosed by a

  loop of the creek which curved like a horseshoe. Claude threw

  himself on the sand beside the stream and wiped the dust from his

  hot face. He felt he had now closed the door on his disagreeable

  morning.

  Ernest produced his lunch basket.

  “I got a couple bottles of beer cooling in the creek,” he said.

  “I knew you wouldn’t want to go in a saloon.”

  “Oh, forget it!” Claude muttered, ripping the cover off a jar of

  pickles. He was nineteen years old, and he was afraid to go into

  a saloon, and his friend knew he was afraid.

  After lunch, Claude took out a handful of good cigars he had

  bought at the drugstore. Ernest, who couldn’t afford cigars, was

  pleased. He lit one, and as he smoked he kept looking at it with

  an air of pride and turning it around between his fingers.

  The horses stood with their heads over the wagon-box, munching

  their oats. The stream trickled by under the willow roots with a

  cool, persuasive sound. Claude and Ernest lay in the shade, their

  coats under their heads, talking very little. Occasionally a

  motor dashed along the road toward town, and a cloud of dust and

  a smell of gasoline blew in over the creek bottom; but for the

  most part the silence of the warm, lazy summer noon was

  undisturbed. Claude could usually forget his own vexations and

  chagrins when he was with Ernest. The Bohemian boy was never

  uncertain, was not pulled in two or three ways at once. He was

  simple and direct. He had a number of impersonal preoccupations;

  was interested in politics and history and in new inventions.

  Claude felt that his friend lived in an atmosphere of mental

  liberty to which he himself could never hope to attain. After he

  had talked with Ernest for awhile, the things that did not go

  right on the farm seemed less important. Claude’s mother was

  almost as fond of Ernest as he was himself. When the two boys

  were going to high school, Ernest often came over in the evening

  to study with Claude, and while they worked at the long kitchen

  table Mrs. Wheeler brought her darning and sat near them, helping

  them with their Latin and algebra. Even old Mahailey was

  enlightened by their words of wisdom.

  Mrs. Wheeler said she would never forget the night Ernest arrived

  from the Old Country. His brother, Joe Havel, had gone to

  Frankfort to meet him, and was to stop on the way home and leave

  some groceries for the Wheelers. The train from the east was

  late; it was ten o’clock that night when Mrs. Wheeler, waiting in

  the kitchen, heard Havel’s wagon rumble across the little bridge

  over Lovely Creek. She opened the outside door, and presently Joe

  came in with a bucket of salt fish in one hand and a sack of

  flour on his shoulder. While he took the fish down to the cellar

  for her, another figure appeared in the doorway; a young boy,

  short, stooped, with a flat cap on his head and a great oilcloth

  valise, such as pedlars carry, strapped to his back. He had

  fallen asleep in the wagon, and on waking and finding his brother

  gone, he had supposed they were at home and scrambled for his

  pack. He stood in the doorway, blinking his eyes at the light,

  looking astonished but eager to do whatever was required of him.

  What if one of her own boys, Mrs. Wheeler thought…. She

  went up to him and put her arm around him, laughing a little and

  saying in her quiet voice, just as if he could understand her,

  “Why, you’re only a little boy after all, aren’t you?”

  Ernest said afterwards that it was his first welcome to this

  country, though he had travelled so far, and had been pushed and

  hauled and shouted at for so many days, he had lost count of

  them. That night he and Claude only shook hands and looked at

  each other suspiciously, but ever since they had been good

  friends.

  After their picnic the two boys went to the circus in a happy

  frame of mind. In the animal tent they met big Leonard Dawson,

  the oldest son of one of the Wheelers’ near neighbours, and the

  three sat together for the performance. Leonard said he had come

  to town alone in his car; wouldn’t Claude ride out with him?

  Claude was glad enough to turn the mules over to Ralph, who

  didn’t mind the hired men as much as he did.

  Leonard was a strapping brown fellow of twenty-five, with big

  hands and big feet, white teeth, and flashing eyes full of

  energy. He and his father and two brothers not only worked their

  own big farm, but rented a quarter section from Nat Wheeler. They

  were master farmers. If there was a dry summer and a failure,

  Leonard only laughed and stretched his long arms, and put in a

  bigger crop next year. Claude was always a little reserved with

  Leonard; he felt that the young man was rather contemptuous of

  the hap-hazard way in which things were done on the Wheeler

  place, and thought his going to college a waste of money. Leonard

  had not even gone through the Frankfort High School, and he was

  already a more successful man than Claude was ever likely to be.

