uddy water, without even lifting their skirts. They came on,
screaming and clawing the air. By this time Ambrosch had come to his
senses and was sputtering with nosebleed.

Jake sprang into his saddle. 'Let's get out of this, Jim,' he called.

Mrs. 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. 'I guess the
Burdens can get along without you. You've been a sight of trouble to
them, anyhow!'

We rode away, feeling so outraged that the fine morning was spoiled
for us. I hadn't a word to say, and poor Jake was white as paper and
trembling all over. It made him sick to get so angry.

'They ain't the same, Jimmy,' he kept saying in a hurt tone. 'These
foreigners ain't the same. You can't trust 'em to be fair. It's dirty to
kick a feller. You heard how the women turned on you--and after all we
went through on account of 'em last winter! They ain't to be trusted. I
don't want to see you get too thick with any of 'em.'

'I'll never be friends with them again, Jake,' I declared hotly. 'I
believe they are all like Krajiek and Ambrosch underneath.'

Grandfather heard our story with a twinkle in his eye. He advised Jake
to ride to town tomorrow, go to a justice of the peace, tell him he had
knocked young Shimerda down, and pay his fine. Then if Mrs. Shimerda
was inclined to make trouble--her son was still under age--she would
be forestalled. Jake said he might as well take the wagon and haul to
market the pig he had been fattening. On Monday, about an hour after
Jake had started, we saw Mrs. Shimerda and her Ambrosch proudly driving
by, looking neither to the right nor left. As they rattled out of sight
down the Black Hawk road, grandfather chuckled, saying he had rather
expected she would follow the matter up.

Jake paid his fine with a ten-dollar bill grandfather had given him for
that purpose. But when the Shimerdas found that Jake sold his pig in
town that day, Ambrosch worked it out in his shrewd head that Jake had
to sell his pig to pay his fine. This theory afforded the Shimerdas
great satisfaction, apparently. For weeks afterward, whenever Jake and I
met Antonia on her way to the post