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Page 25
Antonia explained that her father meant to build a new house for them in
the spring; he and Ambrosch had already split the logs for it, but the logs
were all buried in the snow, along the creek where they had been felled.
While grandmother encouraged and gave them advice, I sat down on the floor
with Yulka and let her show me her kitten. Marek slid cautiously toward us
and began to exhibit his webbed fingers. I knew he wanted to make his
queer noises for me--to bark like a dog or whinny like a horse--but he did
not dare in the presence of his elders. Marek was always trying to be
agreeable, poor fellow, as if he had it on his mind that he must make up
for his deficiencies.
Mrs. Shimerda grew more calm and reasonable before our visit was over, and,
while Antonia translated, put in a word now and then on her own account.
The woman had a quick ear, and caught up phrases whenever she heard English
spoken. As we rose to go, she opened her wooden chest and brought out a
bag made of bed-ticking, about as long as a flour sack and half as wide,
stuffed full of something. At sight of it, the crazy boy began to smack
his lips. When Mrs. Shimerda opened the bag and stirred the contents with
her hand, it gave out a salty, earthy smell, very pungent, even among the
other odours of that cave. She measured a teacup full, tied it up in a bit
of sacking, and presented it ceremoniously to grandmother.
`For cook,' she announced. `Little now; be very much when cook,' spreading
out her hands as if to indicate that the pint would swell to a gallon.
`Very good. You no have in this country. All things for eat better in my
country.'
`Maybe so, Mrs. Shimerda,' grandmother said dryly. `I can't say but I
prefer our bread to yours, myself.'
Antonia undertook to explain. `This very good, Mrs. Burden'-- she clasped
her hands as if she could not express how good--'it make very much when you
cook, like what my mama say. Cook with rabbit, cook with chicken, in the
gravy--oh, so good!'
All the way home grandmother and Jake talked about how easily good
Christian people could forget they were their brothers' keepers.
`I will say, Jake, some of our brothers and sisters are hard to keep.
Where's a body to begin, with these people? They're wanting in everything,
and most of all in horse-sense. Nobody can give 'em that, I guess. Jimmy,
here, is about as able to take over a homestead as they are. Do you reckon
that boy Ambrosch has any real push in him?'
`He's a worker, all right, ma'm, and he's got some ketch-on about him; but
he's a mean one. Folks can be mean enough to get on in this world; and
then, ag'in, they can be too mean.'
That night, while grandmother was getting supper, we opened the package
Mrs. Shimerda had given her. It was full of little brown chips that looked
like the shavings of some root. They were as light as feathers, and the
most noticeable thing about them was their penetrating, earthy odour. We
could not determine whether they were animal or vegetable.
`They might be dried meat from some queer beast, Jim. They ain't dried
fish, and they never grew on stalk or vine. I'm afraid of 'em. Anyhow, I
shouldn't want to eat anything that had been shut up for months with old
clothes and goose pillows.'
She threw the package into the stove, but I bit off a corner of one of the
chips I held in my hand, and chewed it tentatively. I never forgot the
strange taste; though it was many years before I knew that those little
brown shavings, which the Shimerdas had brought so far and treasured so
jealously, were dried mushrooms. They had been gathered, probably, in some
deep Bohemian forest....
XI
DURING THE WEEK before Christmas, Jake was the most important person of our
household, for he was to go to town and do all our Christmas shopping. But
on the twenty-first of December, the snow began to fall. The flakes came
down so thickly that from the sitting-room windows I could not see beyond
the windmill-- its frame looked dim and grey, unsubstantial like a shadow.
The snow did not stop falling all day, or during the night that followed.
The cold was not severe, but the storm was quiet and resistless. The men
could not go farther than the barns and corral. They sat about the house
most of the day as if it were Sunday; greasing their boots, mending their
suspenders, plaiting whiplashes.
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