A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
Title: Obscure Destinies
Author: Willa Cather
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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
Title: Obscure Destinies
Author: Willa Cather
CONTENTS
1. Neighbour Rosicky
2. Old Mrs. Harris
3. Two Friends
NEIGHBOUR ROSICKY
I
When Doctor Burleigh told neighbour Rosicky he had a bad heart,
Rosicky protested.
"So? No, I guess my heart was always pretty good. I got a little
asthma, maybe. Just a awful short breath when I was pitchin' hay
last summer, dat's all."
"Well now, Rosicky, if you know more about it than I do, what did
you come to me for? It's your heart that makes you short of
breath, I tell you. You're sixty-five years old, and you've always
worked hard, and your heart's tired. You've got to be careful from
now on, and you can't do heavy work any more. You've got five boys
at home to do it for you."
The old farmer looked up at the Doctor with a gleam of amusement in
his queer triangular-shaped eyes. His eyes were large and lively,
but the lids were caught up in the middle in a curious way, so that
they formed a triangle. He did not look like a sick man. His
brown face was creased but not wrinkled, he had a ruddy colour in
his smooth-shaven cheeks and in his lips, under his long brown
moustache. His hair was thin and ragged around his ears, but very
little grey. His forehead, naturally high and crossed by deep
parallel lines, now ran all the way up to his pointed crown.
Rosicky's face had the habit of looking interested,--suggested a
contented disposition and a reflective quality that was gay rather
than grave. This gave him a certain detachment, the easy manner of
an onlooker and observer.
"Well, I guess you ain't got no pills fur a bad heart, Doctor Ed.
I guess the only thing is fur me to git me a new one."
Doctor Burleigh swung round in his desk-chair and frowned at the
old farmer. "I think if I were you I'd take a little care of the
old one, Rosicky."
Rosicky shrugged. "Maybe I don't know how. I expect you mean fur
me not to drink my coffee no more."
"I wouldn't, in your place. But you'll do as you choose about
that. I've never yet been able to separate a Bohemian from his
coffee or his pipe. I've quit trying. But the sure thing is
you've got to cut out farm work. You can feed the stock and do
chores about the barn, but you can't do anything in the fields that
makes you short of breath."
"How about shelling corn?"
"Of course not!"
Rosicky considered with puckered brows.
"I can't make my heart go no longer'n it wants to, can I, Doctor
Ed?"
"I think it's good for five or six years yet, maybe more, if you'll
take the strain off it. Sit around the house and help Mary. If I
had a good wife like yours, I'd want to stay around the house."
His patient chuckled. "It ain't no place fur a man. I don't like
no old man hanging round the kitchen too much. An' my wife, she's
a awful hard worker her own self."
"That's it; you can help her a little. My Lord, Rosicky, you are
one of the few men I know who has a family he can get some comfort
out of; happy dispositions, never quarrel among themselves, and
they treat you right. I want to see you live a few years and enjoy
them."
"Oh, they're good kids, all right," Rosicky assented.
The Doctor wrote him a prescription and asked him how his oldest
son, Rudolph, who had married in the spring, was getting on.
Rudolph had struck out for himself, on rented land. "And how's
Polly? I was afraid Mary mightn't like an American daughter-in-
law, but it seems to be working out all right."
"Yes, she's a fine girl. Dat widder woman bring her daughters up
very nice. Polly got lots of spunk, an' she got some style, too.
Da's nice, for young folks to have some style." Rosicky inclined
his head gallantly. His voice and his twinkly smile were an
affectionate compliment to his daughter-in-law.
"It looks like a storm, and you'd better be getting home before it
comes. In town in the car?" Doctor Burleigh rose.
"No, I'm in de wagon. When you got five boys, you ain't got much
chance to ride round in de Ford. I ain't much for cars, noway."
"Well, it's a good road out to your place; but I don't want you
bumping around in a wagon much. And never again on a hay-rake,
remember!"
Rosicky placed the Doctor's fee delicately behind the desk-
telephone, looking the other way, as if this were an absent-minded
gesture. He put on his plush cap and his corduroy jacket with a
sheepskin collar, and went out.
The Doctor picked up his stethoscope and frowned at it as if he
were seriously annoyed with the instrument. He wished it had been
telling tales about some other man's heart, some old man who didn't
look the Doctor in the eye so knowingly, or hold out such a warm
brown hand when he said good-bye. Doctor Burleigh had been a poor
boy in the country before he went away to medical school; he had
known Rosicky almost ever since he could remember, and he had a
deep affection for Mrs. Rosicky.
