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Ambrosch
dropped the collar on the ground. `All
right,' he said coolly, took up his oil-can, and began to climb the mill.
Jake caught him by the belt of his trousers and yanked him back. Ambrosch's
feet had scarcely touched the ground when he lunged out with a vicious kick
at Jake's stomach. Fortunately,
Jake was in such a position that he could dodge it.
This was not the sort of thing country boys did when they played at
fisticuffs, and Jake was furious. He landed Ambrosch a blow on the head--it
sounded like the crack of an axe on a cow-pumpkin. Ambrosch dropped over,
stunned.
We
heard squeals, and looking up saw Antonia and her mother coming on the run.
They did not take the path around the pond, but plunged through the
muddy water, without even lifting their skirts. They came on, screaming and
clawing the air. By this time
Ambrosch had come to his senses and was sputtering with nosebleed.
Jake
sprang into his saddle. `Let's
get out of this, Jim,' he called.
Mrs.
Shimerda threw her hands over her head and clutched as if she were going to
pull down lightning. `Law,
law!' she shrieked after us. `Law for knock my Ambrosch down!'
`I
never like you no more, Jake and Jim Burden,' Antonia panted. `No friends
any more!'
Jake
stopped and turned his horse for a second. `Well, you're a damned ungrateful
lot, the whole pack of you,' he shouted back.
`I guess the Burdens can get along without you. You've been a sight
of trouble to them, anyhow!'
We
rode away, feeling so outraged that the fine morning was spoiled for us. I
hadn't a word to say, and poor Jake was white as paper and trembling all
over. It made him sick to get
so angry.
`They
ain't the same, Jimmy,' he kept saying in a hurt tone. `These foreigners
ain't the same. You can't trust
'em to be fair. It's dirty to kick a feller.
You heard how the women turned on you-- and after all we went through
on account of 'em last winter! They ain't to be trusted.
I don't want to see you get too thick with any of 'em.'
`I'll
never be friends with them again, Jake,' I declared hotly. `I believe they
are all like Krajiek and Ambrosch underneath.'
Grandfather
heard our story with a twinkle in his eye. He advised Jake to ride to town
tomorrow, go to a justice of the peace, tell him he had knocked young
Shimerda down, and pay his fine. Then if Mrs. Shimerda was inclined to make trouble-- her son
was still under age--she would be forestalled. Jake said he might as well
take the wagon and haul to market the pig he had been fattening.
On Monday, about an hour after Jake had started, we saw Mrs. Shimerda
and her Ambrosch proudly driving by, looking neither to the right nor left.
As they rattled out of sight down the Black Hawk road, grandfather chuckled,
saying he had rather expected she would follow the matter up.
Jake
paid his fine with a ten-dollar bill grandfather had given him for that
purpose. But when the Shimerdas
found that Jake sold his pig in town that day, Ambrosch worked it out in his
shrewd head that Jake had to sell his pig to pay his fine. This theory
afforded the Shimerdas great satisfaction, apparently. For weeks afterward,
whenever Jake and I met Antonia on her way to the post-office, or going
along the road with her work-team, she would clap her hands and call to us
in a spiteful, crowing voice:
`Jake-y,
Jake-y, sell the pig and pay the slap!'
Otto
pretended not to be surprised at Antonia's behaviour. He only lifted his
brows and said, `You can't tell me anything new about a Czech; I'm an
Austrian.'
Grandfather
was never a party to what Jake called our feud with the Shimerdas.
Ambrosch and Antonia always greeted him respectfully, and he asked
them about their affairs and gave them advice as usual.
He thought the future looked hopeful for them. Ambrosch was a
far-seeing fellow; he soon realized that his oxen were too heavy for any
work except breaking sod, and he succeeded in selling them to a newly
arrived German. With the money he bought another team of horses, which
grandfather selected for him. Marek
was strong, and Ambrosch worked him hard; but he could never teach him to
cultivate corn, I remember. The one idea that had ever got through poor
Marek's thick head was that all exertion was meritorious.
He always bore down on the handles of the cultivator and drove the
blades so deep into the earth that the horses were soon exhausted.
In
June, Ambrosch went to work at Mr. Bushy's for a week, and took Marek with
him at full wages. Mrs.
Shimerda then drove the second cultivator; she and Antonia worked in the
fields all day and did the chores at night. While the two women were running
the place alone, one of the new horses got colic and gave them a terrible
fright.
