Fuchs brought up a sack of
potatoes and a piece of cured pork from the cellar, and grandmother packed
some loaves of Saturday's bread, a jar of butter, and several pumpkin pies
in the straw of the wagon-box. We clambered up to the front seat and
jolted off past the little pond and along the road that climbed to the big
cornfield.
I could hardly wait to see what lay beyond that cornfield; but there 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.
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