Chapter: THE first snowfall came early in December. I remember how the world looked
from our sitting-room window as I dressed behind the stove that morning:
the low sky was like a sheet of metal; the blond cornfields had faded out
into ghostliness at last; the little pond was frozen under its stiff
willow bushes. Big white flakes were whirling over everything and
disappearing in the red grass.

Beyond the pond, on the slope that climbed to the cornfield, there was,
faintly marked in the grass, a great circle where the Indians used to
ride. Jake and Otto were sure that when they galloped round that ring the
Indians tortured prisoners, bound to a stake in the center; but
grandfather thought they merely ran races or trained horses there.
Whenever one looked at this slope against the setting sun, the circle
showed like a pattern in the grass; and this morning, when the first light
spray of snow lay over it, it came out with wonderful distinctness, like
strokes of Chinese white on canvas. The old figure stirred me as it had
never done before and seemed a good omen for the winter.

As soon as the snow had packed hard I began to drive about the country in
a clumsy sleigh that Otto Fuchs made for me by fastening a wooden
goods-box on bobs. Fuchs had been apprenticed to a cabinet-maker in the
old country and was very handy with tools. He would have done a better job
if I had n't hurried him. My first trip was to the post-office, and the
next day I went over to take Yulka and Antonia for a sleigh-ride.

It was a bright, cold day. I piled straw and buffalo robes into the box,
and took two hot bricks wrapped in old blankets. When I got to the
Shimerdas' I did not go up to the house, but sat in my sleigh at the
bottom of the draw and called. Antonia and Yulka came running out, wearing
little rabbit-skin hats their father had made for them. They had heard
about my sledge from Ambrosch and knew why I had come. They tumbled in
beside me and we set off toward the north, along a road that happened to
be broken.

The sky was brilliantly blue, and the sunlight on the glittering white
stretches of prairie was almost blinding. As Antonia said, the whole world
was changed by the snow; we kept looking in vain for familiar landmarks.
The deep arroyo through which Squaw Creek wound was now only a cleft
between snow-drifts--very blue when one looked down into it. The tree-tops
that had been gold all the autumn were dwarfed and twisted, as if they
would never have any life in them again. The few little cedars, which were
so dull and dingy before, now stood out a strong, dusky green. The wind
had the burning taste of fresh snow; my throat and nostrils smarted as if
some one had opened a hartshorn bottle. The cold stung, and at the same
time delighted one. My horse's breath rose like steam, and whenever we
stopped he smoked all over. The cornfields got back a little of their
color under the dazzling light, and stood the palest possible gold in the
sun and snow. All about us the snow was crusted in shallow terraces, with
tracings like ripple-marks at the edges, curly waves that were the actual
impression of the stinging lash in the wind.

The girls had on cotton dresses under their shawls; they kept shivering
beneath the buffalo robes and hugging each other for warmth. But they were
so glad to get away from their ugly cave and their mother's scolding that
they begged me to go on and on, as far as Russian Peter's house. The great
fresh open, after the stupefying warmth indoors, made them behave like
wild things. They laughed and shouted, and said they never wanted to go
home again. Could n't we settle down and live in Russian Peter's house,
Yulka asked, and could n't I go to town and buy things for us to keep
house with?

All the way to Russian Peter's we were extravagantly happy, but when we
turned back,--it must have been about four o'clock,--the east wind grew
stronger and began to howl; the sun lost its heartening power and the sky
became gray and somber. I took off my long woolen comforter and wound it
around Yulka's throat. She got so cold that we made her hide her head
under the buffalo robe. Antonia and I sat erect, but I held the reins
clumsily, and my eyes were blinded by the wind a good deal of the time. It
was growing dark when we got to their house, but I refused to go in with
them and get warm. I knew my hands would ache terribly if I went near a
fire. Yulka forgot to give me back my comforter, and I had to drive home
directly against the wind. The next day I came down with an attack of
quinsy, which kept me in the house for nearly two weeks.

The basement kitchen seemed heavenly safe and warm in those days--like a
tight little boat in a winter sea. The men were out in the fields all day,
husking corn, and when they came in at noon, with long caps pulled down
over their ears and their feet in red-lined overshoes, I used to think
they were like Arctic explorers.

