Stephen Crane Frank Norris When I Knew Stephen Crane On the Art of Fiction
PART I
STORIES
“No, Antone, I have told thee many times, no, thou shalt not sell it
until I am gone.”
“But I need money; what good is that old fiddle to thee? The very
crows laugh at thee when thou art trying to play. Thy hand trembles
so thou canst scarce hold the bow. Thou shalt go with me to the Blue
to cut wood to-morrow. See to it thou art up early.”
“What, on the Sabbath, Antone, when it is so cold? I get so very
cold, my son, let us not go to-morrow.”
“Yes, to-morrow, thou lazy old man. Do not I cut wood upon the
Sabbath? Care I how cold it is? Wood thou shalt cut, and haul it
too, and as for the fiddle, I tell thee I will sell it yet.” Antone
pulled his ragged cap down over his low heavy brow, and went out.
The old man drew his stool up nearer the fire, and sat stroking his
violin with trembling fingers and muttering, “Not while I live, not
while I live.”
Five years ago they had come here, Peter Sadelack, and his wife, and
oldest son Antone, and countless smaller Sadelacks, here to the
dreariest part of south-western Nebraska, and had taken up a
homestead. Antone was the acknowledged master of the premises, and
people said he was a likely youth, and would do well. That he was
mean and untrustworthy every one knew, but that made little
difference. His corn was better tended than any in the county, and
his wheat always yielded more than other men’s.
Of Peter no one knew much, nor had any one a good word to say for
him. He drank whenever he could get out of Antone’s sight long
enough to pawn his hat or coat for whiskey. Indeed there were but
two things he would not pawn, his pipe and his violin. He was a
lazy, absent minded old fellow, who liked to fiddle better than to
plow, though Antone surely got work enough out of them all, for that
matter. In the house of which Antone was master there was no one,
from the little boy three years old, to the old man of sixty, who
did not earn his bread. Still people said that Peter was worthless,
and was a great drag on Antone, his son, who never drank, and was a
much better man than his father had ever been. Peter did not care
what people said. He did not like the country, nor the people, least
of all he liked the plowing. He was very homesick for Bohemia. Long
ago, only eight years ago by the calendar, but it seemed eight
centuries to Peter, he had been a second violinist in the great
theatre at Prague. He had gone into the theatre very young, and had
been there all his life, until he had a stroke of paralysis, which
made his arm so weak that his bowing was uncertain. Then they told
him he could go. Those were great days at the theatre. He had plenty
to drink then, and wore a dress coat every evening, and there were
