III
ON SUNDAY MORNING Otto Fuchs was to drive us over to make the acquaintance
of our new Bohemian neighbours. We were taking them some provisions, as
they had come to live on a wild place where there was no garden or
chicken-house, and very little broken land. Fuchs brought up a sack of
potatoes and a piece of cured pork from the cellar, and grandmother packed
some loaves of Saturday's bread, a jar of butter, and several pumpkin pies
in the straw of the wagon-box. We clambered up to the front seat and
jolted off past the little pond and along the road that climbed to the big
cornfield.
I could hardly wait to see what lay beyond that cornfield; but there was
only red grass like ours, and nothing else, though from the high wagon-seat
one could look off a long way. The road ran about like a wild thing,
avoiding the deep draws, crossing them where they were wide and shallow.
And all along it, wherever it looped or ran, the sunflowers grew; some of
them were as big as little trees, with great rough leaves and many branches
which bore dozens of blossoms. They made a gold ribbon across the prairie.
Occasionally one of the horses would tear off with his teeth a plant full
of blossoms, and walk along munching it, the flowers nodding in time to his
bites as he ate down toward them.
The Bohemian family, grandmother told me as we drove along, had bought the
homestead of a fellow countryman, Peter Krajiek, and had paid him more than
it was worth. Their agreement with him was made before they left the old
country, through a cousin of his, who was also a relative of Mrs. Shimerda.
The Shimerdas were the first Bohemian family to come to this part of the
county. Krajiek was their only interpreter, and could tell them anything
he chose. They could not speak enough English to ask for advice, or even
to make their most pressing wants known. One son, Fuchs said, was
well-grown, and strong enough to work the land; but the father was old and
frail and knew nothing about farming. He was a weaver by trade; had been a
skilled workman on tapestries and upholstery materials. He had brought his
fiddle with him, which wouldn't be of much use here, though he used to pick
up money by it at home.
`If they're nice people, I hate to think of them spending the winter in
that cave of Krajiek's,' said grandmother. `It's no better than a badger
hole; no proper dugout at all. And I hear he's made them pay twenty
dollars for his old cookstove that ain't worth ten.'
`Yes'm,' said Otto; `and he's sold 'em his oxen and his two bony old horses
for the price of good workteams. I'd have interfered about the horses--the
old man can understand some German--if I'd I a' thought it would do any
good. But Bohemians has a natural distrust of Austrians.'
Grandmother looked interested. `Now, why is that, Otto?'
Fuchs wrinkled his brow and nose. `Well, ma'm, it's politics. It would
take me a long while to explain.'
The land was growing rougher; I was told that we were approaching Squaw
Creek, which cut up the west half of the Shimerdas' place and made the land
of little value for farming. Soon we could see the broken, grassy clay
cliffs which indicated the windings of the stream, and the glittering tops
of the cottonwoods and ash trees that grew down in the ravine. Some of the
cottonwoods had already turned, and the yellow leaves and shining white
bark made them look like the gold and silver trees in fairy tales.
As we approached the Shimerdas' dwelling, I could still see nothing but
rough red hillocks, and draws with shelving banks and long roots hanging
out where the earth had crumbled away. Presently, against one of those
banks, I saw a sort of shed, thatched with the same wine-coloured grass
that grew everywhere. Near it tilted a shattered windmill frame, that had
no wheel. We drove up to this skeleton to tie our horses, and then I saw a
door and window sunk deep in the drawbank. The door stood open, and a
woman and a girl of fourteen ran out and looked up at us hopefully. A
little girl trailed along behind them. The woman had on her head the same
embroidered shawl with silk fringes that she wore when she had alighted
from the train at Black Hawk. She was not old, but she was certainly not
young. Her face was alert and lively, with a sharp chin and shrewd little
eyes. She shook grandmother's hand energetically.
`Very glad, very glad!' she ejaculated. Immediately she pointed to the
bank out of which she had emerged and said, `House no good, house no
good!'
Grandmother nodded consolingly. `You'll get fixed up comfortable after
while, Mrs. Shimerda; make good house.'
My grandmother always spoke in a very loud tone to foreigners, as if they
were deaf. She made Mrs. Shimerda understand the friendly intention of our
visit, and the Bohemian woman handled the loaves of bread and even smelled
them, and examined the pies with lively curiosity, exclaiming, `Much good,
much thank!'--and again she wrung grandmother's hand.
The oldest son, Ambroz--they called it Ambrosch-- came out of the cave and
stood beside his mother. He was nineteen years old, short and
broad-backed, with a close-cropped, flat head, and a wide, flat face. His
hazel eyes were little and shrewd, like his mother's, but more sly and
suspicious; they fairly snapped at the food. The family had been living on
corncakes and sorghum molasses for three days.