In the afternoons, when grandmother sat upstairs darning, or making
husking-gloves, I read "The Swiss Family Robinson" aloud to her, and I
felt that the Swiss family had no advantages over us in the way of an
adventurous life. I was convinced that man's strongest antagonist is the
cold. I admired the cheerful zest with which grandmother went about
keeping us warm and comfortable and well-fed. She often reminded me, when
she was preparing for the return of the hungry men, that this country was
not like Virginia, and that here a cook had, as she said, "very little to
do with." On Sundays she gave us as much chicken as we could eat, and on
other days we had ham or bacon or sausage meat. She baked either pies or
cake for us every day, unless, for a change, she made my favorite pudding,
striped with currants and boiled in a bag.

Next to getting warm and keeping warm, dinner and supper were the most
interesting things we had to think about. Our lives centered around warmth
and food and the return of the men at nightfall. I used to wonder, when
they came in tired from the fields, their feet numb and their hands
cracked and sore, how they could do all the chores so conscientiously:
feed and water and bed the horses, milk the cows, and look after the pigs.
When supper was over, it took them a long while to get the cold out of
their bones. While grandmother and I washed the dishes and grandfather
read his paper upstairs, Jake and Otto sat on the long bench behind the
stove, "easing" their inside boots, or rubbing mutton tallow into their
cracked hands.

Every Saturday night we popped corn or made taffy, and Otto Fuchs used to
sing, "For I Am a Cowboy and Know I've Done Wrong," or, "Bury Me Not on
the Lone Prairee." He had a good baritone voice and always led the singing
when we went to church services at the sod schoolhouse.

I can still see those two men sitting on the bench; Otto's close-clipped
head and Jake's shaggy hair slicked flat in front by a wet comb. I can see
the sag of their tired shoulders against the whitewashed wall. What good
fellows they were, how much they knew, and how many things they had kept
faith with!

Fuchs had been a cowboy, a stage-driver, a bar-tender, a miner; had
wandered all over that great Western country and done hard work
everywhere, though, as grandmother said, he had nothing to show for it.
Jake was duller than Otto. He could scarcely read, wrote even his name
with difficulty, and he had a violent temper which sometimes made him
behave like a crazy man--tore him all to pieces and actually made him ill.
But he was so soft-hearted that any one could impose upon him. If he, as
he said, "forgot himself" and swore before grandmother, he went about
depressed and shamefaced all day. They were both of them jovial about the
cold in winter and the heat in summer, always ready to work overtime and
to meet emergencies. It was a matter of pride with them not to spare
themselves. Yet they were the sort of men who never get on, somehow, or do
anything but work hard for a dollar or two a day.

On those bitter, starlit nights, as we sat around the old stove that fed
us and warmed us and kept us cheerful, we could hear the coyotes howling
down by the corrals, and their hungry, wintry cry used to remind the boys
of wonderful animal stories; about gray wolves and bears in the Rockies,
wildcats and panthers in the Virginia mountains. Sometimes Fuchs could be
persuaded to talk about the outlaws and desperate characters he had known.
I remember one funny story about himself that made grandmother, who was
working her bread on the bread-board, laugh until she wiped her eyes with
her bare arm, her hands being floury. It was like this:--

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 traveling 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 inquired 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 did n'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 did n't
realize that he was being protected by Providence.





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 neighbors to-morrow, 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 could n't have got hens
from her neighbors last fall and had a henhouse going by now. I reckon she
was confused and did n'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, mam," 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.

Jake helped grandmother to the ground, saying he would bring the
provisions after he had blanketed his horses. We went slowly up the icy
path toward the door sunk in the drawside. Blue puffs of smoke came from
the stovepipe that stuck out through the grass and snow, but the wind
whisked them roughly away.

Mrs. Shimerda opened the door before we knocked and seized grandmother's
hand. She did not say "How do!" as usual, but at once began to cry,
talking very fast in her own language, pointing to her feet which were
tied up in rags, and looking about accusingly at every one.

The old man was sitting on a stump behind the stove, crouching over as if
he were trying to hide from us. Yulka was on the floor at his feet, her
kitten in her lap. She peeped out at me and smiled, but, glancing up at
her mother, hid again. Antonia was washing pans and dishes in a dark
corner. The crazy boy lay under the only window, stretched on a gunnysack
stuffed with straw. As soon as we entered he threw a grainsack over the
crack at the bottom of the door. The air in the cave was stifling, and it
was very dark, too. A lighted lantern, hung over the stove, threw out a
feeble yellow glimmer.

