Bab Bab 18 · Chapter XVIII

After I began to go to the country school, I saw less of the Bohemians.

We were sixteen pupils at the sod schoolhouse, and we all came on

horseback and brought our dinner. My schoolmates were none of them very

interesting, but I somehow felt that, by making comrades of them, I was

getting even with Ántonia for her indifference. Since the father’s

death, Ambrosch was more than ever the head of the house, and he seemed

to direct the feelings as well as the fortunes of his womenfolk.

Ántonia often quoted his opinions to me, and she let me see that she

admired him, while she thought of me only as a little boy. Before the

spring was over, there was a distinct coldness between us and the

Shimerdas. It came about in this way.

One Sunday I rode over there with Jake to get a horse-collar which

Ambrosch had borrowed from him and had not returned. It was a beautiful

blue morning. The buffalo-peas were blooming in pink and purple masses

along the roadside, and the larks, perched on last year’s dried

sunflower stalks, were singing straight at the sun, their heads thrown

back and their yellow breasts a-quiver. The wind blew about us in warm,

sweet gusts. We rode slowly, with a pleasant sense of Sunday indolence.

We found the Shimerdas working just as if it were a week-day. Marek was

cleaning out the stable, and Ántonia and her mother were making garden,

off across the pond in the draw-head. Ambrosch was up on the windmill

tower, oiling the wheel. He came down, not very cordially. When Jake

asked for the collar, he grunted and scratched his head. The collar

belonged to grandfather, of course, and Jake, feeling responsible for

it, flared up. ‘Now, don’t you say you haven’t got it, Ambrosch,

because I know you have, and if you ain’t a-going to look for it, I

will.’

Ambrosch shrugged his shoulders and sauntered down the hill toward the

stable. I could see that it was one of his mean days. Presently he

returned, carrying a collar that had been badly used—trampled in the

dirt and gnawed by rats until the hair was sticking out of it.

‘This what you want?’ he asked surlily.

Jake jumped off his horse. I saw a wave of red come up under the rough

stubble on his face. ‘That ain’t the piece of harness I loaned you,

Ambrosch; or, if it is, you’ve used it shameful. I ain’t a-going to

carry such a looking thing back to Mr. Burden.’

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 Ántonia 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,’ Ántonia 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 Ántonia 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 Ántonia’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 Ántonia 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 Ántonia 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.

Ántonia 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,’ Ántonia 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 Ántonia 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 Ántonia 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 Ántonia?’

‘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.’