VI

On the day of Olaf Ericson's barn-raising, his wife, for once in a way,

rose early. Johanna Vavrika had been baking cakes and frying and boiling

and spicing meats for a week beforehand, but it was not until the day

before the party was to take place that Clara showed any interest in it.

Then she was seized with one of her fitful spasms of energy, and took

the wagon and little Eric and spent the day on Plum Creek, gathering

vines and swamp goldenrod to decorate the barn.

By four o'clock in the afternoon buggies and wagons began to arrive at

the big unpainted building in front of Olaf's house. When Nils and his

mother came at five, there were more than fifty people in the barn, and

a great drove of children. On the ground floor stood six long tables,

set with the crockery of seven flourishing Ericson families, lent for

the occasion. In the middle of each table was a big yellow pumpkin,

hollowed out and filled with woodbine. In one corner of the barn, behind

a pile of green-and-white striped watermelons, was a circle of chairs

for the old people; the younger guests sat on bushel measures or

barbed-wire spools, and the children tumbled about in the haymow. The

box stalls Clara had converted into booths. The framework was hidden by

goldenrod and sheaves of wheat, and the partitions were covered 'With

wild grapevines full of fruit. At one of these Johanna Vavrika watched

over her cooked meats, enough to provision an army; and at the next her

kitchen girls had ranged the ice-cream freezers, and Clara was already

cutting pies and cakes against the hour of serving. At the third stall,

little Hilda, in a bright pink lawn dress, dispensed lemonade throughout

the afternoon. Olaf, as a public man, had thought it inadvisable to

serve beer in his barn; but Joe Vavrika had come over with two demijohns

concealed in his buggy, and after his arrival the wagon shed was much

frequented by the men.

“Hasn't Cousin Clara fixed things lovely?” little Hilda whispered, when

Nils went up to her stall and asked for lemonade.

Nils leaned against the booth, talking to the excited little girl and

watching the people. The barn faced the west, and the sun, pouring in

at the big doors, filled the whole interior with a golden light,

through which filtered fine particles of dust from the haymow, where the

children were romping. There was a great chattering from the stall where

Johanna Vavrika exhibited to the admiring women her platters heaped with

fried chicken, her roasts of beef, boiled tongues, and baked hams

with cloves stuck in the crisp brown fat and garnished with tansy and

parsley. The older women, having assured themselves that there were

twenty kinds of cake, not counting cookies, and three dozen fat pies,

repaired to the corner behind the pile of watermelons, put on their

white aprons, and fell to their knitting and fancywork. They were a fine

company of old women, and a Dutch painter would have loved to find them

there together, where the sun made bright patches on the floor and sent

long, quivering shafts of gold through the dusky shade up among the

rafters. There were fat, rosy old women who looked hot in their best

black dresses; spare, alert old women with brown, dark-veined hands; and

several of almost heroic frame, not less massive than old Mrs. Ericson

herself. Few of them wore glasses, and old Mrs. Svendsen, a Danish

woman, who was quite bald, wore the only cap among them. Mrs. Oleson,

who had twelve big grandchildren, could still show two braids of yellow

hair as thick as her own wrists. Among all these grandmothers there were

more brown heads than white. They all had a pleased, prosperous air, as

if they were more than satisfied with themselves and with life. Nils,

leaning against Hilda's lemonade stand, watched them as they sat

chattering in four languages, their fingers never lagging behind their

tongues.

“Look at them over there,” he whispered, detaining Clara as she passed

him. “Aren't they the Old Guard? I've just counted thirty hands. I guess

they've wrung many a chicken's neck and warmed many a boy's jacket for

him in their time.”

In reality he fell into amazement when he thought of the Herculean

labours those fifteen pairs of hands had performed: of the cows they

had milked, the butter they had made, the gardens they had planted, the

children and grandchildren they had tended, the brooms they had worn

out, the mountains of food they had cooked. It made him dizzy. Clara

Vavrika smiled a hard, enigmatical smile at him and walked rapidly away.

Nils' eyes followed her white figure as she went toward the house.

He watched her walking alone in the sunlight, looked at her slender,

defiant shoulders and her little hard-set head with its coils of

blue-black hair. “No,” he reflected; “she'd never be like them, not if

she lived here a hundred years. She'd only grow more bitter. You can't

tame a wild thing; you can only chain it. People aren't all alike. I

mustn't lose my nerve.” He gave Hilda's pigtail a parting tweak and

set out after Clara. “Where to?” he asked, as he came upon her in the

kitchen.

“I'm going to the cellar for preserves.”

“Let me go with you. I never get a moment alone with you. Why do you

keep out of my way?”

Clara laughed. “I don't usually get in anybody's way.”

Nils followed her down the stairs and to the far corner of the cellar,

where a basement window let in a stream of light. From a swinging shelf

Clara selected several glass jars, each labeled in Johanna's careful

hand. Nils took up a brown flask. “What's this? It looks good.”