Mrs. Shimerda snatched off the covers of two barrels behind the door, and
made us look into them. In one there were some potatoes that had been
frozen and were rotting, in the other was a little pile of flour.
Grandmother murmured something in embarrassment, but the Bohemian woman
laughed scornfully, a kind of whinny-laugh, and catching up an empty
coffee-pot from the shelf, shook it at us with a look positively
vindictive.

Grandmother went on talking in her polite Virginia way, not admitting
their stark need or her own remissness, until Jake arrived with the
hamper, as if in direct answer to Mrs. Shimerda's reproaches. Then the
poor woman broke down. She dropped on the floor beside her crazy son, hid
her face on her knees, and sat crying bitterly. Grandmother paid no heed
to her, but called Antonia to come and help empty the basket. Tony left
her corner reluctantly. I had never seen her crushed like this before.

"You not mind my poor mamenka, Mrs. Burden. She is so sad," she whispered,
as she wiped her wet hands on her skirt and took the things grandmother
handed her.

The crazy boy, seeing the food, began to make soft, gurgling noises and
stroked his stomach. Jake came in again, this time with a sack of
potatoes. Grandmother looked about in perplexity.

"Have n't you got any sort of cave or cellar outside, Antonia? This is no
place to keep vegetables. How did your potatoes get frozen?"

"We get from Mr. Bushy, at the post-office,--what he throw out. We got no
potatoes, Mrs. Burden," Tony admitted mournfully.

When Jake went out, Marek crawled along the floor and stuffed up the
door-crack again. Then, quietly as a shadow, Mr. Shimerda came out from
behind the stove. He stood brushing his hand over his smooth gray hair, as
if he were trying to clear away a fog about his head. He was clean and
neat as usual, with his green neckcloth and his coral pin. He took
grandmother's arm and led her behind the stove, to the back of the room.
In the rear wall was another little cave; a round hole, not much bigger
than an oil barrel, scooped out in the black earth. When I got up on one
of the stools and peered into it, I saw some quilts and a pile of straw.
The old man held the lantern. "Yulka," he said in a low, despairing voice,
"Yulka; my Antonia!"

Grandmother drew back. "You mean they sleep in there,--your girls?" He
bowed his head.

Tony slipped under his arm. "It is very cold on the floor, and this is
warm like the badger hole. I like for sleep there," she insisted eagerly.
"My mamenka have nice bed, with pillows from our own geese in Bohemie.
See, Jim?" She pointed to the narrow bunk which Krajiek had built against
the wall for himself before the Shimerdas came.

Grandmother sighed. "Sure enough, where _would_ you sleep, dear! I don't
doubt you're warm there. You'll have a better house after while, Antonia,
and then you'll forget these hard times."

Mr. Shimerda made grandmother sit down on the only chair and pointed his
wife to a stool beside her. Standing before them with his hand on
Antonia's shoulder, he talked in a low tone, and his daughter translated.
He wanted us to know that they were not beggars in the old country; he
made good wages, and his family were respected there. He left Bohemia with
more than a thousand dollars in savings, after their passage money was
paid. He had in some way lost on exchange in New York, and the railway
fare to Nebraska was more than they had expected. By the time they paid
Krajiek for the land, and bought his horses and oxen and some old farm
machinery, they had very little money left. He wished grandmother to know,
however, that he still had some money. If they could get through until
spring came, they would buy a cow and chickens and plant a garden, and
would then do very well. Ambrosch and Antonia were both old enough to work
in the fields, and they were willing to work. But the snow and the bitter
weather had disheartened them all.

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 odors 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 drily. "I can't say but I
prefer our bread to yours, myself."

  [Illustration: Mrs. Shimerda gathering mushrooms in a Bohemian forest]

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, mam, 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 odor. 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
should n'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 {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}





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 21st 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 gray, 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.

On the morning of the 22d, grandfather announced at breakfast that it
would be impossible to go to Black Hawk for Christmas purchases. Jake was
sure he could get through on horseback, and bring home our things in
saddle-bags; but grandfather told him the roads would be obliterated, and
a newcomer in the country would be lost ten times over. Anyway, he would
never allow one of his horses to be put to such a strain.