  Leonard did think these things, but he was fond of Claude, all

  the same.

  At sunset the car was speeding
over a fine stretch of smooth road

  across the level country that lay between Frankfort and the

  rougher land along Lovely Creek. Leonard’s attention was largely

  given up to admiring the faultless behaviour of his engine.

  Presently he chuckled to himself and turned to Claude.

  “I wonder if you’d take it all right if I told you a joke on

  Bayliss?”

  “I expect I would.” Claude’s tone was not at all eager.

  “You saw Bayliss today? Notice anything queer about him, one eye

  a little off colour? Did he tell you how he got it?”

  “No. I didn’t ask him.”

  “Just as well. A lot of people did ask him, though, and he said

  he was hunting around his place for something in the dark and ran

  into a reaper. Well, I’m the reaper!”

  Claude looked interested. “You mean to say Bayliss was in a

  fight?”

  Leonard laughed. “Lord, no! Don’t you know Bayliss? I went in

  there to pay a bill yesterday, and Susie Gray and another girl

  came in to sell tickets for the firemen’s dinner. An advance man

  for this circus was hanging around, and he began talking a little

  smart,—nothing rough, but the way such fellows will. The girls

  handed it back to him, and sold him three tickets and shut him

  up. I couldn’t see how Susie thought so quick what to say. The

  minute the girls went out Bayliss started knocking them; said all

  the country girls were getting too fresh and knew more than they

  ought to about managing sporty men and right there I reached out

  and handed him one. I hit harder than I meant to. I meant to slap

  him, not to give him a black eye. But you can’t always regulate

  things, and I was hot all over. I waited for him to come back at

  me. I’m bigger than he is, and I wanted to give him satisfaction.

  Well, sir, he never moved a muscle! He stood there getting redder

  and redder, and his eyes watered. I don’t say he cried, but his

  eyes watered. ‘All right, Bayliss,’ said I. ‘Slow with your

  fists, if that’s your principle; but slow with your tongue,

  too,—especially when the parties mentioned aren’t present.’”

  “Bayliss will never get over that,” was Claude’s only comment.

  “He don’t have to!” Leonard threw up his head. “I’m a good

  customer; he can like it or lump it, till the price of binding

  twine goes down!”

  For the next few minutes the driver was occupied with trying to

  get up a long, rough hill on high gear. Sometimes he could

  make that hill, and sometimes he couldn’t, and he was not able to

  account for the difference. After he pulled the second lever with

  some disgust and let the car amble on as she would, he noticed

  that his companion was disconcerted.

  “I’ll tell you what, Leonard,” Claude spoke in a strained voice,

  “I think the fair thing for you to do is to get out here by the

  road and give me a chance.”

  Leonard swung his steering wheel savagely to pass a wagon on the

  down side of the hill. “What the devil are you talking about,

  boy?”

  “You think you’ve got our measure all right, but you ought to

  give me a chance first.”

  Leonard looked down in amazement at his own big brown hands,

  lying on the wheel. “You mortal fool kid, what would I be telling

  you all this for, if I didn’t know you were another breed of

  cats? I never thought you got on too well with Bayliss yourself.”

  “I don’t, but I won’t have you thinking you can slap the men in

  my family whenever you feel like it.” Claude knew that his

  explanation sounded foolish, and his voice, in spite of all he

  could do, was weak and angry.

  Young Leonard Dawson saw he had hurt the boy’s feelings. “Lord,

  Claude, I know you’re a fighter. Bayliss never was. I went to

  school with him.”

  The ride ended amicably, but Claude wouldn’t let Leonard take him

  home. He jumped out of the car with a curt goodnight, and ran

  across the dusky fields toward the light that shone from the

  house on the hill. At the little bridge over the creek, he

  stopped to get his breath and to be sure that he was outwardly

  composed before he went in to see his mother.

  “Ran against a reaper in the dark!” he muttered aloud, clenching

  his fist.

  Listening to the deep singing of the frogs, and to the distant

  barking of the dogs up at the house, he grew calmer.

  Nevertheless, he wondered why it was that one had sometimes to

  feel responsible for the behaviour of people whose natures were

  wholly antipathetic to one’s own.

