One of Ours
by Willa Cather
Claude Wheeler opened his eyes before the sun was up andvigorously shook his younger brother, who lay in the other halfof the same bed.
"Ralph, Ralph, get awake! Come down and help me wash the car."
"What for?"
"Why, aren't we going to the circus today?"
"Car's all right. Let me alone." The boy turned over and pulledthe sheet up to his face, to shut out the light which wasbeginning to come through the curtainless windows.
Claude rose and dressed,—a simple operation which took verylittle time. He crept down two flights of stairs, feeling his wayin the dusk, his red hair standing up in peaks, like a cock'scomb. He went through the kitchen into the adjoining washroom,which held two porcelain stands with running water. Everybody hadwashed before going to bed, apparently, and the bowls were ringedwith a dark sediment which the hard, alkaline water had notdissolved. Shutting the door on this disorder, he turned back tothe kitchen, took Mahailey's tin basin, doused his face and headin cold water, and began to plaster down his wet hair.
Old Mahailey herself came in from the yard, with her apron fullof corn-cobs to start a fire in the kitchen stove. She smiled athim in the foolish fond way she often had with him when they werealone.
"What air you gittin' up for a-ready, boy? You goin' to thecircus before breakfast? Don't you make no noise, else you'llhave 'em all down here before I git my fire a-goin'."
"All right, Mahailey." Claude caught up his cap and ran out ofdoors, down the hillside toward the barn. The sun popped up overthe edge of the prairie like a broad, smiling face; the lightpoured across the close-cropped August pastures and the hilly,timbered windings of Lovely Creek, a clear little stream with asand bottom, that curled and twisted playfully about through thesouth section of the big Wheeler ranch. It was a fine day to goto the circus at Frankfort, a fine day to do anything; the sortof day that must, somehow, turn out well.
Claude backed the little Ford car out of its shed, ran it up tothe horse-tank, and began to throw water on the mud-crustedwheels and windshield. While he was at work the two hired men,Dan and Jerry, came shambling down the hill to feed the stock.Jerry was grumbling and swearing about something, but Claudewrung out his wet rags and, beyond a nod, paid no attention tothem. Somehow his father always managed to have the roughest anddirtiest hired men in the country working for him. Claude had agrievance against Jerry just now, because of his treatment of oneof the horses.
Molly was a faithful old mare, the mother of many colts; Claudeand his younger brother had learned to ride on her. This manJerry, taking her out to work one morning, let her step on aboard with a nail sticking up in it. He pulled the nail out ofher foot, said nothing to anybody, and drove her to thecultivator all day. Now she had been standing in her stall forweeks, patiently suffering, her body wretchedly thin, and her legswollen until it looked like an elephant's. She would have tostand there, the veterinary said, until her hoof came off and shegrew a new one, and she would always be stiff. Jerry had not beendischarged, and he exhibited the poor animal as if she were acredit to him.
Mahailey came out on the hilltop and rang the breakfast bell.After the hired men went up to the house, Claude slipped into thebarn to see that Molly had got her share of oats. She was eatingquietly, he