My Antonia

Jim’s grandmother is happy to have the Harlings, who are former farmers, as her next-door neighbors in town. Mrs. Harling was born in Norway and her husband is descended from Norwegian immigrants. A short, sturdy-looking woman, Mrs. Harling is “the head of the household” (148) when her husband is away on business. Three of the Harling children are close to Jim’s age: 16-year-old Charley, the Harlings’ only son; 14-year-old musically inclined Julia; and the tomboy, Sally, who is a year younger than Jim. The eldest daughter, Frances, is nearly as tall as her father and works as his chief clerk, discussing “grain-cars and cattle” with him as if they were “two men” (149-50). Jim Burden’s grandfather says that Frances is “as good a judge of credits as any banker in the county” (150); she knows how much land each farmer cultivates and his liabilities.

When the Harlings’ cook leaves in August, Grandmother Burden asks them to hire Ántonia. Mrs. Harling and Frances visit the Shimerdas’ place and decide that 17-year-old Ántonia has the potential to learn new domestic ways. Ambrosch and Mrs. Shimerda conduct a lengthy negotiation with the Harlings about Ántonia’s allowance: Ambrosch wants to receive every cent of Ántonia’s wages, but Mrs. Harling asserts that she will retain $50 yearly for Ántonia’s personal use. They finally agree on weekly wages of $3 and for Mrs. Harling to provide Ántonia with shoes. When the Harlings comment to the Burdens on Ántonia’s attractiveness, Grandmother Burden tells them how pretty she was when her genteel father watched over her, but since his death, she has led a rough life, working in the fields and losing her feminine qualities.

When Ambrosch drives Ántonia to town, Ántonia runs into the Burdens’ kitchen and says, “You ain’t forget about me, Jim?” (154) When Grandmother Burden kisses her, Ántonia replies, “Maybe I be the kind of girl you like better, now I come to town” (154). Ántonia now learns English quickly and can soon speak as well as anyone. Jim is delighted to have Ántonia nearby again, and he is jealous of Ántonia’s admiration for Charley, who is always first in his school classes.

Jim enjoys playing next door, except when Mr. Harling returns: Mr. Harling requires quiet in the normally noisy house, and he demands “all his wife’s attention” (156). Mrs. Harling pays no attention to anyone else when her husband is home, and Jim misses the audience she typically provides for their games. During Mr. Harling’s absence, someone is always playing the piano—either one of the Harling children or Mrs. Harling, who has received musical training.

One autumn evening, Lena Lingard, a pretty, fair-skinned farm girl from a Norwegian immigrant family, knocks at the back door of the Harling home. Initially, Ántonia and Jim do not recognize the young woman because she is “dressed like a town girl” (160), wearing a hat, blue dress, shoes, and stockings. Lena tells Ántonia that she has come to town to work as well. Frances identifies her as the eldest daughter of Chris Lingard, an unsuccessful farmer with many children. Mrs. Harling discovers that Lena will be learning to sew and working for the dressmaker, Mrs. Thomas. Lena is frankly critical of farm life, where there is no end of labor for a woman; unlike Ántonia, Lena never enjoyed outdoor work. Mrs. Harling warns Lena not to begin running around to dances in town and forgetting her work as some country girls do. Lena informs them that her friend, Tiny Soderball, is coming to town to work as a waitress at the Boys’ Home Hotel.

Lena never wants to get married, but she quickly attracts a number of male admirers. Jim had thought of the bareheaded, barefooted Lena as “something wild, that always lived on the prairie,” but when he talked to her once, he noticed her unusual violet eyes and her “easy, gentle ways” (165). Lena was accused of being seductive to Ole Benson, a discouraged farmer, whose wife, “Crazy Mary,” had spent time in an asylum. The Norwegian immigrants were scandalized when Ole Benson helped Lena onto her horse after church one Sunday and Crazy Mary threatened the young woman with a corn-knife. Lena denied that she had ever done anything to encourage Ole’s obsession with her and asserted that she could not order him off the prairie when he watched her herding cattle.

