Mary Antin

“ I didn’t see my freckles, or my jaw, or my very thin legs. I saw a glory of pink and white, and I grinned from sheer rapture.
The spare room had no heat: there was a register, but unless we had company the register was closed. My mother found me one day kneeling by the bed, shivering, but in ecstatic contemplation of my dress, which I had not dared to try on a second time. She gave me ginger tea. I gulped it down meekly. I felt even then that as a punishment ginger tea is exquisitely relevant. It chastens the soul but at the same time it warms the stomach you’ve allowed to get cold. ”

“ For vividness of sense-suggestion—color, sound, smell, feeling—Joseph Husband’s smooth-flowing narration of a year’s experience in a soft-coal mine is worthy of study. The blackness which is 'absence of light rather than darkness,' the submerging silence, the seeping gas-vapors, the nervous consciousness of lurking danger—all these give indisputable atmosphere. What grim tragedy, awful in its heavy brutality, might not here be grimly enacted! Instead, there is work—the grimy, sweating work of the underground; hard muscles, and senses not too alive to material forces. ”

“ I began to dread the hours beside his bed. It was hard to listen to the plans for his work which, under the stress of mounting fever, often trailed off to incoherent muttering, and to watch the thin profile of his face showing an ever sharper line against the pillow; hard to follow the doctor to his car and hear his passionless, hopeless words; harder still to go back and face the crazily bright eyes of Babanchik and, in response to his questions, lie cheerfully and so extravagantly that it seemed that only a madman could believe. ”

“ Miss Miriam, who even that night wore a black dress and her little gold cross, distributed among us the eight silk banners which, when we weren’t marching, always hung on the walls of the Sunday school rooms. There were subdued whispers and last prinkings. Then the piano, which had been moved into the church, gave the signal and we marched in.
We marched with our banners and our pink and blue hair-ribbons up and down the aisles so that all the Mothers-and-Fathers-and-Friends-of-the-School could see us. Whenever we recognized our own special mother or father, we beamed. ”

“ We were at his side like a shot, and there, in the hitherto blank window of the Peggs' house, stood the old gentleman of the flowered dressing-gown, laughing and nodding at The Seraph. When he saw us he made a sign to us to open our window, and at the same instant raised his own.
It took the three of us to accomplish it, for the window moved unreadily, being seldom raised, as Mrs. Handsomebody regarded fresh air much as she regarded a small boy, as something to be kept in its place. ”

“ Of course, while the world could not progress without discoveries, they are not primarily brave, or kind.'
'That’s just the trouble,' sighed Theodora. But she still looked hopeful. 'Miss Prawl, now, would it be a purple-star deed, if I discovered that there was another sun up in the sky besides the one we are already using?'
'If you discovered anything as remarkable as that, Theodora, I should feel entirely justified in giving you a purple star,' replied Miss Prawl, reveling in Theodora’s imagination. 'But you mustn’t worry about it,' she advised. ”

“ The trickling murmur of the gas; the spattering fall of a lump of coal, loosened by some mysterious force from a cranny in the wall; the sudden knocking and breaking of a stratum far up in the rock above; or the scurry of a rat off somewhere in the darkness—strike on the ear loud and startlingly. The eye, too, becomes trained to penetrate the darkness; but the darkness is so complete that there is a limit, the limit of the rays cast by the pit-lamp. ”

“ When the window opposite his bed began to grow bright with the pink and gold of sunrise, Wilbur woke and sat up, looking first at the chair, then at the bureau. No, it was not in the room. It would be in the dining-room, then. When he went downstairs he was surprised to find that Aunt Susan had not yet left her room. In the kitchen Rosa was only beginning her preparations for breakfast. Wilbur spent a long time, a restless but happy hour, waiting, idling about the dewy garden and the front yard, feeding the chickens and playing with the cat. ”

“ War, armed cap-à-pie, sprang into existence in Jerry’s heart at this summons. He had proved Pryor capable of tyranny without reason, and could not hope, when the spirit of such a man had been as cruelly wounded as his body, that he would incline to mercy. But in the blessedness of his own safety he forgave Rosita her silence, and, while aware of the perplexities that would beset him, he vowed that no admission of her guilt should be extorted from him. ”

