re was
only red grass like ours, and nothing else, though from the high
wagon-seat one could look off a long way. The road ran about like a wild
thing, avoiding the deep draws, crossing them where they were wide and
shallow. And all along it, wherever it looped or ran, the sunflowers grew;
some of them were as big as little trees, with great rough leaves and many
branches which bore dozens of blossoms. They made a gold ribbon across the
prairie. Occasionally one of the horses would tear off with his teeth a
plant full of blossoms, and walk along munching it, the flowers nodding in
time to his bites as he ate down toward them.

The Bohemian family, grandmother told me as we drove along, had bought the
homestead of a fellow-countryman, Peter Krajiek, and had paid him more
than it was worth. Their agreement with him was made before they left the
old country, through a cousin of his, who was also a relative of Mrs.
Shimerda. The Shimerdas were the first Bohemian family to come to this
part of the county. Krajiek was their only interpreter, and could tell
them anything he chose. They could not speak enough English to ask for
advice, or even to make their most pressing wants known. One son, Fuchs
said, was well-grown, and strong enough to work the land; but the father
was old and frail and knew nothing about farming. He was a weaver by
trade; had been a skilled workman on tapestries and upholstery materials.
He had brought his fiddle with him, which would n't be of much use here,
though he used to pick up money by it at home.

"If they're nice people, I hate to think of them spending the winter in
that cave of Krajiek's," said grandmother. "It's no better than a badger
hole; no proper dugout at all. And I hear he's made them pay twenty
dollars for his old cookstove that ain't worth ten."

"Yes'm," said Otto; "and he's sold 'em his oxen and his two bony old
horses for the price of good work-teams. I'd have interfered about the
horses--the old man can understand some German--if I'd 'a' thought it would
do any good. But Bohemians has a natural distrust of Austrians."

Grandmother looked interested. "Now, why is that, Otto?"

Fuchs wrinkled his brow and nose. "Well, ma'm, it's politics. It would
take me a long while to explain."

The land was growing rougher; I was told that we were approaching Squaw
Creek, which cut up the west half of the Shimerdas' place and made the
land of little value for farming. Soon we could see the