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`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!'
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