The Project Gutenberg eBook, One of Ours, by Willa Cather
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Title: One of Ours
Author: Willa Cather
Release Date: November 20, 2004 [eBook #2369]
[Date last updated: April 11, 2006]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE OF OURS
One of Ours
by Willa Cather
Book One: On Lovely Creek
I.
Claude Wheeler opened his eyes before the sun was up and
vigorously shook his younger brother, who lay in the other half
of the same bed.
“Ralph, Ralph, get awake! Come down and help me wash the car.”
“What for?”
“Why, aren’t we going to the circus today?”
“Car’s all right. Let me alone.” The boy turned over and pulled
the sheet up to his face, to shut out the light which was
beginning to come through the curtainless windows.
Claude rose and dressed,—a simple operation which took very
little time. He crept down two flights of stairs, feeling his way
in the dusk, his red hair standing up in peaks, like a cock’s
comb. He went through the kitchen into the adjoining washroom,
which held two porcelain stands with running water. Everybody had
washed before going to bed, apparently, and the bowls were ringed
with a dark sediment which the hard, alkaline water had not
dissolved. Shutting the door on this disorder, he turned back to
the kitchen, took Mahailey’s tin basin, doused his face and head
in cold water, and began to plaster down his wet hair.
Old Mahailey herself came in from the yard, with her apron full
of corn-cobs to start a fire in the kitchen stove. She smiled at
him in the foolish fond way she often had with him when they were
alone.
“What air you gittin’ up for a-ready, boy? You goin’ to the
circus before breakfast? Don’t you make no noise, else you’ll
have ‘em all down here before I git my fire a-goin’.”
“All right, Mahailey.” Claude caught up his cap and ran out of
doors, down the hillside toward the barn. The sun popped up over
the edge of the prairie like a broad, smiling face; the light
poured across the close-cropped August pastures and the hilly,
timbered windings of Lovely Creek, a clear little stream with a
sand bottom, that curled and twisted playfully about through the
south section of the big Wheeler ranch. It was a fine day to go
to the circus at Frankfort, a fine day to do anything; the sort
of day that must, somehow, turn out well.
Claude backed the little Ford car out of its shed, ran it up to
the horse-tank, and began to throw water on the mud-crusted
wheels and windshield. While he was at work the two hired men,
Dan and Jerry, came shambling down the hill to feed the stock.
Jerry was grumbling and swearing about something, but Claude
wrung out his wet rags and, beyond a nod, paid no attention to
them. Somehow his father always managed to have the roughest and
dirtiest hired men in the country working for him. Claude had a
grievance against Jerry just now, because of his treatment of one
of the horses.
Molly was a faithful old mare, the mother of many colts; Claude
and his younger brother had learned to ride on her. This man
Jerry, taking her out to work one morning, let her step on a
board with a nail sticking up in it. He pulled the nail out of
her foot, said nothing to anybody, and drove her to the
cultivator all day. Now she had been standing in her stall for
weeks, patiently suffering, her body wretchedly thin, and her leg
swollen until it looked like an elephant’s. She would have to
stand there, the veterinary said, until her hoof came off and she
grew a new one, and she would always be stiff. Jerry had not been
discharged, and he exhibited the poor animal as if she were a
credit to him.
Mahailey came out on the hilltop and rang the breakfast bell.
After the hired men went up to the house, Claude slipped into the
barn to see that Molly had got her share of oats. She was eating
quietly, her head hanging, and her scaly, dead-looking foot
lifted just a little from the ground. When he stroked her neck
and talked to her she stopped grinding and gazed at him
mournfully. She knew him, and wrinkled her nose and drew her
upper lip back from her worn teeth, to show that she liked being
petted. She let him touch her foot and examine her leg.
When Claude reached the kitchen, his mother was sitting at one
end of the breakfast table, pouring weak coffee, his brother and
Dan and Jerry were in their chairs, and Mahailey was baking
griddle cakes at the stove. A moment later Mr. Wheeler came down
the enclosed stairway and walked the length of the table to his
own place. He was a very large man, taller and broader than any
of his neighbours. He seldom wore a coat in summer, and his
rumpled shirt bulged out carelessly over the belt of his
trousers. His florid face was clean shaven, likely to be a trifle
tobacco-stained about the mouth, and it was conspicuous both for
good-nature and coarse humour, and for an imperturbable physical
composure. Nobody in the county had ever seen Nat Wheeler
flustered about anything, and nobody had ever heard him speak
with complete seriousness. He kept up his easy-going, jocular
affability even with his own family.
As soon as he was seated, Mr. Wheeler reached for the two-pint
sugar bowl and began to pour sugar into his coffee. Ralph asked
him if he were going to the circus. Mr. Wheeler winked.
“I shouldn’t wonder if I happened in town sometime before the
elephants get away.” He spoke very deliberately, with a
State-of-Maine drawl, and his voice was smooth and agreeable.
“You boys better start in early, though. You can take the wagon
and the mules, and load in the cowhides. The butcher has agreed
to take them.”
Claude put down his knife. “Can’t we have the car? I’ve washed it
on purpose.”
“And what about Dan and Jerry? They want to see the circus just
as much as you do, and I want the hides should go in; they’re
bringing a good price now. I don’t mind about your washing the
car; mud preserves the paint, they say, but it’ll be all right
this time, Claude.”
The hired men haw-hawed and Ralph giggled. Claude’s freckled face
got very red. The pancake grew stiff and heavy in his mouth and
was hard to swallow. His father knew he hated to drive the mules
to town, and knew how he hated to go anywhere with Dan and Jerry.
As for the hides, they were the skins of four steers that had
perished in the blizzard last winter through the wanton
carelessness of these same hired men, and the price they would
bring would not half pay for the time his father had spent in
stripping and curing them. They had lain in a shed loft all
summer, and the wagon had been to town a dozen times. But today,
when he wanted to go to Frankfort clean and care-free, he must
take these stinking hides and two coarse-mouthed men, and drive a
pair of mules that always brayed and balked and behaved
ridiculously in a crowd. Probably his father had looked out of
the window and seen him washing the car, and had put this up on
him while he dressed. It was like his father’s idea of a joke.
Mrs. Wheeler looked at Claude sympathetically, feeling that he