O Pioneers! quotes

The little creature had never been so high before, and she was too frightened to move. Her master was sunk in despair.

He was a little country boy, and this village was to him a very strange and perplexing place, where people wore fine clothes and had hard hearts.

He always felt shy and awkward here, and wanted to hide behind things for fear someone might laugh at him. Just now, he was too unhappy to care who laughed. At last he seemed to see a ray of hope:

Alexandra seemed actually cheered.

There is often a good deal of the child left in people who have had to grow up too soon.

“Do bring it over, Carl. I can hardly wait to see it, and I’m sure it will please father. Are the pictures colored? Then I know he’ll like them. He likes the calendars I get him in town. I wish I could get more.

This creek gave a sort of identity to the farms that bordered upon it.

Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.

The houses on the Divide were small and were usually tucked away in low places; you did not see them until you came directly upon them. Most of them were built of the sod itself, and were only the unescapable ground in another form.

In eleven long years John Bergson had made but little impression upon the wild land he had come to tame. It was still a wild thing that had its ugly moods; and no one knew when they were likely to come, or why.

Mischance hung over it. Its Genius was unfriendly to man.

The sick man was feeling this as he lay looking out of the window, after the doctor had left him, on the day following Alexandra’s trip to town. There it lay outside his door, the same land, the same lead-colored miles.

When the children were little she used to load them all into the wagon, the baby in its crib, and go fishing herself.

Alexandra often said that if her mother were cast upon a desert island, she would thank God for her deliverance, make a garden, and find something to preserve.

Preserving was almost a mania with Mrs. Bergson. Stout as she was, she roamed the scrubby banks of Norway Creek looking for fox grapes and goose plums, like a wild creature in search of prey.

The road to Ivar’s homestead was a very poor one. He had settled in the rough country across the county line, where no one lived but some Russians—half a dozen families who dwelt together in one long house, divided off like barracks.

Ivar had explained his choice by saying that the fewer neighbors he had, the fewer temptations.

Nevertheless, when one considered that his chief business was horse-doctoring, it seemed rather shortsighted of him to live in the most inaccessible place he could find.

He disliked the litter of human dwellings: the broken food, the bits of broken china, the old washboilers and teakettles thrown into the sunflower patch. He preferred the cleanness and tidiness of the wild sod.

He always said that the badgers had cleaner houses than people, and that when he took a housekeeper her name would be Mrs. Badger.

He best expressed his preference for his wild homestead by saying that his Bible seemed truer to him there.

A steady job, a few holidays, nothing to think about, and they would have been very happy. It was no fault of theirs that they had been dragged into the wilderness when they were little boys.

A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.

The second of these barren summers was passing. One September afternoon Alexandra had gone over to the garden across the draw to dig sweet potatoes—they had been thriving upon the weather that was fatal to everything else.

Alexandra smiled and shook her head. “Oh, it’s not that. Nothing like that. It’s by understanding me, and the boys, and mother, that you’ve helped me.

I expect that is the only way one person ever really can help another.

I think you are about the only one that ever helped me. Somehow it will take more courage to bear your going than everything that has happened before.”

He would turn it all day, without hurrying, without slowing down. But he was as indolent of mind as he was unsparing of his body. His love of routine amounted to a vice.

He worked like an insect, always doing the same thing over in the same way, regardless of whether it was best or no.

He felt that there was a sovereign virtue in mere bodily toil, and he rather liked to do things in the hardest way. If a field had once been in corn, he couldn’t bear to put it into wheat.

He liked to begin his corn planting at the same time every year, whether the season were backward or forward. He seemed to feel that by his own irreproachable regularity he would clear himself of blame and reprove the weather.

When the wheat crop failed, he threshed the straw at a dead loss to demonstrate how little grain there was, and thus prove his case against Providence.

Lou, on the other hand, was fussy and flighty; always planned to get through two days’ work in one, and often got only the least important things done.

Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until her tears blinded her. Then the Genius of the Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before.

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

Alexandra reached home in the afternoon. That evening she held a family council and told her brothers all that she had seen and heard.

She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun.

Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.

Alexandra looked down the table from one to another. “Well, the only way we can find out is to try. Lou and I have different notions about feeding stock, and that’s a good thing.

It’s bad if all the members of a family think alike. They never get anywhere.

Lou can learn by my mistakes and I can learn by his. Isn’t that fair, Barney?”

