บทที่ บทที่ 5 · Chapter V

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.

I remember Ántonia’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!’

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.

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.’

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.

After Mr. Shimerda discovered the Russians, he went to see them almost

every evening, and sometimes took Ántonia 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.

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 Ántonia

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.

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.

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

Ántonia, 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.’

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.

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 Ántonia assured me they were very good. We

had to walk the pony all the way home to keep from spilling the milk.