O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (ebook reader with internet browser .TXT) 📕

“Do you like Mr. Linstrum?” Marie asked suddenly.

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“Oh, ever so much; only he seems kind of staid and school-teachery. But, of course, he is older than Frank, even. I’m sure I don’t want to live to be more than thirty, do you? Do you think Alexandra likes him very much?”

“I suppose so. They were old friends.”

“Oh, Emil, you know what I mean!” Marie tossed her head impatiently. “Does she really care about him? When she used to tell me about him, I always wondered whether she wasn’t a little in love with him.”

“Who, Alexandra?” Emil laughed and thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. “Alexandra’s never been in love, you crazy!” He laughed again. “She wouldn’t know how to go about it. The idea!”

Marie shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, you don’t know Alexandra as well as you think you do! If you had any eyes, you would see that she is very fond of him. It would serve you all right if she walked off with Carl. I like him because he appreciates her more than you do.”

Emil frowned. “What are you talking about, Marie? Alexandra’s all right. She and I have always been good friends. What more do you want? I like to talk to Carl about New York and what a fellow can do there.”

“Oh, Emil! Surely you are not thinking of going off there?”

“Why not? I must go somewhere, mustn’t I?” The young man took up his scythe and leaned on it. “Would you rather I went off in the sand hills and lived like Ivar?”

Marie’s face fell under his brooding gaze. She looked down at his wet leggings. “I’m sure Alexandra hopes you will stay on here,” she murmured.

“Then Alexandra will be disappointed,” the young man said roughly. “What do I want to hang around here for? Alexandra can run the farm all right, without me. I don’t want to stand around and look on. I want to be doing something on my own account.”

“That’s so,” Marie sighed. “There are so many, many things you can do. Almost anything you choose.”

“And there are so many, many things I can’t do.” Emil echoed her tone sarcastically. “Sometimes I don’t want to do anything at all, and sometimes I want to pull the four corners of the Divide together,”⁠—he threw out his arm and brought it back with a jerk⁠—“so, like a tablecloth. I get tired of seeing men and horses going up and down, up and down.”

Marie looked up at his defiant figure and her face clouded. “I wish you weren’t so restless, and didn’t get so worked up over things,” she said sadly.

“Thank you,” he returned shortly.

She sighed despondently. “Everything I say makes you cross, don’t it? And you never used to be cross to me.”

Emil took a step nearer and stood frowning down at her bent head. He stood in an attitude of self-defense, his feet well apart, his hands clenched and drawn up at his sides, so that the cords stood out on his bare arms. “I can’t play with you like a little boy any more,” he said slowly. “That’s what you miss, Marie. You’ll have to get some other little boy to play with.” He stopped and took a deep breath. Then he went on in a low tone, so intense that it was almost threatening: “Sometimes you seem to understand perfectly, and then sometimes you pretend you don’t. You don’t help things any by pretending. It’s then that I want to pull the corners of the Divide together. If you won’t understand, you know, I could make you!”

Marie clasped her hands and started up from her seat. She had grown very pale and her eyes were shining with excitement and distress. “But, Emil, if I understand, then all our good times are over, we can never do nice things together any more. We shall have to behave like Mr. Linstrum. And, anyhow, there’s nothing to understand!” She struck the ground with her little foot fiercely. “That won’t last. It will go away, and things will be just as they used to. I wish you were a Catholic. The Church helps people, indeed it does. I pray for you, but that’s not the same as if you prayed yourself.”

She spoke rapidly and pleadingly, looked entreatingly into his face. Emil stood defiant, gazing down at her.

“I can’t pray to have the things I want,” he said slowly, “and I won’t pray not to have them, not if I’m damned for it.”

Marie turned away, wringing her hands. “Oh, Emil, you won’t try! Then all our good times are over.”

“Yes; over. I never expect to have any more.”

Emil gripped the handholds of his scythe and began to mow. Marie took up her cherries and went slowly toward the house, crying bitterly.

On Sunday afternoon, a month after Carl Linstrum’s arrival, he rode with Emil up into the French country to attend a Catholic fair. He sat for most of the afternoon in the basement of the church, where the fair was held, talking to Marie Shabata, or strolled about the gravel terrace, thrown up on the hillside in front of the basement doors, where the French boys were jumping and wrestling and throwing the discus. Some of the boys were in their white baseball suits; they had just come up from a Sunday practice game down in the ball grounds. Amédée, the newly married, Emil’s best friend, was their pitcher, renowned among the country towns for his dash and skill. Amédée was a little fellow, a year younger than Emil and much more boyish in appearance; very lithe and active and neatly made, with a clear brown and white skin, and flashing white teeth. The Sainte-Agnes boys were to play the Hastings nine in a fortnight, and Amédée’s lightning balls were the hope of his team. The little Frenchman seemed to get every ounce there was in him behind the ball as it left his