Antonia
had gone down to the barn one night to see that all was well before she went
to bed, and she noticed that one of the roans was swollen about the middle
and stood with its head hanging. She mounted another horse, without waiting
to saddle him, and hammered on our door just as we were going to bed.
Grandfather answered her knock. He
did not send one of his men, but rode back with her himself, taking a
syringe and an old piece of carpet he kept for hot applications when our
horses were sick. He found Mrs. Shimerda sitting by the horse with her
lantern, groaning and wringing her hands.
It took but a few moments to release the gases pent up in the poor
beast, and the two women heard the rush of wind and saw the roan visibly
diminish in girth.
`If
I lose that horse, Mr. Burden,' Antonia exclaimed, `I never stay here till
Ambrosch come home! I go drown
myself in the pond before morning.'
When
Ambrosch came back from Mr. Bushy's, we learned that he had given Marek's
wages to the priest at Black Hawk, for Masses for their father's soul.
Grandmother thought Antonia needed shoes more than Mr. Shimerda
needed prayers, but grandfather said tolerantly, `If he can spare six
dollars, pinched as he is, it shows he believes what he professes.'
It
was grandfather who brought about a reconciliation with the Shimerdas. One
morning he told us that the small grain was coming on so well, he thought he
would begin to cut his wheat on the first of July. He would need more men,
and if it were agreeable to everyone he would engage Ambrosch for the
reaping and threshing, as the Shimerdas had no small grain of their own.
`I
think, Emmaline,' he concluded, `I will ask Antonia to come over and help
you in the kitchen. She will be
glad to earn something, and it will be a good time to end misunderstandings.
I may as well ride over this morning and make arrangements. Do you want to
go with me, Jim?' His tone told
me that he had already decided for me.
After
breakfast we set off together. When Mrs. Shimerda saw us coming, she ran from her door down
into the draw behind the stable, as if she did not want to meet us.
Grandfather smiled to himself while he tied his horse, and we followed her.
Behind
the barn we came upon a funny sight. The
cow had evidently been grazing somewhere in the draw.
Mrs. Shimerda had run to the animal, pulled up the lariat pin, and,
when we came upon her, she was trying to hide the cow in an old cave in the
bank. As the hole was narrow and dark, the cow held back, and the old woman
was slapping and pushing at her hind quarters, trying to spank her into the
drawside.
Grandfather
ignored her singular occupation and greeted her politely. `Good morning,
Mrs. Shimerda. Can you tell me
where I will find Ambrosch? Which field?'
`He
with the sod corn.' She pointed
toward the north, still standing in front of the cow as if she hoped to
conceal it.
`His
sod corn will be good for fodder this winter,' said grandfather
encouragingly. `And where is
Antonia?'
`She
go with.' Mrs. Shimerda kept
wiggling her bare feet about nervously in the dust.
`Very
well. I will ride up there.
I want them to come over and help me cut my oats and wheat next
month. I will pay them wages.
Good morning. By the way, Mrs. Shimerda,' he said as he turned up the
path, `I think we may as well call it square about the cow.'
She
started and clutched the rope tighter. Seeing that she did not understand,
grandfather turned back. `You need not pay me anything more; no more money.
The cow is yours.'
`Pay
no more, keep cow?' she asked in a bewildered tone, her narrow eyes snapping
at us in the sunlight.
`Exactly.
Pay no more, keep cow.' He nodded.
Mrs.
Shimerda dropped the rope, ran after us, and, crouching down beside
grandfather, she took his hand and kissed it. I doubt if he had ever been so
much embarrassed before. I was a little startled, too.
Somehow, that seemed to bring the Old World very close.
We
rode away laughing, and grandfather said:
`I expect she thought we had come to take the cow away for certain,
Jim. I wonder if she wouldn't have scratched a little if we'd laid hold of
that lariat rope!'
Our
neighbours seemed glad to make peace with us.
The next Sunday Mrs. Shimerda came over and brought Jake a pair of
socks she had knitted. She presented them with an air of great magnanimity,
saying, `Now you not come any more for knock my Ambrosch down?'
Jake
laughed sheepishly. `I don't
want to have no trouble with Ambrosch. If he'll let me alone, I'll let him
alone.'
`If
he slap you, we ain't got no pig for pay the fine,' she said insinuatingly.
Jake
was not at all disconcerted. `Have the last word ma'm,' he said cheerfully.
`It's a lady's privilege.'
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