“It is. It's some French brandy father gave me when I was married. Would

you like some? Have you a corkscrew? I'll get glasses.”

When she brought them, Nils took them from her and put them down on

the window-sill. “Clara Vavrika, do you remember how crazy I used to be

about you?”

Clara shrugged her shoulders. “Boys are always crazy about somebody or

another. I dare say some silly has been crazy about Evelina Oleson. You

got over it in a hurry.”

“Because I didn't come back, you mean? I had to get on, you know, and it

was hard sledding at first. Then I heard you'd married Olaf.”

“And then you stayed away from a broken heart,” Clara laughed.

“And then I began to think about you more than I had since I first went

away. I began to wonder if you were really as you had seemed to me when

I was a boy. I thought I'd like to see. I've had lots of girls, but no

one ever pulled me the same way. The more I thought about you, the

more I remembered how it used to be--like hearing a wild tune you

can't resist, calling you out at night. It had been a long while since

anything had pulled me out of my boots, and I wondered whether anything

ever could again.” Nils thrust his hands into his coat pockets and

squared his shoulders, as his mother sometimes squared hers, as Olaf, in

a clumsier manner, squared his. “So I thought I'd come back and see. Of

course the family have tried to do me, and I rather thought I'd bring

out father's will and make a fuss. But they can have their old land;

they've put enough sweat into it.” He took the flask and filled the

two glasses carefully to the brim. “I've found out what I want from the

Ericsons. Drink _skoal_, Clara.” He lifted his glass, and Clara took

hers with downcast eyes. “Look at me, Clara Vavrika. _Skoal!_”

She raised her burning eyes and answered fiercely: “_Skoal!_”

The barn supper began at six o'clock and lasted for two hilarious

hours. Yense Nelson had made a wager that he could eat two whole fried

chickens, and he did. Eli Swanson stowed away two whole custard pies,

and Nick Hermanson ate a chocolate layer cake to the last crumb. There

was even a cooky contest among the children, and one thin, slablike

Bohemian boy consumed sixteen and won the prize, a gingerbread pig

which Johanna Vavrika had carefully decorated with red candies and burnt

sugar. Fritz Sweiheart, the German carpenter, won in the pickle contest,

but he disappeared soon after supper and was not seen for the rest of

the evening. Joe Vavrika said that Fritz could have managed the pickles

all right, but he had sampled the demijohn in his buggy too often before

sitting down to the table.

While the supper was being cleared away the two fiddlers began to tune

up for the dance. Clara was to accompany them on her old upright piano,

which had been brought down from her father's. By this time Nils had

renewed old acquaintances. Since his interview with Clara in the cellar,

he had been busy telling all the old women how young they looked, and

all the young ones how pretty they were, and assuring the men that

they had here the best farmland in the world. He had made himself so

agreeable that old Mrs. Ericson's friends began to come up to her and

tell how lucky she was to get her smart son back again, and please to

get him to play his flute. Joe Vavrika, who could still play very well

when he forgot that he had rheumatism, caught up a fiddle from Johnny

Oleson and played a crazy Bohemian dance tune that set the wheels going.

When he dropped the bow every one was ready to dance.

Olaf, in a frock coat and a solemn made-up necktie, led the grand march

with his mother. Clara had kept well out of _that_ by sticking to the

piano. She played the march with a pompous solemnity which greatly

amused the prodigal son, who went over and stood behind her.

“Oh, aren't you rubbing it into them, Clara Vavrika? And aren't you

lucky to have me here, or all your wit would be thrown away.”

“I'm used to being witty for myself. It saves my life.”

The fiddles struck up a polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika by leading

out Evelina Oleson, the homely schoolteacher. His next partner was a

very fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an heiress, had not been

asked for the first dance, but had stood against the wall in her tight,

high-heeled shoes, nervously fingering a lace handkerchief. She was soon

out of breath, so Nils led her, pleased and panting, to her seat,

and went over to the piano, from which Clara had been watching his

gallantry. “Ask Olena Yenson,” she whispered. “She waltzes beautifully.”

Olena, too, was rather inconveniently plump, handsome in a smooth, heavy

way, with a fine colour and good-natured, sleepy eyes. She was redolent

of violet sachet powder, and had warm, soft, white hands, but she danced

divinely, moving as smoothly as the tide coming in. “There, that's

something like,” Nils said as he released her. “You'll give me the next

waltz, won't you? Now I must go and dance with my little cousin.”

Hilda was greatly excited when Nils went up to her stall and held out

his arm. Her little eyes sparkled, but she declared that she could not

leave her lemonade. Old Mrs. Ericson, who happened along at this moment,

said she would attend to that, and Hilda came out, as pink as her pink

dress. The dance was a schottische, and in a moment her yellow braids

were fairly standing on end. “Bravo!” Nils cried encouragingly. “Where

did you learn to dance so nicely?”