We decided to have a country Christmas, without any help from town. I had
wanted to get some picture-books for Yulka and Antonia; even Yulka was
able to read a little now. Grandmother took me into the ice-cold
storeroom, where she had some bolts of gingham and sheeting. She cut
squares of cotton cloth and we sewed them together into a book. We bound
it between pasteboards, which I covered with brilliant calico,
representing scenes from a circus. For two days I sat at the dining-room
table, pasting this book full of pictures for Yulka. We had files of those
good old family magazines which used to publish colored lithographs of
popular paintings, and I was allowed to use some of these. I took
"Napoleon Announcing the Divorce to Josephine" for my frontispiece. On the
white pages I grouped Sunday-School cards and advertising cards which I
had brought from my "old country." Fuchs got out the old candle-moulds and
made tallow candles. Grandmother hunted up her fancy cake-cutters and
baked gingerbread men and roosters, which we decorated with burnt sugar
and red cinnamon drops.

On the day before Christmas, Jake packed the things we were sending to the
Shimerdas in his saddle-bags and set off on grandfather's gray gelding.
When he mounted his horse at the door, I saw that he had a hatchet slung
to his belt, and he gave grandmother a meaning look which told me he was
planning a surprise for me. That afternoon I watched long and eagerly from
the sitting-room window. At last I saw a dark spot moving on the west
hill, beside the half-buried cornfield, where the sky was taking on a
coppery flush from the sun that did not quite break through. I put on my
cap and ran out to meet Jake. When I got to the pond I could see that he
was bringing in a little cedar tree across his pommel. He used to help my
father cut Christmas trees for me in Virginia, and he had not forgotten
how much I liked them.

By the time we had placed the cold, fresh-smelling little tree in a corner
of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve. After supper we all
gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his paper by the table,
looked up with friendly interest now and then. The cedar was about five
feet high and very shapely. We hung it with the gingerbread animals,
strings of popcorn, and bits of candle which Fuchs had fitted into
pasteboard sockets. Its real splendors, however, came from the most
unlikely place in the world--from Otto's cowboy trunk. I had never seen
anything in that trunk but old boots and spurs and pistols, and a
fascinating mixture of yellow leather thongs, cartridges, and shoemaker's
wax. From under the lining he now produced a collection of brilliantly
colored paper figures, several inches high and stiff enough to stand
alone. They had been sent to him year after year, by his old mother in
Austria. There was a bleeding heart, in tufts of paper lace; there were
the three kings, gorgeously appareled, and the ox and the ass and the
shepherds; there was the Baby in the manger, and a group of angels,
singing; there were camels and leopards, held by the black slaves of the
three kings. Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends
and stories nestled like birds in its branches. Grandmother said it
reminded her of the Tree of Knowledge. We put sheets of cotton wool under
it for a snow-field, and Jake's pocket-mirror for a frozen lake.

I can see them now, exactly as they looked, working about the table in the
lamplight: Jake with his heavy features, so rudely moulded that his face
seemed, somehow, unfinished; Otto with his half-ear and the savage scar
that made his upper lip curl so ferociously under his twisted mustache. As
I remember them, what unprotected faces they were; their very roughness
and violence made them defenseless. These boys had no practiced manner
behind which they could retreat and hold people at a distance. They had
only their hard fists to batter at the world with. Otto was already one of
those drifting, case-hardened laborers who never marry or have children of
their own. Yet he was so fond of children!





ON Christmas morning, when I got down to the kitchen, the men were just
coming in from their morning chores--the horses and pigs always had their
breakfast before we did. Jake and Otto shouted "Merry Christmas"! to me,
and winked at each other when they saw the waffle-irons on the stove.
Grandfather came down, wearing a white shirt and his Sunday coat. Morning
prayers were longer than usual. He read the chapters from St. Matthew
about the birth of Christ, and as we listened it all seemed like something
that had happened lately, and near at hand. In his prayer he thanked the
Lord for the first Christmas, and for all that it had meant to the world
ever since. He gave thanks for our food and comfort, and prayed for the
poor and destitute in great cities, where the struggle for life was harder
than it was here with us. Grandfather's prayers were often very
interesting. He had the gift of simple and moving expression. Because he
talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull
from constant use. His prayers reflected what he was thinking about at the
time, and it was chiefly through them that we got to know his feelings and
his views about things.

