My Antonia

One morning, Jim visits the photographer to arrange to have his grandparents’ pictures taken. When Jim walks around the shop, he notices a large photo in a gilt frame of a baby. The photographer apologetically laughs, explaining that it is Ántonia’s baby, of whom she is proud despite having been deserted. Jim wants to see Ántonia again; he is impressed by her fortitude but still regrets that she fell for Donovan, who is a playboy.

On his way home, Jim stops to help Mrs. Harling in her garden: He wants to discover how exactly Ántonia’s marriage fell through. Mrs. Harling advises him to talk to Widow Steavens, who helped Ántonia and knows the most about it.

When Jim visits Widow Steavens on his grandfather’s farm, he sees that “the whole face of the country” (306) is changing: The red grass is disappearing, replaced by wheatfield and cornfields. Wooden houses have replaced the old sod houses, and orchards have been planted. Although Jim loved his early days on the prairie, he views the development of the countryside as positive, leading to a prosperous land with contented citizens. He compares the West’s development to the development of an important concept: “The changes seemed beautiful and harmonious to me; it was like watching the growth of a great man or of a great idea” (306).

Widow Steavens invites Jim to stay the night in his boyhood bedroom. After supper, she tells him the story of Ántonia, whom she cared for as if she were her own daughter. The summer before Ántonia was to marry, she came to the Burden farm almost daily because the Shimerdas had no sewing machine. Mrs. Steavens taught her hemstitching, and Ántonia enjoyed learning to sew and preparing for domestic life. The Harlings and Lena gave her nice things for her future home. Even Ambrosch bought her a set of plated silver in Black Hawk and gave her $300 from the wages he had collected while she worked at the Harlings’.

The first thing that worried Ántonia was when Donovan wrote that they might have to settle in Denver for his job. When she received his letter in March that it was time for her to come, Ántonia said farewell to Widow Steavens and to the Burden house, which “had always been a refuge to her” (310). In a few days, she sent word she had arrived safely in Denver and that Donovan was trying to get promoted before they married. Then, they heard nothing for a month. One night, the widow’s brother thought he had seen Ántonia and her trunks being driven from Black Hawk. Widow Steavens went to the Shimerdas’ place the next day, and Ántonia revealed that she was not married. Donovan had been fired from his job; he lived with her until she had no money, then he deserted her.

Ántonia went back to working on the Shimerdas’ farm. Folks respected her industriousness, and she seemed so humbled that no one wanted to trouble her about what had happened. Ántonia would not go to Black Hawk to avoid meeting people she knew. In the winter, she began wearing a man’s long overcoat while herding cattle. Then, one December night, she went to her room and gave birth to her baby without calling anyone. Ambrosch wished to get rid of the baby, but Widow Steavens threatened him with the law. Ántonia loves her daughter, Martha, who is now one year and eight months old, and takes excellent care of her. Widow Steavens says Ántonia is a natural mother, but it is unlikely she can get married now and raise a family. 

Jim goes to the Shimerdas’ place the next afternoon to see Ántonia, and Yulka shows him the baby. He finds Ántonia in the wheatfields; Ántonia had heard he was at Widow Steaven’s and had been expecting him all day. Ántonia is thinner, but she has a new strength in her face and still looks healthy. He realizes that she is only 24 years old though she seems older. Instinctively, Jim and Ántonia walk to her father’s gravesite, where the grass is still unplowed. Jim tells her everything about his life: his plans to study law and work at a law office in New York City and how Cleric’s death from pneumonia affected him. Ántonia understands that Jim is leaving Nebraska for good but feels that she will not lose him, just as she never has lost her father. She says she would be miserable in a big city, where she would not know every plant. She feels her purpose is to give her child better opportunities than she ever had.

Jim reveals that, since he has been away, he thinks of Ántonia more than anyone else in Nebraska: “I’d have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister—anything that a woman can be to a man” (321). Ántonia wonders how it can be like that when he knows how she has disappointed him. They walk homeward, and Jim holds her hands against his heart before they part. When he walks alone, he imagines a boy and a girl running along beside him, laughing and whispering to each other, as their childhood shadows used to do.