I’m getting ready to present a paper on Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! at a conference this weekend, and I’ve enjoyed rereading few phrases/descriptions that I think are particularly well-written:

Any one thereabouts would have told you that this was one of the richest farms on the Divide, and that the farmer was a woman, Alexandra Bergson.

Her mind was a white book, with clear writing about weather and beasts and growing things. Not many people would have cared to read it; only a happy few. She had never been in love, she had never indulged in sentimental reveries. Even as a girl she had looked upon men as work-fellows. She had grown up in serious times.

When Frank Shabata got home that night, he found Emil’s mare in his stable.