Only last winter he had had such a good breakfast at Rosicky's, and
that when he needed it. He had been out all night on a long, hard
confinement case at Tom Marshall's,--a big rich farm where there
was plenty of stock and plenty of feed and a great deal of
expensive
farm machinery of the newest model, and no comfort
whatever. The woman had too many children and too much work, and
she was no manager. When the baby was born at last, and handed
over to the assisting neighbour woman, and the mother was properly
attended to, Burleigh refused any breakfast in that slovenly house,
and drove his buggy--the snow was too deep for a car--eight miles
to Anton Rosicky's place. He didn't know another farm-house where
a man could get such a warm welcome, and such good strong coffee
with rich cream. No wonder the old chap didn't want to give up his
coffee!
He had driven in just when the boys had come back from the barn and
were washing up for breakfast. The long table, covered with a
bright oilcloth, was set out with dishes waiting for them, and the
warm kitchen was full of the smell of coffee and hot biscuit and
sausage. Five big handsome boys, running from twenty to twelve,
all with what Burleigh called natural good manners,--they hadn't a
bit of the painful self-consciousness he himself had to struggle
with when he was a lad. One ran to put his horse away, another
helped him off with his fur coat and hung it up, and Josephine, the
youngest child and the only daughter, quickly set another place
under her mother's direction.
With Mary, to feed creatures was the natural expression of
affection,--her chickens, the calves, her big hungry boys. It was
a rare pleasure to feed a young man whom she seldom saw and of whom
she was as proud as if he belonged to her. Some country
housekeepers would have stopped to spread a white cloth over the
oilcloth, to change the thick cups and plates for their best china,
and the wooden-handled knives for plated ones. But not Mary.
"You must take us as you find us, Doctor Ed. I'd be glad to put
out my good things for you if you was expected, but I'm glad to get
you any way at all."
He knew she was glad,--she threw back her head and spoke out as if
she were announcing him to the whole prairie. Rosicky hadn't said
anything at all; he merely smiled his twinkling smile, put some
more coal on the fire, and went into his own room to pour the
Doctor a little drink in a medicine glass. When they were all
seated, he watched his wife's face from his end of the table and
spoke to her in Czech. Then, with the instinct of politeness which
seldom failed him, he turned to the Doctor and said slyly; "I was
just tellin' her not to ask you no questions about Mrs. Marshall
till you eat some breakfast. My wife, she's terrible fur to ask
questions."
The boys laughed, and so did Mary. She watched the Doctor devour
her biscuit and sausage, too much excited to eat anything herself.
She drank her coffee and sat taking in everything about her
visitor. She had known him when he was a poor country boy, and was
boastfully proud of his success, always saying: "What do people go
to Omaha for, to see a doctor, when we got the best one in the
State right here?" If Mary liked people at all, she felt physical
pleasure in the sight of them, personal exultation in any good
fortune that came to them. Burleigh didn't know many women like
that, but he knew she was like that.
When his hunger was satisfied, he did, of course, have to tell them
about Mrs. Marshall, and he noticed what a friendly interest the
boys took in the matter.
Rudolph, the oldest one (he was still living at home then), said:
"The last time I was over there, she was lifting them big heavy
milk-cans, and I knew she oughtn't to be doing it."
"Yes, Rudolph told me about that when he come home, and I said it
wasn't right," Mary put in warmly. "It was all right for me to do
them things up to the last, for I was terrible strong, but that
woman's weakly. And do you think she'll be able to nurse it, Ed?"
She sometimes forgot to give him the title she was so proud of.
"And to think of your being up all night and then not able to get a
decent breakfast! I don't know what's the matter with such
people."
"Why, Mother," said one of the boys, "if Doctor Ed had got
breakfast there, we wouldn't have him here. So you ought to be
glad."
"He knows I'm glad to have him, John, any time. But I'm sorry for
that poor woman, how bad she'll feel the Doctor had to go away in
the cold without his breakfast."
"I wish I'd been in practice when these were getting born." The
doctor looked down the row of close-clipped heads. "I missed some
good breakfasts by not being."
The boys began to laugh at their mother because she flushed so red,
but she stood her ground and threw up her head. "I don't care, you
wouldn't have got away from this house without breakfast. No
doctor ever did. I'd have had something ready fixed that Anton
could warm up for you."
The boys laughed harder than ever, and exclaimed at her: "I'll bet
you would!" "She would, that!"
"Father, did you get breakfast for the doctor when we were born?"
"Yes, and he used to bring me my breakfast, too, mighty nice. I
was always awful hungry!" Mary admitted with a guilty laugh.
While the boys were getting the Doctor's horse, he went to the
window to examine the house plants. "What do you do to your
geraniums to keep them blooming all winter, Mary? I never pass
this house that from the road I don't see your windows full of
flowers."