After we sat down to our waffles and sausage, Jake told us how pleased the
Shimerdas had been with their presents; even Ambrosch was friendly and
went to the creek with him to cut the Christmas tree. It was a soft gray
day outside, with heavy clouds working across the sky, and occasional
squalls of snow. There were always odd jobs to be done about the barn on
holidays, and the men were busy until afternoon. Then Jake and I played
dominoes, while Otto wrote a long letter home to his mother. He always
wrote to her on Christmas Day, he said, no matter where he was, and no
matter how long it had been since his last letter. All afternoon he sat in
the dining-room. He would write for a while, then sit idle, his clenched
fist lying on the table, his eyes following the pattern of the oilcloth.
He spoke and wrote his own language so seldom that it came to him
awkwardly. His effort to remember entirely absorbed him.

At about four o'clock a visitor appeared: Mr. Shimerda, wearing his
rabbit-skin cap and collar, and new mittens his wife had knitted. He had
come to thank us for the presents, and for all grandmother's kindness to
his family. Jake and Otto joined us from the basement and we sat about the
stove, enjoying the deepening gray of the winter afternoon and the
atmosphere of comfort and security in my grandfather's house. This feeling
seemed completely to take possession of Mr. Shimerda. I suppose, in the
crowded clutter of their cave, the old man had come to believe that peace
and order had vanished from the earth, or existed only in the old world he
had left so far behind. He sat still and passive, his head resting against
the back of the wooden rocking-chair, his hands relaxed upon the arms. His
face had a look of weariness and pleasure, like that of sick people when
they feel relief from pain. Grandmother insisted on his drinking a glass
of Virginia apple-brandy after his long walk in the cold, and when a faint
flush came up in his cheeks, his features might have been cut out of a
shell, they were so transparent. He said almost nothing, and smiled
rarely; but as he rested there we all had a sense of his utter content.

           [Illustration: Jake bringing home a Christmas tree]

As it grew dark, I asked whether I might light the Christmas tree before
the lamp was brought. When the candle ends sent up their conical yellow
flames, all the colored figures from Austria stood out clear and full of
meaning against the green boughs. Mr. Shimerda rose, crossed himself, and
quietly knelt down before the tree, his head sunk forward. His long body
formed a letter "S." I saw grandmother look apprehensively at grandfather.
He was rather narrow in religious matters, and sometimes spoke out and
hurt people's feelings. There had been nothing strange about the tree
before, but now, with some one kneeling before it,--images, candles, {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
Grandfather merely put his finger-tips to his brow and bowed his venerable
head, thus Protestantizing the atmosphere.

We persuaded our guest to stay for supper with us. He needed little
urging. As we sat down to the table, it occurred to me that he liked to
look at us, and that our faces were open books to him. When his
deep-seeing eyes rested on me, I felt as if he were looking far ahead into
the future for me, down the road I would have to travel.

At nine o'clock Mr. Shimerda lighted one of our lanterns and put on his
overcoat and fur collar. He stood in the little entry hall, the lantern
and his fur cap under his arm, shaking hands with us. When he took
grandmother's hand, he bent over it as he always did, and said slowly,
"Good wo-man!" He made the sign of the cross over me, put on his cap and
went off in the dark. As we turned back to the sitting-room, grandfather
looked at me searchingly. "The prayers of all good people are good," he
said quietly.