When he felt it whipping about in him, he drank alcohol to stupefy it and get some ease for himself. He could work as good as any man, and his head was clear, but they locked him up for being different in his stomach.

That is the way; they have built the asylum for people who are different, and they will not even let us live in the holes with the badgers.

Only your great prosperity has protected me so far. If you had had ill fortune, they would have taken me to Hastings long ago.”

As Ivar talked, his gloom lifted. Alexandra had found that she could often break his fasts and long penances by talking to him and letting him pour out the thoughts that troubled him.

Sympathy always cleared his mind, and ridicule was poison to him.

“There is a great deal in what you say, Ivar. Like as not they will be wanting to take me to Hastings because I have built a silo; and then I may take you with me. But at present I need you here.

Alexandra shook with laughter. “Poor old Mrs. Lee! They won’t let her wear nightcaps, either. Never mind; when she comes to visit me, she can do all the old things in the old way, and have as much beer as she wants.

We’ll start an asylum for old-time people, Ivar.

”

Lou grinned. “That’s what she says. You better go get your things on. Ivar’s hitching up,” he added, turning to Annie.

Young farmers seldom address their wives by name. It is always “you,” or “she.”

Having got his wife out of the way, Lou sat down on the step and began to whittle. “Well, what do folks in New York think of William Jennings Bryan?” Lou began to bluster, as he always did when he talked politics.

“And now the old story has begun to write itself over there,” said Carl softly. “

Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.

”

Carl dropped the end of his cigar softly among the castor beans and sighed. “Yes, I suppose I must see the old place.

I’m cowardly about things that remind me of myself.

It took courage to come at all, Alexandra. I wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t wanted to see you very, very much.”

Carl shook his head mournfully. “

Freedom so often means that one isn’t needed anywhere.

Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing.

Sometimes they seemed like the sparks from a forge.

She seemed so easily excited, to kindle with a fierce little flame if one but breathed upon her.

“What a waste,” Carl reflected. “She ought to be doing all that for a sweetheart. How awkwardly things come about!”

“Why is it? If I feel that way, I feel that way.

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.

I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything; I begin just where I left off.”

There’s no woman anywhere around that knows as much about business as you do, and we’ve always been proud of that, and thought you were pretty smart. But, of course, the real work always fell on us.

Good advice is all right, but it don’t get the weeds out of the corn.

”

“Hard on you? I never meant to be hard. Conditions were hard. Maybe I would never have been very soft, anyhow; but I certainly didn’t choose to be the kind of girl I was.

If you take even a vine and cut it back again and again, it grows hard, like a tree.

”

Carl threw himself into a chair and pushed the dark lock back from his forehead with his white, nervous hand. “What a hopeless position you are in, Alexandra!” he exclaimed feverishly. “

It is your fate to be always surrounded by little men.

And I am no better than the rest. I am too little to face the criticism of even such men as Lou and Oscar. Yes, I am going away; tomorrow.

Alexandra sighed. “I have a feeling that if you go away, you will not come back. Something will happen to one of us, or to both.

People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find.

What I have is yours, if you care enough about me to take it.”

“Frank would be all right in the right place,” she said reflectively. “He ought to have a different kind of wife, for one thing. Do you know, Alexandra, I could pick out exactly the right sort of woman for Frank—now.

The trouble is you almost have to marry a man before you can find out the sort of wife he needs; and usually it’s exactly the sort you are not.

Then what are you going to do about it?” she asked candidly.

Most of Alexandra’s happy memories were as impersonal as this one; yet to her they were very personal.

Her mind was a white book, with clear writing about weather and beasts and growing things.

Not many people would have cared to read it; only a happy few. She had never been in love, she had never indulged in sentimental reveries. Even as a girl she had looked upon men as workfellows. She had grown up in serious times.

But he could never in the world do that. The grudge was fundamental. Perhaps he could not have given it up if he had tried.

Perhaps he got more satisfaction out of feeling himself abused than he would have got out of being loved.

If he could once have made Marie thoroughly unhappy, he might have relented and raised her from the dust. But she had never humbled herself. In the first days of their love she had been his slave; she had admired him abandonedly.

She placed her hand on Marie’s arm and felt her shiver. Marie stiffened under that kind, calm hand. Alexandra drew back, perplexed and hurt.

