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Page 30
`Now what do you mean, Jake?' grandmother asked sharply.
`Well, ma'm, I found Krajiek's axe under the manger, and I picks it up and
carries it over to the corpse, and I take my oath it just fit the gash in
the front of the old man's face. That there Krajiek had been sneakin'
round, pale and quiet, and when he seen me examinin' the axe, he begun
whimperin', "My God, man, don't do that!" "I reckon I'm a-goin' to look
into this," says I. Then he begun to squeal like a rat and run about
wringin' his hands. "They'll hang me!" says he. "My God, they'll hang me
sure!"'
Fuchs spoke up impatiently. `Krajiek's gone silly, Jake, and so have you.
The old man wouldn't have made all them preparations for Krajiek to murder
him, would he? It don't hang together. The gun was right beside him when
Ambrosch found him.'
`Krajiek could 'a' put it there, couldn't he?' Jake demanded.
Grandmother broke in excitedly: `See here, Jake Marpole, don't you go
trying to add murder to suicide. We're deep enough in trouble. Otto reads
you too many of them detective stories.'
`It will be easy to decide all that, Emmaline,' said grandfather quietly.
`If he shot himself in the way they think, the gash will be torn from the
inside outward.'
`Just so it is, Mr. Burden,' Otto affirmed. `I seen bunches of hair and
stuff sticking to the poles and straw along the roof. They was blown up
there by gunshot, no question.'
Grandmother told grandfather she meant to go over to the Shimerdas' with
him.
`There is nothing you can do,' he said doubtfully. `The body can't be
touched until we get the coroner here from Black Hawk, and that will be a
matter of several days, this weather.'
`Well, I can take them some victuals, anyway, and say a word of comfort to
them poor little girls. The oldest one was his darling, and was like a
right hand to him. He might have thought of her. He's left her alone in a
hard world.' She glanced distrustfully at Ambrosch, who was now eating his
breakfast at the kitchen table.
Fuchs, although he had been up in the cold nearly all night, was going to
make the long ride to Black Hawk to fetch the priest and the coroner. On
the grey gelding, our best horse, he would try to pick his way across the
country with no roads to guide him.
`Don't you worry about me, Mrs. Burden,' he said cheerfully, as he put on a
second pair of socks. `I've got a good nose for directions, and I never
did need much sleep. It's the grey I'm worried about. I'll save him what
I can, but it'll strain him, as sure as I'm telling you!'
`This is no time to be over-considerate of animals, Otto; do the best you
can for yourself. Stop at the Widow Steavens's for dinner. She's a good
woman, and she'll do well by you.'
After Fuchs rode away, I was left with Ambrosch. I saw a side of him I had
not seen before. He was deeply, even slavishly, devout. He did not say a
word all morning, but sat with his rosary in his hands, praying, now
silently, now aloud. He never looked away from his beads, nor lifted his
hands except to cross himself. Several times the poor boy fell asleep
where he sat, wakened with a start, and began to pray again.
No wagon could be got to the Shimerdas' until a road was broken, and that
would be a day's job. Grandfather came from the barn on one of our big
black horses, and Jake lifted grandmother up behind him. She wore her
black hood and was bundled up in shawls. Grandfather tucked his bushy
white beard inside his overcoat. They looked very Biblical as they set
off, I thought. Jake and Ambrosch followed them, riding the other black
and my pony, carrying bundles of clothes that we had got together for Mrs.
Shimerda. I watched them go past the pond and over the hill by the drifted
cornfield. Then, for the first time, I realized that I was alone in the
house.
I felt a considerable extension of power and authority, and was anxious to
acquit myself creditably. I carried in cobs and wood from the long cellar,
and filled both the stoves. I remembered that in the hurry and excitement
of the morning nobody had thought of the chickens, and the eggs had not
been gathered. Going out through the tunnel, I gave the hens their corn,
emptied the ice from their drinking-pan, and filled it with water. After
the cat had had his milk, I could think of nothing else to do, and I sat
down to get warm. The quiet was delightful, and the ticking clock was the
most pleasant of companions. I got `Robinson Crusoe' and tried to read,
but his life on the island seemed dull compared with ours. Presently, as I
looked with satisfaction about our comfortable sitting-room, it flashed
upon me that if Mr. Shimerda's soul were lingering about in this world at
all, it would be here, in our house, which had been more to his liking than
any other in the neighbourhood. I remembered his contented face when he
was with us on Christmas Day. If he could have lived with us, this
terrible thing would never have happened.
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