“ Not until that moment did Emmeline Black acknowledge the defeat of her dreams. Wonderful! To love and be loved by Jim Forman, of whom the most that could be said was that he was steady and a hard worker, and that there were only two other children to share his father’s farm!
'Don’t cry, mother,' implored Victoria, 'though I know why you’re doing it. I feel like crying, too, only something won’t let me cry to-night. I guess I’m just too happy ever to cry again.'
Still her mother had not spoken. She had stopped crying and stood twisting her apron with nervous fingers. ”

“ The whole Sisterhood buzzed about her like a hive, for it seemed that the fair-skinned lad of her adventure was the heir of a house whose name was famous in many lands, and the father was even now standing at her threshold.
Sister Anne was not embarrassed by the great presence, fame and wealth and high birth and all the glories of this world being indeed less than words to her. Moreover, her visitor brought to this interview with an old unlettered woman all the charm and suavity and tact of which he was so well the master. ”

“ When I got to America, it was too late for me to go to school. It took me all my time and strength to make a living—I’ve never been much good in business, ma’am—and when I got my family over, I saw that it was the children would go to school for me. I’m glad to be a plain citizen, if my children will be educated Americans.'
People with eyes and hands like Mr. Rudinsky’s can say a great deal in a few words. Miss Ralston felt as if she had known him all his life, and followed his strivings in two worlds. ”

“ I stepped into Babanchik’s room a few minutes after he had read it and found him at his open window, staring out at the sky. He brushed his hands across his eyes before he turned and held out the letter to me.
'Read it, my dear.'
The uneven round handwriting was pathetically reminiscent of the letters which used to deal with ducks and puppies, and there was boyish heartbreak in every word of the curt, matter-of-fact sentences. Kolya’s petition had not been granted.
'And now, father,' the letter ran on, 'you will have to come back. We are the men of our family. ”

“ I was standing just off the main entry or tunnel of the mine, which began on my left hand out of blackness and passed again, on my right, into a seeming wall of darkness. The low, black roof, closely beamed with great timbers, was held by long lines of great whitewashed tree-trunks. A few electric lights shone dimly through their dust-coated globes, and the yellow flames from the men’s pit-lamps, which had flared so bright in the compartment of the hoisting-cage, seemed now but thin tongues of flame that marked rather than disclosed the men. ”

“ Their faces were black with the coal-dust,—black as the motor and their clothing,—and from their pit-lamps the flames bent back in the wind and streamed out straight along their cap-tops.
Low above the head of the trip-rider, the wheel on the trolley streaked out sudden bursts of greenish-white sparks along the wire; and as the train passed by, the roar of the locomotive gave place to the clattering of the couplings of the long string of stocky cars, each heaped high with its black load of coal. ”

“ Sister Anne had known no other home but the convent for nearly half a century, but the sight of those unresting waves never failed to set her spirit free: free of unknown and enchanted worlds, worlds of wonder, of mystery, and of heart-stirring beauty. She was merely a plain, silent, hard-working, rather stupid old woman, who had never been in all her life admired or considered, or even loved, unless one counts the tepid affection of those with whom she lived. ”

“ To the ear accustomed to the constant sound of a living world, the stillness of a coal-mine, where the miles of cross-cuts and entries and the unyielding walls swallow up all sounds and echo, is a silence that is complete; but, as one becomes accustomed to the silence through long hours of solitary work, sounds become audible that would escape an ear less trained. ”

“ Their smoothly clipped ends formed the surface of the ball.
It was the kind of thing you would give a baby in a go-cart.
Wilbur stood and gazed at it. The kind of thing you would give a baby in a go-cart! Then he looked up at Aunt Susan, and suddenly the sense of his great disappointment was lost in that immense, aching pity for her. She was so old, and she had made it herself, thinking it would please him.
'It’s—it’s awful pretty!' Wilbur stammered.
He felt inexpressibly sorry for Aunt Susan. How could any one be so utterly without comprehension! ”

“ It kept right on snowing that night. There was no discussion about any one’s going out the following day, for the whole city seemed destined to be buried in the snow which fell unceasingly from low, inexhaustible clouds. Finally, after several days, when people were becoming seriously alarmed, and some of them were hungry, the snow stopped, and the sky turned into a dazzling blue from which a blinding sun again looked down on a new white city. And then men began to open their front doors again, and shovel and pant, and pant and shovel, as they dug their way out into the world. ”