There was about Alexandra something of the impervious calm of the fatalist, always disconcerting to very young people, who cannot feel that the heart lives at all unless it is still at the mercy of storms; unless its strings can scream to the touch of pain.

“Yes, I think she did,” Alexandra assented, “but I suppose she was too much afraid of Nelse to marry anyone else. Now that I think of it, most of my girls have married men they were afraid of.

I believe there is a good deal of the cow in most Swedish girls.

You high-strung Bohemians can’t understand us. We’re a terribly practical people, and I guess we think a cross man makes a good manager.”

Emil shivered. “I don’t know. Seems to me it gets worse as it goes on.

The worst of the Swedes is that they’re never willing to find out how much they don’t know.

It was like that at the University. Always so pleased with themselves! There’s no getting behind that conceited Swedish grin. The Bohemians and Germans were so different.”

He turned on his back and lay still for a long time, his hands locked under his head, looking up at the ceiling. Alexandra knew that he was thinking of many things. She felt no anxiety about Emil.

She had always believed in him, as she had believed in the land.

He had been more like himself since he got back from Mexico; seemed glad to be at home, and talked to her as he used to do.

“I know.

It’s queer what things one remembers and what things one forgets.

” Emil yawned and sat up. “Well, it’s time to turn in.” He rose, and going over to Alexandra stooped down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Good night, sister. I think you did pretty well by us.”

If she were in trouble, certainly he was the one person in the world she would want to see. Perhaps he wished her to understand that for her he was as good as gone already.

Marie stole slowly, flutteringly, along the path, like a white night moth out of the fields.

The years seemed to stretch before her like the land; spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives;

When she reached the stile she sat down and waited.

How terrible it was to love people when you could not really share their lives!

Yes, in so far as she was concerned, Emil was already gone. They couldn’t meet any more. There was nothing for them to say. They had spent the last penny of their small change; there was nothing left but gold.

Yes, in so far as she was concerned, Emil was already gone. They couldn’t meet any more. There was nothing for them to say.

They had spent the last penny of their small change; there was nothing left but gold.

The day of love tokens was past. They had now only their hearts to give each other. And Emil being gone, what was her life to be like? In some ways, it would be easier. She would not, at least, live in perpetual fear.

But she did not want to die. She wanted to live and dream—a hundred years, forever! As long as this sweetness welled up in her heart, as long as her breast could hold this treasure of pain!

She felt as the pond must feel when it held the moon like that; when it encircled and swelled with that image of gold.

In the morning, when Emil came downstairs, Alexandra met him in the sitting room and put her hands on his shoulders. “Emil, I went to your room as soon as it was light, but you were sleeping so sound I hated to wake you.

The Church has always held that life is for the living.

On Saturday, while half the village of Sainte-Agnes was mourning for Amédée and preparing the funeral black for his burial on Monday, the other half was busy with white dresses and white veils for the great confirmation service tomorrow, when the bishop was to confirm …

The horsemen closed about the carriage like a guard, and whenever a restless horse broke from control and shot down the road ahead of the body, the bishop laughed and rubbed his plump hands together.

“What fine boys!” he said to his priests. “The Church still has her cavalry.”

As the troop swept past the graveyard half a mile east of the town—the first frame church of the parish had stood there—old Pierre Seguin was already out with his pick and spade, digging Amédée’s grave. He knelt and uncovered as the bishop passed.

As he rode past the graveyard he looked at the brown hole in the earth where Amédée was to lie, and felt no horror. That, too, was beautiful, that simple doorway into forgetfulness.

The heart, when it is too much alive, aches for that brown earth, and ecstasy has no fear of death.

It is the old and the poor and the maimed who shrink from that brown hole; its wooers are found among the young, the passionate, the gallant-hearted. It was not until he had passed the graveyard that Emil realized where he was going.

That, too, was beautiful, that simple doorway into forgetfulness. The heart, when it is too much alive, aches for that brown earth, and ecstasy has no fear of death.

It is the old and the poor and the maimed who shrink from that brown hole; its wooers are found among the young, the passionate, the gallant-hearted.

It was not until he had passed the graveyard that Emil realized where he was going. It was the hour for saying goodbye. It might be the last time that he would see her alone, and today he could leave her without rancor, without bitterness.

It was not until he had passed the graveyard that Emil realized where he was going. It was the hour for saying goodbye. It might be the last time that he would see her alone, and today he could leave her without rancor, without bitterness.

