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Page 92
The boys laughed and seemed pleased and embarrassed.
`She never told us that,' said Anton. `But she's always talked lots about
you, and about what good times you used to have. She has a picture of you
that she cut out of the Chicago paper once, and Leo says he recognized you
when you drove up to the windmill. You can't tell about Leo, though;
sometimes he likes to be smart.'
We brought the cows home to the corner nearest the barn, and the boys
milked them while night came on. Everything was as it should be: the
strong smell of sunflowers and ironweed in the dew, the clear blue and gold
of the sky, the evening star, the purr of the milk into the pails, the
grunts and squeals of the pigs fighting over their supper. I began to feel
the loneliness of the farm-boy at evening, when the chores seem
everlastingly the same, and the world so far away.
What a tableful we were at supper: two long rows of restless heads in the
lamplight, and so many eyes fastened excitedly upon Antonia as she sat at
the head of the table, filling the plates and starting the dishes on their
way. The children were seated according to a system; a little one next an
older one, who was to watch over his behaviour and to see that he got his
food. Anna and Yulka left their chairs from time to time to bring fresh
plates of kolaches and pitchers of milk.
After supper we went into the parlour, so that Yulka and Leo could play for
me. Antonia went first, carrying the lamp. There were not nearly chairs
enough to go round, so the younger children sat down on the bare floor.
Little Lucie whispered to me that they were going to have a parlour carpet
if they got ninety cents for their wheat. Leo, with a good deal of
fussing, got out his violin. It was old Mr. Shimerda's instrument, which
Antonia had always kept, and it was too big for him. But he played very
well for a self-taught boy. Poor Yulka's efforts were not so successful.
While they were playing, little Nina got up from her corner, came out into
the middle of the floor, and began to do a pretty little dance on the
boards with her bare feet. No one paid the least attention to her, and
when she was through she stole back and sat down by her brother.
Antonia spoke to Leo in Bohemian. He frowned and wrinkled up his face. He
seemed to be trying to pout, but his attempt only brought out dimples in
unusual places. After twisting and screwing the keys, he played some
Bohemian airs, without the organ to hold him back, and that went better.
The boy was so restless that I had not had a chance to look at his face
before. My first impression was right; he really was faun-like. He hadn't
much head behind his ears, and his tawny fleece grew down thick to the back
of his neck. His eyes were not frank and wide apart like those of the
other boys, but were deep-set, gold-green in colour, and seemed sensitive
to the light. His mother said he got hurt oftener than all the others put
together. He was always trying to ride the colts before they were broken,
teasing the turkey gobbler, seeing just how much red the bull would stand
for, or how sharp the new axe was.
After the concert was over, Antonia brought out a big boxful of
photographs: she and Anton in their wedding clothes, holding hands; her
brother Ambrosch and his very fat wife, who had a farm of her own, and who
bossed her husband, I was delighted to hear; the three Bohemian Marys and
their large families.
`You wouldn't believe how steady those girls have turned out,' Antonia
remarked. `Mary Svoboda's the best butter-maker in all this country, and a
fine manager. Her children will have a grand chance.'
As Antonia turned over the pictures the young Cuzaks stood behind her
chair, looking over her shoulder with interested faces. Nina and Jan,
after trying to see round the taller ones, quietly brought a chair, climbed
up on it, and stood close together, looking. The little boy forgot his
shyness and grinned delightedly when familiar faces came into view. In the
group about Antonia I was conscious of a kind of physical harmony. They
leaned this way and that, and were not afraid to touch each other. They
contemplated the photographs with pleased recognition; looked at some
admiringly, as if these characters in their mother's girlhood had been
remarkable people. The little children, who could not speak English,
murmured comments to each other in their rich old language.
Antonia held out a photograph of Lena that had come from San Francisco last
Christmas. `Does she still look like that? She hasn't been home for six
years now.' Yes, it was exactly like Lena, I told her; a comely woman, a
trifle too plump, in a hat a trifle too large, but with the old lazy eyes,
and the old dimpled ingenuousness still lurking at the corners of her
mouth.
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