term of school that begins next week over at
the sod schoolhouse. She says there's a good teacher, and you'd learn a
lot.'

Antonia stood up, lifting and dropping her shoulders as if they were
stiff. 'I ain't got time to learn. I can work like mans now. My mother
can't say no more how Ambrosch do all and nobody to help him. I can work
as much as him. School is all right for little boys. I help make this
land one good farm.'

She clucked to her team and started for the barn. I walked beside her,
feeling vexed. Was she going to grow up boastful like her mother, I
wondered? Before we reached the stable, I felt something tense in her
silence, and glancing up I saw that she was crying. She turned her face
from me and looked off at the red streak of dying light, over the dark
prairie.

I climbed up into the loft and threw down the hay for her, while she
unharnessed her team. We walked slowly back toward the house. Ambrosch
had come in from the north quarter, and was watering his oxen at the
tank.

Antonia took my hand. 'Sometime you will tell me all those nice things
you learn at the school, won't you, Jimmy?' she asked with a sudden rush
of feeling in her voice. 'My father, he went much to school. He know a
great deal; how to make the fine cloth like what you not got here. He
play horn and violin, and he read so many books that the priests in
Bohemie come to talk to him. You won't forget my father, Jim?' 'No,' I
said, 'I will never forget him.'

Mrs. Shimerda asked me to stay for supper. After Ambrosch and Antonia
had washed the field dust from their hands and faces at the wash-basin
by the kitchen door, we sat down at the oilcloth-covered table. Mrs.
Shimerda ladled meal mush out of an iron pot and poured milk on it.
After the mush we had fresh bread and sorghum molasses, and coffee with
the cake that had been kept warm in the feathers. Antonia and Ambrosch
were talking in Bohemian; disputing about which of them had done more
ploughing that day. Mrs. Shimerda egged them on, chuckling while she
gobbled her food.

Presently Ambrosch said sullenly in English: 'You take them ox tomorrow
and try the sod plough. Then you not be so smart.'

His sister laughed. 'Don't be mad. I know it's awful hard work for break
sod. I milk the cow for you tomorrow, if you want.'

Mrs. Shimerda turned quickly to me. 'That cow not give so much milk like
what your grandpa say. If he make talk about fifteen dollars, I send him
back the