“ Proof either of guilt or of innocence depended vitally on Pryor’s recovery, as no inquiry had elicited any of the facts which preceded the catastrophe of that night. Shortly after ten o’clock the commanding officer had passed the sentry for a solitary stroll along the rampart, which was a daily habit with him; nobody else had been seen, and nothing unusual had been heard until the pistol-shot.
Depression, black as the shadow of death which over-hung them, possessed the little post which was wont to be so cheery. ”

“ As Elizabethan actors, striding about their bare stage, conjured up brave pictures of gilded halls or leafy forest glades, so we little fellows made a castle stronghold of our bed; or better still, a gallant frigate that sailed beyond the barren walls into unknown seas of adventure, and anchored at last off some rocky island where treasure lay hidden among the hills.
What brave fights with pirates there were, when Angel as captain, I as mate, with The Seraph for a cabin-boy, fought the bloody pirate gangs on those surf-washed shores, and gained the fight, though far outnumbered! ”

“ Hill burst forth:—
'She wanted that Sula should convert herself to the Mennonites.'
'I wanted to save her soul,' declared Mrs. Myers.
'You needn’t to worry yourself about her soul,' answered Mrs. Hill. 'When you behave as well as Sula when you’re young, you needn’t to worry yourself about other people’s souls when you get old.'
Mrs. Myers’s youth had not been as strait-laced as her middle age; there was a depth of reminiscent innuendo in Mrs. Hill’s remark. Millerstown laughed. ”

“ Jim rarely took the full benefit of the wash-house privileges, and morning found him with the dirt and grime of the work of the previous day still on his face. He was a Greek, short, with a thin, black moustache, which drooped down into two 'rat-tail' points. Around each eye a heavy black line of coal-dust was penciled, as though by an actor’s crayon. ”

“ The new teacher’s dress was a soft, pretty brown, dainty and fresh. Yes, Theodora resolved that she must attain the purple star, and thus forever become famous.
Just as she had arrived at this engrossing decision, the hall door opened, and Mr. Wadsmore, the adored, portly principal, strode energetically in, leading a new boy. This person, this upstart, this unidentified stranger, this perfect nobody of a new boy faced the critical, penetrating eyes of the assembled class with an almost superhuman ease.
'Miss Prawl, this young man is Charley Starr,' said Mr. Wadsmore. ”

“ Cynthia’s and Dick’s we put together from suggestions; that of Seth Miles we know from his own detailed narrative; Richard’s remains for our forming. All the details are woven into a tale of one day. A day hot and sultry in itself is made to coincide with the grumblings and self-pitying of a pampered son; both day and character are cleared without the arrival of the threatened storm, and duty is made as splendid and beautiful as the sun emerging from a darkened sky. ”

“ The raft drifted many hours, following the sun around the fatal, empty bowl. Jeems broke that vast silence.
'Zadoc, I must eat something. My head is—you know—my head!'
'So does mine,' said Zadoc. 'Cut the first apple in two.'
It takes so little to satisfy, when one is starving, and that little goes so very fast! When Zadoc put his furred teeth into half the first apple, it was as if he had not tasted such since he left Cape Cod a dozen years before. ”

“ As the last man pushed into his place and we stood shoulder to shoulder, the hoisting engineer slowly slipped his lever again toward him, and as slowly the cage sank. Then, in an instant, the white-blue of the sky was gone, except for a thin crack below the deck above us, through which a sheet of white light sliced in and hung heavily in the dusty air of our compartment. The high song of the generators in the power-house, the choking puffs of the switch-engine in the yards, and the noise of men and work which I had not noticed before, I now suddenly missed in the absence of sound. ”

“ Church nearly cried,' Teresa said. 'But where’d Alanna go to? I couldn’t find her until just a few minutes ago, and then she was so queer!'
'It’s my opinion she was dead tired,' said her mother. 'Look how sound she’s asleep! Carry her up, Frank. I’ll keep her in bed in the morning.'
They kept Alanna in bed for many mornings, for her secret weighed on her soul, and she failed suddenly in color, strength, and appetite. ”

“ There is a sleep too deep for dreams.
It was years since Emmeline Black had dreamed except in the terms of her motherhood. For herself, the dream had gone. She did not rebel. She accepted. It was the way of life with women like her. She would not have said her life was hard. Jacob Black had been a good husband to her. Only a fool, having married a poor farmer, could expect that the dreams of a romantic girl would ever come true. Once she had expected it, of course. That was when Jacob Black had seemed as a prince to Emmeline Mead. She had felt the wing of romance as it brushed past her. ”