My Antonia |
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Author:
| Cather, Willa |
ISBN: | 978-1-5499-2509-2 |
Publication Date: | Oct 2017 |
Publisher: | Independently Published
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Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | USD $6.40 |
Book Description:
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LAST summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a seasonof intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a travelingcompanion James Quayle Burden--Jim Burden, as we still call him in theWest. He and I are old friends--we grew up together in the same Nebraskatown--and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashedthrough never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns andbright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat inthe observation...
More DescriptionLAST summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a seasonof intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a travelingcompanion James Quayle Burden--Jim Burden, as we still call him in theWest. He and I are old friends--we grew up together in the same Nebraskatown--and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashedthrough never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns andbright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat inthe observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and reddust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind,reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like tospend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat andcorn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when theworld lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairlystifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavyharvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country isstripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had notgrown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was akind of freemasonry, we said.Although Jim Burden and I both live in New York, and are old friends, Ido not see much of him there. He is legal counsel for one of the greatWestern railways, and is sometimes away from his New York office forweeks together. That is one reason why we do not often meet. Another isthat I do not like his wife.