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Updated: May 29, 2025
Shimerda was a good housewife in her own country, but she managed poorly under new conditions: the conditions were bad enough, certainly! I remember how horrified we were at the sour, ashy-grey bread she gave her family to eat. She mixed her dough, we discovered, in an old tin peck-measure that Krajiek had used about the barn.
Shimerda and Krajiek drove up in their wagon to take Peter to the train, they found him with a dripping beard, surrounded by heaps of melon rinds. The loss of his two friends had a depressing effect upon old Mr. Shimerda. When he was out hunting, he used to go into the empty log house and sit there, brooding. This cabin was his hermitage until the winter snows penned him in his cave.
Frances shut the piano and came out to join us. They had liked Ántonia from their first glimpse of her; felt they knew exactly what kind of girl she was. As for Mrs. Shimerda, they found her very amusing. Mrs. Harling chuckled whenever she spoke of her. “I expect I am more at home with that sort of bird than you are, Mrs. Burden. They’re a pair, Ambrosch and that old woman!”
Shimerda came running down the basement stairs, out of breath and screeching: "Baby come, baby come!" she says. "Ambrosch much like devil!" 'Brother William is surely a patient man. He was just ready to sit down to a hot supper after a long day in the fields. Without a word he rose and went down to the barn and hooked up his team. He got us over there as quick as it was humanly possible.
The nearest Catholic cemetery was at Black Hawk, and it might be weeks before a wagon could get so far. Besides, Mr. Bushy and grandmother were sure that a man who had killed himself could not be buried in a Catholic graveyard. There was a burying-ground over by the Norwegian church, west of Squaw Creek; perhaps the Norwegians would take Mr. Shimerda in.
Shimerda and Ambrosch wanted the old man buried on the southwest corner of their own land; indeed, under the very stake that marked the corner. Grandfather had explained to Ambrosch that some day, when the country was put under fence and the roads were confined to section lines, two roads would cross exactly on that corner. But Ambrosch only said, “It makes no matter.”
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.
Shimerda threw her hands over her head and clutched as if she were going to pull down lightning. 'Law, law! she shrieked after us. 'Law for knock my Ambrosch down! 'I never like you no more, Jake and Jim Burden, Antonia panted. 'No friends any more! Jake stopped and turned his horse for a second. 'Well, you're a damned ungrateful lot, the whole pack of you, he shouted back.
My plan must have seemed very foolish to her, but she was often large-minded about humouring the desires of other people. She asked Peter to wait a moment, and when she came back from the kitchen she brought a bag of sandwiches and doughnuts for us. Mr. Shimerda and Peter were on the front seat; Antonia and I sat in the straw behind and ate our lunch as we bumped along.
It took them five years to save money enough to come to America. They worked in Chicago, Des Moines, Fort Wayne, but they were always unfortunate. When Pavel's health grew so bad, they decided to try farming. Pavel died a few days after he unburdened his mind to Mr. Shimerda, and was buried in the Norwegian graveyard.
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