My Ántonia Page 13

  X

  FOR several weeks after my sleigh-ride, we heard nothing from theShimerdas. My sore throat kept me indoors, and grandmother had a coldwhich made the housework heavy for her. When Sunday came she was glad tohave a day of rest. One night at supper Fuchs told us he had seen Mr.Shimerda out hunting.

  "He's made himself a rabbit-skin cap, Jim, and a rabbit-skin collar thathe buttons on outside his coat. They ain't got but one overcoat among 'emover there, and they take turns wearing it. They seem awful scared ofcold, and stick in that hole in the bank like badgers."

  "All but the crazy boy," Jake put in. "He never wears the coat. Krajieksays he's turrible strong and can stand anything. I guess rabbits must begetting scarce in this locality. Ambrosch come along by the cornfieldyesterday where I was at work and showed me three prairie dogs he'd shot.He asked me if they was good to eat. I spit and made a face and took on,to scare him, but he just looked like he was smarter'n me and put 'em backin his sack and walked off."

  Grandmother looked up in alarm and spoke to grandfather. "Josiah, youdon't suppose Krajiek would let them poor creatures eat prairie dogs, doyou?"

  "You had better go over and see our neighbors to-morrow, Emmaline," hereplied gravely.

  Fuchs put in a cheerful word and said prairie dogs were clean beasts andought to be good for food, but their family connections were against them.I asked what he meant, and he grinned and said they belonged to the ratfamily.

  When I went downstairs in the morning, I found grandmother and Jakepacking a hamper basket in the kitchen.

  "Now, Jake," grandmother was saying, "if you can find that old roosterthat got his comb froze, just give his neck a twist, and we'll take himalong. There's no good reason why Mrs. Shimerda could n't have got hensfrom her neighbors last fall and had a henhouse going by now. I reckon shewas confused and did n't know where to begin. I've come strange to a newcountry myself, but I never forgot hens are a good thing to have, nomatter what you don't have."

  "Just as you say, mam," said Jake, "but I hate to think of Krajiek gettinga leg of that old rooster." He tramped out through the long cellar anddropped the heavy door behind him.

  After breakfast grandmother and Jake and I bundled ourselves up andclimbed into the cold front wagon-seat. As we approached the Shimerdas' weheard the frosty whine of the pump and saw Antonia, her head tied up andher cotton dress blown about her, throwing all her weight on thepump-handle as it went up and down. She heard our wagon, looked back overher shoulder, and catching up her pail of water, started at a run for thehole in the bank.

  Jake helped grandmother to the ground, saying he would bring theprovisions after he had blanketed his horses. We went slowly up the icypath toward the door sunk in the drawside. Blue puffs of smoke came fromthe stovepipe that stuck out through the grass and snow, but the windwhisked them roughly away.

  Mrs. Shimerda opened the door before we knocked and seized grandmother'shand. She did not say "How do!" as usual, but at once began to cry,talking very fast in her own language, pointing to her feet which weretied up in rags, and looking about accusingly at every one.

  The old man was sitting on a stump behind the stove, crouching over as ifhe were trying to hide from us. Yulka was on the floor at his feet, herkitten in her lap. She peeped out at me and smiled, but, glancing up ather mother, hid again. Antonia was washing pans and dishes in a darkcorner. The crazy boy lay under the only window, stretched on a gunnysackstuffed with straw. As soon as we entered he threw a grainsack over thecrack at the bottom of the door. The air in the cave was stifling, and itwas very dark, too. A lighted lantern, hung over the stove, threw out afeeble yellow glimmer.

  Mrs. Shimerda snatched off the covers of two barrels behind the door, andmade us look into them. In one there were some potatoes that had beenfrozen and were rotting, in the other was a little pile of flour.Grandmother murmured something in embarrassment, but the Bohemian womanlaughed scornfully, a kind of whinny-laugh, and catching up an emptycoffee-pot from the shelf, shook it at us with a look positivelyvindictive.

  Grandmother went on talking in her polite Virginia way, not admittingtheir stark need or her own remissness, until Jake arrived with thehamper, as if in direct answer to Mrs. Shimerda's reproaches. Then thepoor woman broke down. She dropped on the floor beside her crazy son, hidher face on her knees, and sat crying bitterly. Grandmother paid no heedto her, but called Antonia to come and help empty the basket. Tony lefther corner reluctantly. I had never seen her crushed like this before.

  "You not mind my poor mamenka, Mrs. Burden. She is so sad," she whispered,as she wiped her wet hands on her skirt and took the things grandmotherhanded her.

  The crazy boy, seeing the food, began to make soft, gurgling noises andstroked his stomach. Jake came in again, this time with a sack ofpotatoes. Grandmother looked about in perplexity.

  "Have n't you got any sort of cave or cellar outside, Antonia? This is noplace to keep vegetables. How did your potatoes get frozen?"

  "We get from Mr. Bushy, at the post-office,--what he throw out. We got nopotatoes, Mrs. Burden," Tony admitted mournfully.