“My Cousin Clara taught me,” the little girl panted.

Nils found Eric sitting with a group of boys who were too awkward or too

shy to dance, and told him that he must dance the next waltz with Hilda.

The boy screwed up his shoulders. “Aw, Nils, I can't dance. My feet are

too big; I look silly.”

“Don't be thinking about yourself. It doesn't matter how boys look.”

Nils had never spoken to him so sharply before, and Eric made haste to

scramble out of his corner and brush the straw from his coat.

Clara nodded approvingly. “Good for you, Nils. I've been trying to

get hold of him. They dance very nicely together; I sometimes play for

them.”

“I'm obliged to you for teaching him. There's no reason why he should

grow up to be a lout.”

“He'll never be that. He's more like you than any of them. Only he

hasn't your courage.” From her slanting eyes Clara shot forth one of

those keen glances, admiring and at the same time challenging, which she

seldom bestowed on any one, and which seemed to say, “Yes, I admire you,

but I am your equal.”

Clara was proving a much better host than Olaf, who, once the supper was

over, seemed to feel no interest in anything but the lanterns. He had

brought a locomotive headlight from town to light the revels, and he

kept skulking about as if he feared the mere light from it might set his

new barn on fire. His wife, on the contrary, was cordial to every one,

was animated and even gay. The deep salmon colour in her cheeks burned

vividly, and her eyes were full of life. She gave the piano over to the

fat Swedish heiress, pulled her father away from the corner where he

sat gossiping with his cronies, and made him dance a Bohemian dance with

her. In his youth Joe had been a famous dancer, and his daughter got

him so limbered up that every one sat around and applauded them. The old

ladies were particularly delighted, and made them go through the dance

again. From their corner where they watched and commented, the old women

kept time with their feet and hands, and whenever the fiddles struck up

a new air old Mrs. Svendsen's white cap would begin to bob.

Clara was waltzing with little Eric when Nils came up to them, brushed

his brother aside, and swung her out among the dancers. “Remember how

we used to waltz on rollers at the old skating rink in town? I suppose

people don't do that any more. We used to keep it up for hours. You

know, we never did moon around as other boys and girls did. It was dead

serious with us from the beginning. When we were most in love with each

other, we used to fight. You were always pinching people; your fingers

were like little nippers. A regular snapping turtle, you were. Lord, how

you'd like Stockholm! Sit out in the streets in front of cafes and talk

all night in summer, just like a reception--officers and ladies and

funny English people. Jolliest people in the world, the Swedes, once you

get them going. Always drinking things--champagne and stout mixed,

half-and-half, serve it out of big pitchers, and serve plenty. Slow

pulse, you know; they can stand a lot. Once they light up, they're

glowworms, I can tell you.”

“All the same, you don't really like gay people.”

“_I_ don't?”

“No; I could tell that when you were looking at the old women there this

afternoon. They're the kind you really admire, after all; women like

your mother. And that's the kind you'll marry.”

“Is it, Miss Wisdom? You'll see who I'll marry, and she won't have a

domestic virtue to bless herself with. She'll be a snapping turtle,

and she'll be a match for me. All the same, they're a fine bunch of old

dames over there. You admire them yourself.

“No, I don't; I detest them.”

“You won't, when you look back on them from Stockholm or Budapest.

Freedom settles all that. Oh, but you're the real Bohemian Girl, Clara

Vavrika!” Nils laughed down at her sullen frown and began mockingly to

sing:

“Oh, how could a poor gypsy maiden like me

Expect the proud bride of a baron to be?”

Clara clutched his shoulder. “Hush, Nils; every one is looking at you.”

“I don't care. They can't gossip. It's all in the family, as the

Ericsons say when they divide up little Hilda's patrimony amongst them.

Besides, we'll give them something to talk about when we hit the

trail. Lord, it will be a godsend to them! They haven't had anything so

interesting to chatter about since the grasshopper year. It'll give

them a new lease of life. And Olaf won't lose the Bohemian vote, either.

They'll have the laugh on him so that they'll vote two apiece. They'll

send him to Congress. They'll never forget his barn party, or us.

They'll always remember us as we're dancing together now. We're making

a legend. Where's my waltz, boys?” he called as they whirled past the

fiddlers.

The musicians grinned, looked at each other, hesitated, and began a new

air; and Nils sang with them, as the couples fell from a quick waltz to

a long, slow glide:

“When other lips and other hearts

Their tale of love shall tell,

In language whose excess imparts

The power they feel so well.”

The old women applauded vigorously. “What a gay one he is, that Nils!”

And old Mrs. Svendsen's cap lurched dreamily from side to side to the

flowing measure of the dance.

“Of days that have as ha-a-p-py been,

And you'll remember me.”