The little girl was pretty, but Antonia--they accented the name thus,
strongly, when they spoke to her--was still prettier. I remembered what
the conductor had said about her eyes. They were big and warm and full of
light, like the sun shining on brown pools in the wood. Her skin was
brown, too, and in her cheeks she had a glow of rich, dark colour. Her
brown hair was curly and wild-looking. The little sister, whom they called
Yulka (Julka), was fair, and seemed mild and obedient. While I stood
awkwardly confronting the two girls, Krajiek came up from the barn to see
what was going on. With him was another Shimerda son. Even from a
distance one could see that there was something strange about this boy. As
he approached us, he began to make uncouth noises, and held up his hands to
show us his fingers, which were webbed to the first knuckle, like a duck's
foot. When he saw me draw back, he began to crow delightedly, `Hoo,
hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo!' like a rooster. His mother scowled and said sternly,
`Marek!' then spoke rapidly to Krajiek in Bohemian.
`She wants me to tell you he won't hurt nobody, Mrs. Burden. He was born
like that. The others are smart. Ambrosch, he make good farmer.' He
struck Ambrosch on the back, and the boy smiled knowingly.
At that moment the father came out of the hole in the bank. He wore no
hat, and his thick, iron-grey hair was brushed straight back from his
forehead. It was so long that it bushed out behind his ears, and made him
look like the old portraits I remembered in Virginia. He was tall and
slender, and his thin shoulders stooped. He looked at us understandingly,
then took grandmother's hand and bent over it. I noticed how white and
well-shaped his own hands were. They looked calm, somehow, and skilled.
His eyes were melancholy, and were set back deep under his brow. His face
was ruggedly formed, but it looked like ashes--like something from which
all the warmth and light had died out. Everything about this old man was
in keeping with his dignified manner. He was neatly dressed. Under his
coat he wore a knitted grey vest, and, instead of a collar, a silk scarf of
a dark bronze-green, carefully crossed and held together by a red coral
pin. While Krajiek was translating for Mr. Shimerda, Antonia came up to me
and held out her hand coaxingly. In a moment we were running up the steep
drawside together, Yulka trotting after us.
When we reached the level and could see the gold tree-tops, I pointed
toward them, and Antonia laughed and squeezed my hand as if to tell me how
glad she was I had come. We raced off toward Squaw Creek and did not stop
until the ground itself stopped-- fell away before us so abruptly that the
next step would have been out into the tree-tops. We stood panting on the
edge of the ravine, looking down at the trees and bushes that grew below
us. The wind was so strong that I had to hold my hat on, and the girls'
skirts were blown out before them. Antonia seemed to like it; she held her
little sister by the hand and chattered away in that language which seemed
to me spoken so much more rapidly than mine. She looked at me, her eyes
fairly blazing with things she could not say.
`Name? What name?' she asked, touching me on the shoulder. I told her my
name, and she repeated it after me and made Yulka say it. She pointed into
the gold cottonwood tree behind whose top we stood and said again, `What
name?'
We sat down and made a nest in the long red grass. Yulka curled up like a
baby rabbit and played with a grasshopper. Antonia pointed up to the sky
and questioned me with her glance. I gave her the word, but she was not
satisfied and pointed to my eyes. I told her, and she repeated the word,
making it sound like `ice.' She pointed up to the sky, then to my eyes,
then back to the sky, with movements so quick and impulsive that she
distracted me, and I had no idea what she wanted. She got up on her knees
and wrung her hands. She pointed to her own eyes and shook her head, then
to mine and to the sky, nodding violently.
`Oh,' I exclaimed, `blue; blue sky.'
She clapped her hands and murmured, `Blue sky, blue eyes,' as if it amused
her. While we snuggled down there out of the wind, she learned a score of
words. She was alive, and very eager. We were so deep in the grass that
we could see nothing but the blue sky over us and the gold tree in front of
us. It was wonderfully pleasant. After Antonia had said the new words
over and over, she wanted to give me a little chased silver ring she wore
on her middle finger. When she coaxed and insisted, I repulsed her quite
sternly. I didn't want her ring, and I felt there was something reckless
and extravagant about her wishing to give it away to a boy she had never
seen before. No wonder Krajiek got the better of these people, if this was
how they behaved.
While we were disputing `about the ring, I heard a mournful voice calling,
`Antonia, Antonia!' She sprang up like a hare. 'Tatinek! Tatinek!' she
shouted, and we ran to meet the old man who was coming toward us. Antonia
reached him first, took his hand and kissed it. When I came up, he touched
my shoulder and looked searchingly down into my face for several seconds.
I became somewhat embarrassed, for I was used to being taken for granted by
my elders.
We went with Mr. Shimerda back to the dugout, where grandmother was waiting
for me. Before I got into the wagon, he took a book out of his pocket,
opened it, and showed me a page with two alphabets, one English and the
other Bohemian. He placed this book in my grandmother's hands, looked at
her entreatingly, and said, with an earnestness which I shall never forget,
`Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my Antonia!'
