Chapter: JULY came on with that breathless, brilliant heat which makes the plains
of Kansas and Nebraska the best corn country in the world. It seemed as if
we could hear the corn growing in the night; under the stars one caught a
faint crackling in the dewy, heavy-odored cornfields where the feathered
stalks stood so juicy and green. If all the great plain from the Missouri
to the Rocky Mountains had been under glass, and the heat regulated by a
thermometer, it could not have been better for the yellow tassels that
were ripening and fertilizing each other day by day. The cornfields were
far apart in those times, with miles of wild grazing land between. It took
a clear, meditative eye like my grandfather's to foresee that they would
enlarge and multiply until they would be, not the Shimerdas' cornfields,
or Mr. Bushy's, but the world's cornfields; that their yield would be one
of the great economic facts, like the wheat crop of Russia, which underlie
all the activities of men, in peace or war.

The burning sun of those few weeks, with occasional rains at night,
secured the corn. After the milky ears were once formed, we had little to
fear from dry weather. The men were working so hard in the wheatfields
that they did not notice the heat,--though I was kept busy carrying water
for them,--and grandmother and Antonia had so much to do in the kitchen
that they could not have told whether one day was hotter than another.
Each morning, while the dew was still on the grass, Antonia went with me
up to the garden to get early vegetables for dinner. Grandmother made her
wear a sunbonnet, but as soon as we reached the garden she threw it on the
grass and let her hair fly in the breeze. I remember how, as we bent over
the pea-vines, beads of perspiration used to gather on her upper lip like
a little mustache.

"Oh, better I like to work out of doors than in a house!" she used to sing
joyfully. "I not care that your grandmother say it makes me like a man. I
like to be like a man." She would toss her head and ask me to feel the
muscles swell in her brown arm.

We were glad to have her in the house. She was so gay and responsive that
one did not mind her heavy, running step, or her clattery way with pans.
Grandmother was in high spirits during the weeks that Antonia worked for
us.


All the nights were close and hot during that harvest season. The
harvesters slept in the hayloft because it was cooler there than in the
house. I used to lie in my bed by the open window, watching the heat
lightning play softly along the horizon, or looking up at the gaunt frame
of the windmill against the blue night sky. One night there was a
beautiful electric storm, though not enough rain fell to damage the cut
grain. The men went down to the barn immediately after supper, and when
the dishes were washed Antonia and I climbed up on the slanting roof of
the chicken-house to watch the clouds. The thunder was loud and metallic,
like the rattle of sheet iron, and the lightning broke in great zigzags
across the heavens, making everything stand out and come close to us for a
moment. Half the sky was checkered with black thunderheads, but all the
west was luminous and clear: in the lightning-flashes it looked like deep
blue water, with the sheen of moonlight on it; and the mottled part of the
sky was like marble pavement, like the quay of some splendid sea-coast
city, doomed to destruction. Great warm splashes of rain fell on our
upturned faces. One black cloud, no bigger than a little boat, drifted out
into the clear space unattended, and kept moving westward. All about us we
could hear the felty beat of the raindrops on the soft dust of the
farmyard. Grandmother came to the door and said it was late, and we would
get wet out there.

"In a minute we come," Antonia called back to her. "I like your
grandmother, and all things here," she sighed. "I wish my papa live to see
this summer. I wish no winter ever come again."

"It will be summer a long while yet," I reassured her. "Why are n't you
always nice like this, Tony?"

"How nice?"

"Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to be
like Ambrosch?"

She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. "If I
live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But
they will be hard for us."

 Jim and fifteen other country children go to school in the sod schoolhouse. He doesnt find much of interest in his classmates, but he befriends them anyway as a way to get back at Antonia for not caring about him. Now that Mr. Shimerda has died, Ambrosch is the head of the house. Antonia and Mrs. Shimerda treat him as a demi-god and Antonia treats Jim as if he were nothing but a little boy. One Sunday, Jim rides to the Shimerdas with Jake to pick up Jakes horse-collar. When they get there, Ambrosch is oiling the windmill and comes to them in a peevish way. When Jake asks for his collar, Ambrosch acts rudely and goes off to get it. It is dirty and worn from ill use. Jake becomes furious and tells him he has badly used the collar. Ambrosch acts off handed again and throws the collar down on the ground. Then he begins to remount the ladder of the windmill. Jake pulls him down and begins to fight him. Ambrosch tries to kick Jake in the stomach, but misses. Jake hits Ambrosch over the head and stuns him. At that point, Antonia and Mrs. Shimerda come running and screaming. Jake and Jim get on their horses and leave. As they are leaving, Antonia tells them they are no longer friends. On the road home, Jake tells him that foreigners are not the same and that he should keep his distance from them. Jim agrees and says he believes all foreigners are just like Krajiek and Ambrosch under the skin. When they get home, Mr. Burden is amused by the story. He tells Jake to go to town and pay a fine for hitting Ambrosch as a means of forestalling anything Mrs. Shimerda will do legally. Jake has needed to take a pig to sale, so he combines both jobs in one trip. Soon they see the Shimerdas headed for town. Ambrosch hears that Jake has sold his pig and assumes that he did so to pay the fine. All the Shimerdas are very pleased by this. When Antonia passes them afterwards, she calls out a taunt, "Jake-y, Jake-y, sell the pig and pay the slap!" Otto says this behavior confirms his ill opinion of Czech people, he being an Austrian. Grandfather never gets involved in the feud. He and the Shimerdas remain on good terms. In June, Ambrosch and Marek go to town to work for Mr. Bushy. Antonia and Mrs. Shimerda take care of both the indoor and outdoor work. One night, Antonia finds one of her horses had come down with colic. She goes to get Mr. Burden who uses a syringe to release the gas from the horses stomach. Before the horse has recovered, Antonia tells him she would rather kill herself than report to Ambrosch that the horse has died. Later they find out that Ambrosch gave all of Mareks earnings to the priest to pray for his fathers soul. Everyone is scandalized at the waste, but Grandfather who says it proves Ambrosch believes what he professes. One day Mr. Burden tells his wife he plans to ask Ambrosch to come and work for him during the reaping and threshing of his grain. He tells her to hire Antonia to work in the house with her as a way to end misunderstandings. Jim rides with him to the Shimerdas. When they get there, they see Mrs. Shimerda rushing to the back of the house. They walk around to find her trying to push the cow into the shed to hide it from them. Mr. Burden acts as if he sees nothing and tells her he wants to hire Ambrosch and Antonia. As he is walking away, he tells her she can have the cow without paying what she owes him for her. Mrs. Shimerda is overwhelmed with gratitude and bends down to kiss his hand. Jim feels as if the "Old World" has come close to them in that moment. Jim and his grandfather ride away laughing at Mrs. Shimerda. Mr. Burden jokes about the possibility that Mrs. Shimerda would have scratched him if he had tried to take the cow away from her. The next Sunday Mrs. Shimerda comes over with a pair of socks she has knitted for Jake. She asks him if he will no longer come and knock Ambrosch down. He says he will leave Ambrosch alone if Ambrosch leaves him alone. Mrs. Shimerda says that if Ambrosch slaps Jake, they have no pig to pay the fine. Jake says she can have the last word since that is "a ladys privilege."