 Parts IX - XII Part IX The snow begins to fall in Black Hawk, and the falling snow seems to bring out an old circular impression near the Burdens' farm that Jim says was left by Native Americans training horses. When the snow becomes passable on horse, Otto Fuchs rigs a sleigh for Jim to run errands with. He takes Antonia and Yulka out for a ride, and they stay out in the cold too long. Jim lends Yulka his coat and drops the two young women off at their home, but Yulka forgets to give the coat back, and Jim becomes sick and is forced to stay inside for two weeks because of it. Being forced to stay inside for so long gives Jim a new appreciation for his grandmother, who seems to work very hard to make their home a warm and delightful place, with special attention to her cooking. Jim also tells more about Otto Fuchs and Jake Marpole, both of whom seem to be hard-working and good-natured yet destined never to prosper. Otto is much older and is full of stories of his exploits in the West. Jim tells a short tale about Otto's trip across the Atlantic and how he decided to come to the assistance of a woman traveling with small children. The woman gives birth to triplets along the way, and Otto struggles to help her cope with so many babies while also being blamed, somehow, for the woman's challenges. Part X Some time later, Otto mentions that he happened upon Mr. Shimerda, who was out hunting rabbits. He tells Jim that the Shimerda family has only one overcoat, and they take turns wearing it - except for the "crazy one," Marek, who runs in the snow with no coat on. Otto says that Mr. Shimerda showed him three prairie dogs that he had killed, and that Otto had tried to convince him that they were not good to eat. Mr. Shimerda had not seemed convinced, though, and had gone home with the prairie dogs for his family to eat. The Burdens decide that Grandmother, Jake, and Jim need to pay the Shimerdas a visit, and that they should bring some food. They find the Shimerdas in desperate circumstances, beginning with Antonia outside in the snow, fetching water from their pump with no coat on. Antonia warns the family of the Burdens' arrival, and Mrs. Shimerda opens the door to them. She is crying and talking with some bitterness in her native language, with her feet tied up in rags. They enter the Shimerdas' home while Jake tends the horses and promises to bring the supplies when he finishes. Mrs. Shimerda shows Jim and Mrs. Burden her empty food barrels and shakes her empty coffee pot at them angrily, suggesting that they should be ashamed for failing to help. The entire family is present, except for Ambrosch. Antonia is washing dishes. Jake enters with the food, and Mrs. Shimerda breaks down. Mrs. Burden ignores her and calls to Antonia to help unload the food. Jake returns with a bag of potatoes, and Mrs. Burden asks about a cellar or place to store food, but the family appears to have no "proper" place for this. One of the nearly empty barrels of food they had, it appears, was a gift from someone in town--rotting potatoes that were being thrown away. Mr. Shimerda steps forward to greet Mrs. Burden, and he invites her to see the small hole in the back of the sod house, dug into the side of the hill, where Antonia and Yulka sleep. Mrs. Burden is a little taken aback at how crude it is, but she acknowledges that it is warm. Through Antonia as translator, Mr. Shimerda speaks at some length about his family history and their life in Europe. He tells Mrs. Burden that they were a respectable family in Bohemia, and that he made a respectable living. They had left with a considerable sum of money, but that they had been cheated and unlucky most of the way to Black Hawk and had ended up with very little. While Mrs. Burden is discussing plans for improving the Shimerda farm with Mr. Shimerda, Marek seeks out Jim, and he shows Jim his webbed fingers and tries to be an agreeable host. Before the Burdens leave, Mrs. Shimerda recovers herself and presents a small cup of something very valuable to Mrs. Burden. The Shimerdas seem to attach great value to the material, and say that it is an excellent addition to meat sauces. On the way home, Mrs. Burden says that the Shimerdas seem to lack "horse-sense," and that they will require a great deal of help. Jake gives his impression of Ambrosch as a hard worker but a little mean. When the Burdens return home, Mrs. Burden cannot find any value in the brown chips they were given and throws them into the fire. Jim says that he tasted one, and that he later figured out that they were dried mushrooms. Part XI The Burdens are snowed in for Christmas and unable to make it to town to purchase Christmas gifts, so they make gifts from materials around the house, including a book for the Shimerdas. Jake digs his way to a small cedar tree and brings it back into the house to make into a Christmas tree, which they all decorate. Part XII On Christmas day, Mr. Burden reads from the Bible, and Jim mentions how powerful his simple prayers are. Jake talks about the joy that their gifts to the Shimerdas had brought, and how kindly they had responded. Otto writes a letter to his mother, and he struggles with writing in his native language. Mr. Shimerda arrives for a visit and to thank the Burdens for their gifts. He visits for several hours, obviously enjoying the relative peace of the Burdens' house. He bows before the Christmas tree and makes the family somewhat uncomfortable that Mr. Burden, a devout Protestant, might object to his Catholic zeal, but Mr. Burden seems to accept Mr. Shimerda's demonstration. Mr. Shimerda stays for dinner, and Mr. Burden says, on Mr. Shimerda's departure, that "The prayers of all good people are good."

