SO BIG
BY
EDNA FERBER
AUTHOR OF
THE GIRLS, FANNY HERSELF,
ROAST BEEF MEDIUM, Etc.
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. COPYRIGHT,1923, 1924, BY THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES ATTHE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
So Big
I
Until he was almost ten the name stuck tohim. He had literally to fight his way freeof it. From So Big (of fond and infantilederivation) it had been condensed into Sobig. AndSobig DeJong, in all its consonantal disharmony, hehad remained until he was a ten-year-old schoolboyin that incredibly Dutch district southwest of Chicagoknown first as New Holland and later as High Prairie.At ten, by dint of fists, teeth, copper-toed boots,and temper, he earned the right to be called by hisreal name, Dirk DeJong. Now and then, of course,the nickname bobbed up and had to be subdued in abrief and bitter skirmish. His mother, with whomthe name had originated, was the worst offender.When she lapsed he did not, naturally, use schoolyardtactics on her. But he sulked and glowered portentouslyand refused to answer, though her tone,when she called him So Big, would have melted theheart of any but that natural savage, a boy of ten.
The nickname had sprung from the early and idioticquestion invariably put to babies and answered by them,with infinite patience, through the years of their infancy.
Selina DeJong, darting expertly about her kitchen,from washtub to baking board, from stove to table,or, if at work in the fields of the truck farm, straighteningthe numbed back for a moment’s respite from theclose-set rows of carrots, turnips, spinach, or beetsover which she was labouring, would wipe the sweatbeads from nose and forehead with a quick duck of herhead in the crook of her bent arm. Those great finedark eyes of hers would regard the child perchedimpermanently on a little heap of empty potato sacks,one of which comprised his costume. He was constantlydetaching himself from the parent sack heapto dig and burrow in the rich warm black loam of thetruck garden. Selina DeJong had little time for theexpression of affection. The work was always hot ather heels. You saw a young woman in a blue calicodress, faded and earth-grimed. Between her eyes wasa driven look as of one who walks always a little aheadof herself in her haste. Her dark abundant hair wasskewered into a utilitarian knob from which soft loopsand strands were constantly escaping, to be pushedback by that same harried ducking gesture of headand bent arm. Her hands, for such use, wereusual