dusty roads
used to look like soft grey rivers flowing past it. I never came upon
the place without emotion, and in all that country it was the spot most
dear to me. I loved the dim superstition, the propitiatory intent, that
had put the grave there; and still more I loved the spirit that could
not carry out the sentence--the error from the surveyed lines, the
clemency of the soft earth roads along which the home-coming wagons
rattled after sunset. Never a tired driver passed the wooden cross, I am
sure, without wishing well to the sleeper.

XVII

WHEN SPRING CAME, AFTER that hard winter, one could not get enough of
the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that
winter was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used
to watch in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was
only--spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital
essence of it everywhere: in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale
sunshine, and in the warm, high wind--rising suddenly, sinking suddenly,
impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down
to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I
should have known that it was spring.

Everywhere now there was the smell of burning grass. Our neighbours
burned off their pasture before the new grass made a start, so that the
fresh growth would not be mixed with the dead stand of last year. Those
light, swift fires, running about the country, seemed a part of the same
kindling that was in the air.

The Shimerdas were in their new log house by then. The neighbours had
helped them to build it in March. It stood directly in front of their
old cave, which they used as a cellar. The family were now fairly
equipped to begin their struggle with the soil. They had four
comfortable rooms to live in, a new windmill--bought on credit--a
chicken-house and poultry. Mrs. Shimerda had paid grandfather ten
dollars for a milk cow, and was to give him fifteen more as soon as they
harvested their first crop.

When I rode up to the Shimerdas' one bright windy afternoon in April,
Yulka ran out to meet me. It was to her, now, that I gave reading
lessons; Antonia was busy with other things. I tied my pony and went
into the kitchen where Mrs. Shimerda was baking bread, chewing poppy
seeds as she worked. By this time she could speak enough English to ask
me a great many questions about what our men wer