  III

  The circus was on Saturday. The next morning Claude was standing

  at his dresser, shaving. His beard was already strong, a shade

  darker than his hair and not so red as his skin. His eyebrows and

  long lashes were a pale corn-colour—made his blue eyes seem

  lighter than they were, and, he thought, gave a look of shyness

  and weakness to the upper part of his face. He was exactly the

  sort of looking boy he didn’t want to be. He especially hated his

  head,—so big that he had trouble in buying his hats, and

  uncompromisingly square in shape; a perfect block-head. His name

  was another source of humiliation. Claude: it was a “chump” name,

  like Elmer and Roy; a hayseed name trying to be fine. In country

  schools there was always a red-headed, warty-handed, runny-nosed

  little boy who was called Claude. His good physique he took for

  granted; smooth, muscular arms and legs, and strong shoulders, a

  farmer boy might be supposed to have. Unfortunately he had none

  of his father’s physical repose, and his strength often asserted

  itself inharmoniously. The storms that went on in his mind

  sometimes made him rise, or sit down, or lift something, more

  violently than there was any apparent reason for his doing.

  The household slept late on Sunday morning; even Mahailey did not

  get up until seven. The general signal for breakfast was the

  smell of doughnuts frying. This morning Ralph rolled out of bed

  at the last minute and callously put on his clean underwear

  without taking a bath. This cost him not one regret, though he

  took time to polish his new ox-blood shoes tenderly with a pocket

  handkerchief. He reached the table when all the others were half

  through breakfast, and made his peace by genially asking his

  mother if she didn’t want him to drive her to church in the car.

  “I’d like to go if I can get the work done in time,” she said,

  doubtfully glancing at the clock.

  “Can’t Mahailey tend to things for you this morning?”

  Mrs. Wheeler hesitated. “Everything but the separator, she can.

  But she can’t fit all the parts together. It’s a good deal of

  work, you know.”

  “Now, Mother,” said Ralph good-humouredly, as he emptied the

  syrup pitcher over his cakes, “you’re prejudiced. Nobody ever

  thinks of skimming milk now-a-days. Every up-to-date farmer uses

  a separator.”

  Mrs. Wheeler’s pale eyes twinkled. “Mahailey and I will never be

  qu
ite up-to-date, Ralph. We’re old-fashioned, and I don’t know but

  you’d better let us be. I could see the advantage of a separator

  if we milked half-a-dozen cows. It’s a very ingenious machine.

  But it’s a great deal more work to scald it and fit it together

  than it was to take care of the milk in the old way.”

  “It won’t be when you get used to it,” Ralph assured her. He was

  the chief mechanic of the Wheeler farm, and when the farm

  implements and the automobiles did not give him enough to do, he

  went to town and bought machines for the house. As soon as

  Mahailey got used to a washing-machine or a churn, Ralph, to keep

  up with the bristling march of invention, brought home a still

  newer one. The mechanical dish-washer she had never been able to

  use, and patent flat-irons and oil-stoves drove her wild.

  Claude told his mother to go upstairs and dress; he would scald

  the separator while Ralph got the car ready. He was still working

  at it when his brother came in from the garage to wash his hands.

  “You really oughtn’t to load mother up with things like this,

  Ralph,” he exclaimed fretfully. “Did you ever try washing this

  damned thing yourself?”

  “Of course I have. If Mrs. Dawson can manage it, I should think

  mother could.”

  “Mrs. Dawson is a younger woman. Anyhow, there’s no point in

  trying to make machinists of Mahailey and mother.”

  Ralph lifted his eyebrows to excuse Claude’s bluntness. “See

  here,” he said persuasively, “don’t you go encouraging her into

  thinking she can’t change her ways. Mother’s entitled to all the

  labour-saving devices we can get her.”

  Claude rattled the thirty-odd graduated metal funnels which he

  was trying to fit together in their proper sequence. “Well, if

  this is labour-saving”

  The younger boy giggled and ran upstairs for his panama hat. He

  never quarrelled. Mrs. Wheeler sometimes said it was wonderful,

  how much Ralph would take from Claude.

  After Ralph and his mother had gone off in the car, Mr. Wheeler

  drove to see his German neighbour, Gus Yoeder, who had just

  bought a blooded bull. Dan and Jerry were pitching horseshoes

  down behind the barn. Claude told Mahailey he was going to the

  cellar to put up the swinging shelf she had been wanting, so that

  the rats couldn’t get at her vegetables.

  “Thank you, Mr. Claude. I don’t know what does make the rats so

 

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