She snapped off a dark red one, and a ruffled new green leaf, and
put them in his buttonhole. "There, that looks better. You look
too solemn for a young man, Ed. Why don't you git married? I'm
worried about you. Settin' at breakfast, I looked at you real
hard, and I seen you've got some grey hairs already."
"Oh, yes! They're coming. Maybe they'd come faster if I married."
"Don't talk so. You'll ruin your health eating at the hotel. I
could send your wife a nice loaf of nut bread, if you only had one.
I don't like to see a young man getting grey. I'll tell you
something, Ed; you make some strong black tea and keep it handy in
a bowl, and every morning just brush it into your hair, an' it'll
keep the grey from showin' much. That's the way I do!"
Sometimes the Doctor heard the gossipers in the drug-store
wondering why Rosicky didn't get on faster. He was industrious,
and so were his boys, but they were rather free and easy, weren't
pushers, and they didn't always show good judgment. They were
comfortable, they were out of debt, but they didn't get much ahead.
Maybe, Doctor Burleigh reflected, people as generous and warm-
hearted and affectionate as the Rosickys never got ahead much;
maybe you couldn't enjoy your life and put it into the bank, too.
II
When Rosicky left Doctor Burleigh's office he went into the farm-
implement store to light his pipe and put on his glasses and read
over the list Mary had given him. Then he went into the general
merchandise place next door and stood about until the pretty girl
wit
h the plucked eyebrows, who always waited on him, was free.
Those eyebrows, two thin India-ink strokes, amused him, because he
remembered how they used to be. Rosicky always prolonged his
shopping by a little joking; the girl knew the old fellow admired
her, and she liked to chaff with him.
"Seems to me about every other week you buy ticking, Mr. Rosicky,
and always the best quality," she remarked as she measured off the
heavy bolt with red stripes.
"You see, my wife is always makin' goose-fedder pillows, an' de
thin stuff don't hold in dem little down-fedders."
"You must have lots of pillows at your house."
"Sure. She makes quilts of dem, too. We sleeps easy. Now she's
makin' a fedder quilt for my son's wife. You know Polly, that
married my Rudolph. How much my bill, Miss Pearl?"
"Eight eighty-five."
"Chust make it nine, and put in some candy fur de women."
"As usual. I never did see a man buy so much candy for his wife.
First thing you know, she'll be getting too fat."
"I'd like dat. I ain't much fur all dem slim women like what de
style is now."
"That's one for me, I suppose, Mr. Bohunk!" Pearl sniffed and
elevated her India-ink strokes.
When Rosicky went out to his wagon, it was beginning to snow,--the
first snow of the season, and he was glad to see it. He rattled
out of town and along the highway through a wonderfully rich
stretch of country, the finest farms in the county. He admired
this High Prairie, as it was called, and always liked to drive
through it. His own place lay in a rougher territory, where there
was some clay in the soil and it was not so productive. When he
bought his land, he hadn't the money to buy on High Prairie; so he
told his boys, when they grumbled, that if their land hadn't some
clay in it, they wouldn't own it at all. All the same, he enjoyed
looking at these fine farms, as he enjoyed looking at a prize bull.
After he had gone eight miles, he came to the graveyard, which lay
just at the edge of his own hay-land. There he stopped his horses
and sat still on his wagon seat, looking about at the snowfall.
Over yonder on the hill he could see his own house, crouching low,
with the clump of orchard behind and the windmill before, and all
down the gentle hill-slope the rows of pale gold cornstalks stood
out against the white field. The snow was falling over the
cornfield and the pasture and the hay-land, steadily, with very
little wind,--a nice dry snow. The graveyard had only a light wire
fence about it and was all overgrown with long red grass. The fine
snow, settling into this red grass and upon the few little
evergreens and the headstones, looked very pretty.
It was a nice graveyard, Rosicky reflected, sort of snug and
homelike, not cramped or mournful,--a big sweep all round it. A
man could lie down in the long grass and see the complete arch of
the sky over him, hear the wagons go by; in summer the mowing-
machine rattled right up to the wire fence. And it was so near
home. Over there across the cornstalks his own roof and windmill
looked so good to him that he promised himself to mind the Doctor
and take care of himself. He was awful fond of his place, he
admitted. He wasn't anxious to leave it. And it was a comfort to
think that he would never have to go farther than the edge of his
own hayfield. The snow, falling over his barnyard and the
graveyard, seemed to draw things together like. And they were all
old neighbours in the graveyard, most of them friends; there was
nothing to feel awkward or embarrassed about. Embarrassment was
the most disagreeable feeling Rosicky knew. He didn't often have
it,--only with certain people whom he didn't understand at all.
Well, it was a nice snowstorm; a fine sight to see the snow falling