He don't like this kawn-tree."
"People who don't like this country ought to stay at home," I said
severely. "We don't make them come here."
"He not want to come, nev-er!" she burst out. "My mamenka make him come.
All the time she say: 'America big country; much money, much land for my
boys, much husband for my girls.' My papa, he cry for leave his old
friends what make music with him. He love very much the man what play the
long horn like this"--she indicated a slide trombone. "They go to school
together and are friends from boys. But my mama, she want Ambrosch for be
rich, with many cattle."
"Your mama," I said angrily, "wants other people's things."
"Your grandfather is rich," she retorted fiercely. "Why he not help my
papa? Ambrosch be rich, too, after while, and he pay back. He is very
smart boy. For Ambrosch my mama come here."
Ambrosch was considered the important person in the family. Mrs. Shimerda
and Antonia always deferred to him, though he was often surly with them
and contemptuous toward his father. Ambrosch and his mother had everything
their own way. Though Antonia loved her father more than she did any one
else, she stood in awe of her elder brother.
After I watched Antonia and her mother go over the hill on their miserable
horse, carrying our iron pot with them, I turned to grandmother, who had
taken up her darning, and said I hoped that snooping old woman would n't
come to see us any more.
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