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Page 14
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 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.
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.
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 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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