The Song of the Lark Willa Cather (free ebooks romance novels .TXT) đ
- Author: Willa Cather
Book online «The Song of the Lark Willa Cather (free ebooks romance novels .TXT) đ». Author Willa Cather
Mrs. Kronborgâs children were all trained to dress themselves at the earliest possible age, to make their own bedsâ âthe boys as well as the girlsâ âto take care of their clothes, to eat what was given them, and to keep out of the way. Mrs. Kronborg would have made a good chess player; she had a head for moves and positions.
Anna, the elder daughter, was her motherâs lieutenant. All the children knew that they must obey Anna, who was an obstinate contender for proprieties and not always fair-minded. To see the young Kronborgs headed for Sunday School was like watching a military drill. Mrs. Kronborg let her childrenâs minds alone. She did not pry into their thoughts or nag them. She respected them as individuals, and outside of the house they had a great deal of liberty. But their communal life was definitely ordered.
In the winter the children breakfasted in the kitchen; Gus and Charley and Anna first, while the younger children were dressing. Gus was nineteen and was a clerk in a dry-goods store. Charley, eighteen months younger, worked in a feed store. They left the house by the kitchen door at seven oâclock, and then Anna helped her Aunt Tillie get the breakfast for the younger ones. Without the help of this sister-in-law, Tillie Kronborg, Mrs. Kronborgâs life would have been a hard one. Mrs. Kronborg often reminded Anna that âno hired help would ever have taken the same interest.â
Mr. Kronborg came of a poorer stock than his wife; from a lowly, ignorant family that had lived in a poor part of Sweden. His great-grandfather had gone to Norway to work as a farm laborer and had married a Norwegian girl. This strain of Norwegian blood came out somewhere in each generation of the Kronborgs. The intemperance of one of Peter Kronborgâs uncles, and the religious mania of another, had been alike charged to the Norwegian grandmother. Both Peter Kronborg and his sister Tillie were more like the Norwegian root of the family than like the Swedish, and this same Norwegian strain was strong in Thea, though in her it took a very different character.
Tillie was a queer, addlepated thing, as flighty as a girl at thirty-five, and overweeningly fond of gay clothesâ âwhich taste, as Mrs. Kronborg philosophically said, did nobody any harm. Tillie was always cheerful, and her tongue was still for scarcely a minute during the day. She had been cruelly overworked on her fatherâs Minnesota farm when she was a young girl, and she had never been so happy as she was now; had never before, as she said, had such social advantages. She thought her brother the most important man in Moonstone. She never missed a church service, and, much to the embarrassment of the children, she always âspoke a pieceâ at the Sunday-School concerts. She had a complete set of âStandard Recitations,â which she conned on Sundays. This morning, when Thea and her two younger brothers sat down to breakfast, Tillie was remonstrating with Gunner because he had not learned a recitation assigned to him for George Washington Day at school. The unmemorized text lay heavily on Gunnerâs conscience as he attacked his buckwheat cakes and sausage. He knew that Tillie was in the right, and that âwhen the day came he would be ashamed of himself.â
âI donât care,â he muttered, stirring his coffee; âthey oughtnât to make boys speak. Itâs all right for girls. They like to show off.â
âNo showing off about it. Boys ought to like to speak up for their country. And what was the use of your father buying you a new suit, if youâre not going to take part in anything?â
âThat was for Sunday-School. Iâd rather wear my old one, anyhow. Why didnât they give the piece to Thea?â Gunner grumbled.
Tillie was turning buckwheat cakes at the griddle. âThea can play and sing, she donât need to speak. But youâve got to know how to do something, Gunner, that you have. What are you going to do when you git big and want to git into society, if you canât do nothing? Everybodyâll say, âCan you sing? Can you play? Can you speak? Then git right out of society.â Anâ thatâs what theyâll say to you, Mr. Gunner.â
Gunner and Alex grinned at Anna, who was preparing her motherâs breakfast. They never made fun of Tillie, but they understood well enough that there were subjects upon which her ideas were rather foolish. When Tillie struck the shallows, Thea was usually prompt in turning the conversation.
âWill you and Axel let me have your sled at
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