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| WE KNEW THAT THINGS were hard for our Bohemian neighbours,
but the two girls were lighthearted and never complained.
They were always ready to forget their troubles at home,
and to run away with me over the prairie, scaring rabbits
or starting up flocks of quail.
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| I remember Antonia's excitement when she came into our kitchen one afternoon
and announced: `My papa find friends up north, with Russian mans.
Last night he take me for see, and I can understand very much talk.
Nice mans, Mrs. Burden. One is fat and all the time laugh.
Everybody laugh. The first time I see my papa laugh in this kawntree.
Oh, very nice!'
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| I asked her if she meant the two Russians who lived up
by the big dog-town. I had often been tempted to go to see
them when I was riding in that direction, but one of them
was a wild-looking fellow and I was a little afraid of him.
Russia seemed to me more remote than any other country--
farther away than China, almost as far as the North Pole.
Of all the strange, uprooted people among the first settlers,
those two men were the strangest and the most aloof.
Their last names were unpronounceable, so they were called
Pavel and Peter. They went about making signs to people,
and until the Shimerdas came they had no friends.
Krajiek could understand them a little, but he had cheated
them in a trade, so they avoided him. Pavel, the tall one,
was said to be an anarchist; since he had no means of imparting
his opinions, probably his wild gesticulations and his generally
excited and rebellious manner gave rise to this supposition.
He must once have been a very strong man, but now his
great frame, with big, knotty joints, had a wasted look,
and the skin was drawn tight over his high cheekbones.
His breathing was hoarse, and he always had a cough.
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| Peter, his companion, was a very different sort of fellow; short, bow-legged,
and as fat as butter. He always seemed pleased when he met people on
the road, smiled and took off his cap to everyone, men as well as women.
At a distance, on his wagon, he looked like an old man; his hair and beard
were of such a pale flaxen colour that they seemed white in the sun.
They were as thick and curly as carded wool. His rosy face, with its
snub nose, set in this fleece, was like a melon among its leaves.
He was usually called `Curly Peter,' or `Rooshian Peter.'
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| The two Russians made good farm-hands, and in summer they worked
out together. I had heard our neighbours laughing when they
told how Peter always had to go home at night to milk his cow.
Other bachelor homesteaders used canned milk, to save trouble.
Sometimes Peter came to church at the sod schoolhouse.
It was there I first saw him, sitting on a low bench by the door,
his plush cap in his hands, his bare feet tucked apologetically
under the seat.
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| After Mr. Shimerda discovered the Russians, he went to see them
almost every evening, and sometimes took Antonia with him.
She said they came from a part of Russia where the language
was not very different from Bohemian, and if I wanted
to go to their place, she could talk to them for me.
One afternoon, before the heavy frosts began, we rode up there
together on my pony.
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| The Russians had a neat log house built on a grassy slope,
with a windlass well beside the door. As we rode up
the draw, we skirted a big melon patch, and a garden
where squashes and yellow cucumbers lay about on the sod.
We found Peter out behind his kitchen, bending over a washtub.
He was working so hard that he did not hear us coming.
His whole body moved up and down as he rubbed, and he was a funny
sight from the rear, with his shaggy head and bandy legs.
When he straightened himself up to greet us, drops of perspiration
were rolling from his thick nose down onto his curly beard.
Peter dried his hands and seemed glad to leave his washing.
He took us down to see his chickens, and his cow that was
grazing on the hillside. He told Antonia that in his country
only rich people had cows, but here any man could have one
who would take care of her. The milk was good for Pavel,
who was often sick, and he could make butter by beating sour
cream with a wooden spoon. Peter was very fond of his cow.
He patted her flanks and talked to her in Russian while he pulled
up her lariat pin and set it in a new place.
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| After he had shown us his garden, Peter trundled a load of
watermelons up the hill in his wheelbarrow. Pavel was not at home.
He was off somewhere helping to dig a well. The house I thought
very comfortable for two men who were `batching.' Besides the kitchen,
there was a living-room, with a wide double bed built against
the wall, properly made up with blue gingham sheets and pillows.
There was a little storeroom, too, with a window, where they
kept guns and saddles and tools, and old coats and boots.
That day the floor was covered with garden things, drying for winter;
corn and beans and fat yellow cucumbers. There were no screens
or window-blinds in the house, and all the doors and windows stood
wide open, letting in flies and sunshine alike.
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| Peter put the melons in a row on the oilcloth-covered table
and stood over them, brandishing a butcher knife. Before the
blade got fairly into them, they split of their own ripeness,
with a delicious sound. He gave us knives, but no plates,
and the top of the table was soon swimming with juice and seeds.
I had never seen anyone eat so many melons as Peter ate.
He assured us that they were good for one--better than medicine;
in his country people lived on them at this time of year.
He was very hospitable and jolly. Once, while he was looking
at Antonia, he sighed and told us that if he had stayed
at home in Russia perhaps by this time he would have had
a pretty daughter of his own to cook and keep house for him.
He said he had left his country because of a `great trouble.'
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| When we got up to go, Peter looked about in perplexity for
something that would entertain us. He ran into the storeroom
and brought out a gaudily painted harmonica, sat down on a bench,
and spreading his fat legs apart began to play like a whole band.
The tunes were either very lively or very doleful, and he sang
words to some of them.
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| Before we left, Peter put ripe cucumbers into a sack for Mrs. Shimerda
and gave us a lard-pail full of milk to cook them in. I had never heard
of cooking cucumbers, but Antonia assured me they were very good.
We had to walk the pony all the way home to keep from spilling the milk.
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