Jim often encounters Lena in downtown Black Hawk when she is running errands for the dressmaker, and she tells Jim about Saturday nights at the Boys’ Home Hotel when she is visiting her friend, Tiny Soderball. The Boys’ Home Hotel is the best lodging along their branch of the Burlington Railroad, so the traveling salesmen arrive there on Saturday nights. After Tiny helps the cook wash the dishes, she and Lena listen to the piano music and stories of these commercial travelers relaxing in the hotel parlor. Lena tells Jim that she hopes he will be a traveling salesman someday because they ride around on trains and attend the theaters in large cities. The salesmen are generous to Tiny, giving her samples of their perfume, soap, and handkerchiefs, which she sometimes shares with Lena.

One day near Christmastime, Jim sees Lena helping her 12-year-old brother purchase a gift for his mother: The boy had money of his own to spend for the first time since he had gotten a job of sweeping the Norwegian church. Lena gives him one of Tiny’s perfume bottles for his mother, but he wants to get handkerchiefs with her initials to accompany it. When he is unable to decide between “M” for mother and “B” for her name, “Berthe,” Lena advises him to choose the “B” handkerchiefs since no one ever calls her by that name now. After her brother returns home, Lena wipes tears from her eyes and murmurs that she gets homesick for her parents.

During the winter, “a hunger for colour came over people, like the Laplander’s craving for fats and sugar” (174). On wintry evenings, Jim is drawn to the warm, colorful Harling home, except when Mr. Harling is there. Then Jim returns to his own house, wondering what book to read in the company of his elderly grandparents. On Saturday nights, there is a party atmosphere at the Harlings’ home: All the children act in charades, or Mrs. Harling plays old operas on the piano. Frances teaches the children to dance and predicts that Ántonia will become the best dancer in the group. After enduring Ambrosch’s bad-tempered silences and her mother’s grumbling on long winter nights, Ántonia feels like the Harling household is heaven: Even after cooking three meals, Ántonia is never too tired to make taffy or chocolate cookies at the children’s request. Nina coaxes Ántonia to tell stories, and they all enjoy hearing Ántonia’s engaging voice.

One evening, Ántonia tells Jim and the Harlings about an event that happened the previous summer when she was helping to thresh wheat. On the hot day, a sick-looking tramp came and offered to operate the threshing machine. Ole Iverson was hot and tired, so he agreed to let the tramp take over for a while. Then, the tramp jumped head-first into the machine, killing himself. Ántonia was shocked, unable to understand why anyone would want to die by suicide in summertime when it is so lovely. No one ever found out where the tramp came from, but he had a newspaper clipping of the poem “The Old Oaken Bucket” in his pocket.

By March, Jim is tired of the dirty slush and rutted streets of winter in Black Hawk. The only break in the monotony is the arrival of the Negro pianist, Blind d’Arnault, whom Mrs. Harling has known for years. A heavy mulatto who lost his eyesight due to an illness a few weeks after birth, d’Arnault has a “soft, amiable Negro voice . . . with the note of docile subservience in it” (184), which reminds Jim of the voices he heard in his Virginia childhood. D’Arnault’s body rocks back and forth as he plays the piano in the hotel parlor. He plays plantation songs, such as “My Old Kentucky Home,” and the traveling salesmen sing “one Negro melody after another” (185). D’Arnault was born on a plantation in the Deep South “where the spirit if not the fact of slavery persisted” (185). As a child, d’Arnault was drawn by the sound of music to the Big House where Miss Nellie practiced the piano daily. Eventually, his perfect pitch, amazing memory, and musical ability were discovered by the white piano teachers.

When d’Arnault hears the sound of dancing in the dining-room, the traveling salesmen discover that Tiny, Lena, Ántonia, and Mary Duzak are waltzing together. Despite Johnnie Gardener’s concerns about his wife’s disapproval, the salesmen insist on dancing with the handsome country girls. As d’Arnault plays, Jim thinks he looks “like some glistening African god of pleasure, full of strong, savage blood” (191). When Jim walks Ántonia home later, they are still restless with excitement.