Antonia had opinions about everything, and she was soon able to make them
known. Almost every day she came running across the prairie to have her
reading lesson with me. Mrs. Shimerda grumbled, but realized it was
important that one member of the family should learn English. When the
lesson was over, we used to go up to the watermelon patch behind the
garden. I split the melons with an old corn-knife, and we lifted out the
hearts and ate them with the juice trickling through our fingers. The
white Christmas melons we did not touch, but we watched them with
curiosity. They were to be picked late, when the hard frosts had set in,
and put away for winter use. After weeks on the ocean, the Shimerdas were
famished for fruit. The two girls would wander for miles along the edge of
the cornfields, hunting for ground-cherries.
Antonia loved to help grandmother in the kitchen and to learn about
cooking and housekeeping. She would stand beside her, watching her every
movement. We were willing to believe that Mrs. Shimerda was a good
housewife in her own country, but she managed poorly under new conditions:
the conditions were bad enough, certainly!
I remember how horrified we were at the sour, ashy-gray bread she gave her
family to eat. She mixed her dough, we discovered, in an old tin
peck-measure that Krajiek had used about the barn. When she took the paste
out to bake it, she left smears of dough sticking to the sides of the
measure, put the measure on the shelf behind the stove, and let this
residue ferment.
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