Willa Cather - Essential Novelists - Willa Cather

“I can't pray to have the things I want,” he said slowly, “and I won't pray not to have them, not if I'm damned for it.”

Marie turned away, wringing her hands. “Oh, Emil, you won't try! Then all our good times are over.”

“Yes; over. I never expect to have any more.”

Emil gripped the hand-holds of his scythe and began to mow. Marie took up her cherries and went slowly toward the house, crying bitterly.

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ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, a month after Carl Linstrum's arrival, he rode with Emil up into the French country to attend a Catholic fair. He sat for most of the afternoon in the basement of the church, where the fair was held, talking to Marie Shabata, or strolled about the gravel terrace, thrown up on the hillside in front of the basement doors, where the French boys were jumping and wrestling and throwing the discus. Some of the boys were in their white baseball suits; they had just come up from a Sunday practice game down in the ballgrounds. Amedee, the newly married, Emil's best friend, was their pitcher, renowned among the country towns for his dash and skill. Amedee was a little fellow, a year younger than Emil and much more boyish in appearance; very lithe and active and neatly made, with a clear brown and white skin, and flashing white teeth. The Sainte-Agnes boys were to play the Hastings nine in a fortnight, and Amedee's lightning balls were the hope of his team. The little Frenchman seemed to get every ounce there was in him behind the ball as it left his hand.

“You'd have made the battery at the University for sure, 'Medee,” Emil said as they were walking from the ball-grounds back to the church on the hill. “You're pitching better than you did in the spring.”

Amedee grinned. “Sure! A married man don't lose his head no more.” He slapped Emil on the back as he caught step with him. “Oh, Emil, you wanna get married right off quick! It's the greatest thing ever!”

Emil laughed. “How am I going to get married without any girl?”

Amedee took his arm. “Pooh! There are plenty girls will have you. You wanna get some nice French girl, now. She treat you well; always be jolly. See,”—he began checking off on his fingers,—“there is Severine, and Alphosen, and Josephine, and Hectorine, and Louise, and Malvina—why, I could love any of them girls! Why don't you get after them? Are you stuck up, Emil, or is anything the matter with you? I never did know a boy twenty-two years old before that didn't have no girl. You wanna be a priest, maybe? Not-a for me!” Amedee swaggered. “I bring many good Catholics into this world, I hope, and that's a way I help the Church.”

Emil looked down and patted him on the shoulder. “Now you're windy, 'Medee. You Frenchies like to brag.”

But Amedee had the zeal of the newly married, and he was not to be lightly shaken off. “Honest and true, Emil, don't you want ANY girl? Maybe there's some young lady in Lincoln, now, very grand,”—Amedee waved his hand languidly before his face to denote the fan of heartless beauty,—“and you lost your heart up there. Is that it?”

“Maybe,” said Emil.

But Amedee saw no appropriate glow in his friend's face. “Bah!” he exclaimed in disgust. “I tell all the French girls to keep 'way from you. You gotta rock in there,” thumping Emil on the ribs.

When they reached the terrace at the side of the church, Amedee, who was excited by his success on the ball-grounds, challenged Emil to a jumping-match, though he knew he would be beaten. They belted themselves up, and Raoul Marcel, the choir tenor and Father Duchesne's pet, and Jean Bordelau, held the string over which they vaulted. All the French boys stood round, cheering and humping themselves up when Emil or Amedee went over the wire, as if they were helping in the lift. Emil stopped at five-feet-five, declaring that he would spoil his appetite for supper if he jumped any more.

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