Everywhere the grain stood ripe and the hot afternoon was full of the smell of the ripe wheat, like the smell of bread baking in an oven.

The breath of the wheat and the sweet clover passed him like pleasant things in a dream. He could feel nothing but the sense of diminishing distance. It seemed to him that his mare was flying, or running on wheels, like a railway train.

He could feel nothing but the sense of diminishing distance. It seemed to him that his mare was flying, or running on wheels, like a railway train. The sunlight, flashing on the window glass of the big red barns, drove him wild with joy.

He was like an arrow shot from the bow.

His life poured itself out along the road before him as he rode to the Shabata farm.

It was empty. She might be at Mrs. Hiller’s or with Alexandra. But anything that reminded him of her would be enough, the orchard, the mulberry tree … When he reached the orchard the sun was hanging low over the wheat field.

Long fingers of light reached through the apple branches as through a net; the orchard was riddled and shot with gold; light was the reality, the trees were merely interferences that reflected and refracted light.

Emil went softly down between the cherry trees toward the wheat field. When he came to the corner, he stopped short and put his hand over his mouth.

He did not believe that he had any real grievance. But it gratified him to feel like a desperate man. He had got into the habit of seeing himself always in desperate straits.

His unhappy temperament was like a cage; he could never get out of it; and he felt that other people, his wife in particular, must have put him there.

It had never more than dimly occurred to Frank that he made his own unhappiness.

He had got into the habit of seeing himself always in desperate straits. His unhappy temperament was like a cage; he could never get out of it; and he felt that other people, his wife in particular, must have put him there.

It had never more than dimly occurred to Frank that he made his own unhappiness.

Though he took up his gun with dark projects in his mind, he would have been paralyzed with fright had he known that there was the slightest probability of his ever carrying any of them out.

He had tried to make her life ugly. He had refused to share any of the little pleasures she was so plucky about making for herself.

She could be gay about the least thing in the world; but she must be gay!

When she first came to him, her faith in him, her adoration—Frank struck the mare with his fist. Why had Marie made him do this thing; why had she brought this upon him? He was overwhelmed by sickening misfortune.

“Patience, patience, sister,” muttered Ivar as he settled the bit in the horse’s mouth. “

When the eyes of the flesh are shut, the eyes of the spirit are open.

She will have a message from those who are gone, and that will bring her peace. Until then we must bear with her. You and I are the only ones who have weight with her. She trusts us.”

Even in age my temptations are prolonged. It was necessary to make some allowances; and the feet, as I understand it, are free members. There is no divine prohibition for them in the Ten Commandments.

The hands, the tongue, the eyes, the heart, all the bodily desires we are commanded to subdue; but the feet are free members.

I indulge them without harm to anyone, even to trampling in filth when my desires are low. They are quickly cleaned again.”

Before Ivar reached the graveyard, three miles from the house, the storm had spent itself, and the downpour had died into a soft, dripping rain.

The sky and the land were a dark smoke color, and seemed to be coming together, like two waves.

When Ivar stopped at the gate and swung out his lantern, a white figure rose from beside John Bergson’s white stone.

Alexandra spoke to the old man as they jogged along through the sullen gray twilight of the storm. “Ivar, I think it has done me good to get cold clear through like this, once. I don’t believe I shall suffer so much any more.

When you get so near the dead, they seem more real than the living.

Worldly thoughts leave one. Ever since Emil died, I’ve suffered so when it rained. Now that I’ve been out in it with him, I shan’t dread it. After you once get cold clear through, the feeling of the rain on you is sweet.

When you get so near the dead, they seem more real than the living. Worldly thoughts leave one. Ever since Emil died, I’ve suffered so when it rained. Now that I’ve been out in it with him, I shan’t dread it.

After you once get cold clear through, the feeling of the rain on you is sweet.

It seems to bring back feelings you had when you were a baby. It carries you back into the dark, before you were born; you can’t see things, but they come to you, somehow, and you know them and aren’t afraid of them.

All the physical operations of life seemed difficult and painful. She longed to be free from her own body, which ached and was so heavy.

And longing itself was heavy: she yearned to be free of that.

As she lay with her eyes closed, she had again, more vividly than for many years, the old illusion of her girlhood, of being lifted and carried lightly by someone very strong.