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Page 23
When Otto left Austria to come to America, he was asked by one of his
relatives to look after a woman who was crossing on the same boat, to join
her husband in Chicago. The woman started off with two children, but it
was clear that her family might grow larger on the journey. Fuchs said he
`got on fine with the kids,' and liked the mother, though she played a
sorry trick on him. In mid-ocean she proceeded to have not one baby, but
three! This event made Fuchs the object of undeserved notoriety, since he
was travelling with her. The steerage stewardess was indignant with him,
the doctor regarded him with suspicion. The first-cabin passengers, who
made up a purse for the woman, took an embarrassing interest in Otto, and
often enquired of him about his charge. When the triplets were taken
ashore at New York, he had, as he said, `to carry some of them.' The trip
to Chicago was even worse than the ocean voyage. On the train it was very
difficult to get milk for the babies and to keep their bottles clean. The
mother did her best, but no woman, out of her natural resources, could feed
three babies. The husband, in Chicago, was working in a furniture factory
for modest wages, and when he met his family at the station he was rather
crushed by the size of it. He, too, seemed to consider Fuchs in some
fashion to blame. `I was sure glad,' Otto concluded, `that he didn't take
his hard feeling out on that poor woman; but he had a sullen eye for me,
all right! Now, did you ever hear of a young feller's having such hard
luck, Mrs. Burden?'
Grandmother told him she was sure the Lord had remembered these things to
his credit, and had helped him out of many a scrape when he didn't realize
that he was being protected by Providence.
X
FOR SEVERAL WEEKS after my sleigh-ride, we heard nothing from the
Shimerdas. My sore throat kept me indoors, and grandmother had a cold
which made the housework heavy for her. When Sunday came she was glad to
have a day of rest. One night at supper Fuchs told us he had seen Mr.
Shimerda out hunting.
`He's made himself a rabbit-skin cap, Jim, and a rabbit-skin collar that he
buttons on outside his coat. They ain't got but one overcoat among 'em
over there, and they take turns wearing it. They seem awful scared of
cold, and stick in that hole in the bank like badgers.'
`All but the crazy boy,' Jake put in. `He never wears the coat. Krajiek
says he's turrible strong and can stand anything. I guess rabbits must be
getting scarce in this locality. Ambrosch come along by the cornfield
yesterday where I was at work and showed me three prairie dogs he'd shot.
He asked me if they was good to eat. I spit and made a face and took on,
to scare him, but he just looked like he was smarter'n me and put 'em back
in his sack and walked off.'
Grandmother looked up in alarm and spoke to grandfather. `Josiah, you
don't suppose Krajiek would let them poor creatures eat prairie dogs, do
you?'
`You had better go over and see our neighbours tomorrow, Emmaline,' he
replied gravely.
Fuchs put in a cheerful word and said prairie dogs were clean beasts and
ought to be good for food, but their family connections were against them.
I asked what he meant, and he grinned and said they belonged to the rat
family.
When I went downstairs in the morning, I found grandmother and Jake packing
a hamper basket in the kitchen.
`Now, Jake,' grandmother was saying, `if you can find that old rooster that
got his comb froze, just give his neck a twist, and we'll take him along.
There's no good reason why Mrs. Shimerda couldn't have got hens from her
neighbours last fall and had a hen-house going by now. I reckon she was
confused and didn't know where to begin. I've come strange to a new
country myself, but I never forgot hens are a good thing to have, no matter
what you don't have.
`Just as you say, ma'm,' said Jake, `but I hate to think of Krajiek getting
a leg of that old rooster.' He tramped out through the long cellar and
dropped the heavy door behind him.
After breakfast grandmother and Jake and I bundled ourselves up and climbed
into the cold front wagon-seat. As we approached the Shimerdas', we heard
the frosty whine of the pump and saw Antonia, her head tied up and her
cotton dress blown about her, throwing all her weight on the pump-handle as
it went up and down. She heard our wagon, looked back over her shoulder,
and, catching up her pail of water, started at a run for the hole in the
bank.
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