Siblings always surprise you. When you are young, siblings are your competition for the limited resources known as Mom and Dad. They are part of the family woodwork and it's hard to see them outside of their family roles, at least while you're sharing a bathroom. I'm not sure when I first saw my sister as a grown individual but it probably started when she told me she loved Willa Cather's, O Pioneers! I noticed this because I had been avoiding Cather's work for years.
Cather is, of course, the novelist of the Great Plains and since we grew up in that area, I had avoided her just to be contrary. There are other prairie writers but Cather usually leads the pack with her stories about the European settlers that came to the Plains and remade their lives on that alien land. The feeling the settlers develop for this land is central in Cather's O Pioneers! and my sister acknowledged as much when she discussed it. "I read it," she said, "when I'm homesick." I decided to give the story a chance. Now it's a "read-every year" book for me.
On the simplest level, O Pioneers! is the story of Alexandra Bergson and her family. In the beginning, Alexandra's father has begun the work of a sod buster but he is not successful. The land is hard to cultivate, the weather is harsh and his own life is ending. A perceptive father, he instructs his sons to defer to Alexandra in business decisions because she has the shrewdest brain in the family and tells the children to work toward keeping the family together. Years later, the family thrives financially as the prairies change to tillable farmland but harsh words and innuendo force the siblings apart. Alexandra loses people she loves dearly before her future becomes clear.
The book also looks lovingly at the first wave of immigrants that broke ground on the Plains while it points out the pomposity of the next generation. There's poor Ivar who weaves wonderful hammocks and treat livestock as knowledgeably as any vet. Nevertheless, the younger adults threaten him with the insane asylum because he prefers to go barefoot. (His reasoning is a little odd on this subject but there's no harm in the man). Then there is old Mrs. Lee who has to sneak around her grown children if she wants to wash in a little tub or wear a nightcap to bed. She's a sweet soul with three teeth, a Swedish accent and happy attitude. While the younger adults worry about appearances and gossip, these two and Alexandra focus on enjoying life and being kind to others.
Of course the book has its love stories but the great beloved here is the land. There's the shaggy, untamed winter land that inspires feelings of freedom and loneliness. There's the tilled land of summer that gives itself in full measure to crops. The Earth is always there for Alexandra, through division and heartbreak, and it is her great comfort when someone dies. For others, the land is a source of wealth and power. For Alexandra, it's love and life itself. To her, the land is home.
A bit of that feeling comes to folks who grow up on the Plains and it doesn't goes away if you leave. My sister and I both live in states far away and we've both put down roots where we live. But I suspect some part of both of us is tied to the grass and endless sky and it waits for the day we come home. Like Cather, neither one of us still live on the prairie but the prairie lives on in us and O Pioneers is an express ticket back.
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