  When Jake went out, Marek crawled along the floor and stuffed up thedoor-crack again. Then, quietly as a shadow, Mr. Shimerda came out frombehind the stove. He stood brushing his hand over his smooth gray hair, asif he were trying to clear away a fog about his head. He was clean andneat as usual, with his green neckcloth and his coral pin. He tookgrandmother's arm and led her behind the stove, to the back of the room.In the rear wall was another little cave; a round hole, not much biggerthan an oil barrel, scooped out in the black earth. When I got up on oneof the stools and peered into it, I saw some quilts and a pile of straw.The old man held the lantern. "Yulka," he said in a low, despairing voice,"Yulka; my Antonia!"

  Grandmother drew back. "You mean they sleep in there,--your girls?" Hebowed his head.

  Tony slipped under his arm. "It is very cold on the floor, and this iswarm like the badger hole. I like for sleep there," she insisted eagerly."My mamenka have nice bed, with pillows from our own geese in Bohemie.See, Jim?" She pointed to the narrow bunk which Krajiek had built againstthe wall for himself before the Shimerdas came.

  Grandmother sighed. "Sure enough, where _would_ you sleep, dear! I don'tdoubt you're warm there. You'll have a better house after while, Antonia,and then you'll forget these hard times."

  Mr. Shimerda made grandmother sit down on the only chair and pointed hiswife to a stool beside her. Standing before them with his hand onAntonia's shoulder, he talked in a low tone, and his daughter translated.He wanted us to know that they were not beggars in the old country; hemade good wages, and his family were respected there. He left Bohemia withmore than a thousand dollars in savings, after their passage money waspaid. He had in some way lost on exchange in New York, and the railwayfare to Nebraska was more than they had expected. By the time they paidKrajiek for the land, and bought his horses and oxen and some old farmmachinery, they had very little money left. He wished grandmother to know,however, that he still had some money. If they could get through untilspring came, they would buy a cow and chickens and plant a garden, andwould then do very well. Ambrosch and Antonia were both old enough to workin the fields, and they were willing to work. But the snow and the bitterweather had disheartened them all.

  Antonia explained that her father meant to build a new house for them inthe spring; he and Ambrosch had already split the logs for it, but thelogs were all buried in the snow, along the creek where they had beenfelled.

  While grandmother encouraged and gave them advice, I sat down on the floorwith Yulka and let her show me her kitten. Marek slid cautiously toward usand began to exhibit his webbed fingers. I knew he wanted to make hisqueer noises for me--to bark like a dog or whinny like a horse,--but he didnot dare in the presence of his elders. Marek was always trying to beagreeable, poor fellow, as if he had it on his mind that he must make upfor his deficiencies.

  Mrs. Shimerda grew more calm and reasonable before our visit was over,an
d, while Antonia translated, put in a word now and then on her ownaccount. The woman had a quick ear, and caught up phrases whenever sheheard English spoken. As we rose to go, she opened her wooden chest andbrought out a bag made of bed-ticking, about as long as a flour sack andhalf as wide, stuffed full of something. At sight of it, the crazy boybegan to smack his lips. When Mrs. Shimerda opened the bag and stirred thecontents with her hand, it gave out a salty, earthy smell, very pungent,even among the other odors of that cave. She measured a teacup full, tiedit up in a bit of sacking, and presented it ceremoniously to grandmother.

  "For cook," she announced. "Little now; be very much when cook," spreadingout her hands as if to indicate that the pint would swell to a gallon."Very good. You no have in this country. All things for eat better in mycountry."

  "Maybe so, Mrs. Shimerda," grandmother said drily. "I can't say but Iprefer our bread to yours, myself."

  Mrs. Shimerda gathering mushrooms in a Bohemian forest]

  Antonia undertook to explain. "This very good, Mrs. Burden,"--she claspedher hands as if she could not express how good,--"it make very much whenyou cook, like what my mama say. Cook with rabbit, cook with chicken, inthe gravy,--oh, so good!"

  All the way home grandmother and Jake talked about how easily goodChristian people could forget they were their brothers' keepers.

  "I will say, Jake, some of our brothers and sisters are hard to keep.Where's a body to begin, with these people? They're wanting in everything,and most of all in horse-sense. Nobody can give 'em that, I guess. Jimmy,here, is about as able to take over a homestead as they are. Do you reckonthat boy Ambrosch has any real push in him?"

  "He's a worker, all right, mam, and he's got some ketch-on about him; buthe's a mean one. Folks can be mean enough to get on in this world; andthen, ag'in, they can be too mean."

  That night, while grandmother was getting supper, we opened the packageMrs. Shimerda had given her. It was full of little brown chips that lookedlike the shavings of some root. They were as light as feathers, and themost noticeable thing about them was their penetrating, earthy odor. Wecould not determine whether they were animal or vegetable.

  "They might be dried meat from some queer beast, Jim. They ain't driedfish, and they never grew on stalk or vine. I'm afraid of 'em. Anyhow, Ishould n't want to eat anything that had been shut up for months with oldclothes and goose pillows."

  She threw the package into the stove, but I bit off a corner of one of thechips I held in my hand, and chewed it tentatively. I never forgot thestrange taste; though it was many years before I knew that those littlebrown shavings, which the Shimerdas had brought so far and treasured sojealously, were dried mushrooms. They had been gathered, probably, in somedeep Bohemian forest {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}